Joel

The "Joel" emote depicts a spinning fish, specifically a low-poly fish that resembles a sturgeon or catfish. It's an animated emote that shows the fish rotating in a circular motion. The emote is primarily used for spam in Twitch chat, creating a visual effect when multiple users post it in succession.

The emote is particularly notable for causing confusion among viewers who don't have the proper extensions installed, as they only see the text "Joel" rather than the spinning fish animation.

The Joel emote was created by a user named Anibally in March 2023 and is available on BetterTTV (BTTV). It requires the BetterTTV browser extension to be viewed properly.

The emote gained significant popularity during The International 2023 Dota 2 tournament, where chat was filled with the spinning fish. It also became widely used during Kindred's Omega Ultimate progression in Final Fantasy XIV streams.

Popular streamer Northernlion's community has also embraced the Joel emote, though he has mentioned issues with the emote being repeatedly removed from his stream.

It's worth noting that "Joel" as a Twitch chat meme predates this particular fish emote. An older Twitch chat copypasta called "Joel Skype" or "Joel Get on Skype" originated in February 2015, but this appears unrelated to the spinning fish emote that emerged in 2023.

The Joel emote is commonly used in the following contexts:

• During major gaming events and tournaments, particularly The International 2023 Dota 2 tournament
• As a form of chat spam, where multiple users post the emote in succession to create a visual effect
• During exciting or chaotic moments in streams where viewers want to flood the chat
• In some communities, viewers have evolved the meme by replacing words in their sentences with "Joel"
• The emote's large size and absurd nature have made it popular across multiple streaming communities