muted

The "muted" emote displays a speaker icon with a volume slider, representing audio being turned off or silenced. This emote is used in Twitch chat to indicate that someone's audio is not working, a streamer has forgotten to unmute their microphone, or when there are technical audio issues during a stream.

The "muted" emote appears to be a generic iconographic emote rather than one based on a specific individual or memorable moment. Unlike many popular Twitch emotes with well-documented origins, the "muted" emote likely originated as part of a standard set of functional emotes on Twitch or was added through third-party extensions like BetterTTV or FrankerFaceZ.

There is no specific documentation about who created this emote or exactly when it was first introduced. It uses a universally recognized symbol for muted audio that has been adopted organically within the Twitch community as a practical communication tool.

The "muted" emote is typically used in the following contexts:

• When a streamer's microphone is not working or they've forgotten to unmute themselves
• To alert a streamer about technical audio problems during a broadcast
• When viewers cannot hear game audio or other sound elements
• Humorously when someone is talking but shouldn't be heard or is being ignored
• As a quick visual notification in chat that there's an audio-related issue that needs attention