modCheck

The modCheck emote features an animated green fish character from SpongeBob SquarePants with a tired, unimpressed expression, turning its head to look around. This emote has evolved to have several meanings in Twitch chat:

• Originally intended to call attention to absent moderators or mods who aren't properly doing their job
• Commonly used to imply "who asked?" or "any askers?" when someone shares information that viewers find unnecessary
• Also used to express "where is it?" when looking for something that should be visible but isn't

The emote has become extremely popular and is now among the Top 25 most used emotes on Twitch.

The modCheck emote is based on a fish character from SpongeBob SquarePants that initially became a caption meme format known as "Fish Turns Around" on Reddit in April 2019. The emote itself was first uploaded to Better Twitch TV (BTTV) on September 15, 2019, by a user named VerbalSilence.

While created in 2019, modCheck didn't gain significant popularity until July 29, 2020, when Reddit user Ilan-Arru posted a petition to add it to popular streamer xQc's channel. The petition received over 2,700 upvotes, and xQc enabled the emote on his channel that same day. Following its addition to xQc's channel, the emote was widely adopted by numerous other Twitch channels and reached peak popularity around May 2021.

modCheck is typically used in these common situations:

• When chat perceives that moderators are absent during moments when moderation is needed (spam, rule-breaking, etc.)
• As a sarcastic response when a streamer shares a story or opinion that viewers find boring or unnecessary, essentially saying "Who asked?"
• When viewers are looking for something that was promised or mentioned but hasn't appeared yet ("Where is the gameplay?" "Where is the new content?")
• During technical difficulties or when something is missing from the stream
• Sometimes used in a chain by multiple chatters to create a visual effect of many characters looking around