The 'Shrug' emote features a yellow, round character with a somewhat apathetic or indifferent expression, wearing shoes and making a shrugging gesture. This emote is used to express confusion, indifference, or a 'what can you do?' attitude in response to situations in streams.
Origin
This emote appears to be a 3D rendered character that originated from the 3D emoji/character set that became popular in the late 2010s. It resembles the style of emojis from platforms like Facebook's 3D emoji reactions. The character has become part of the broader emote ecosystem on platforms like 7TV, BTTV (BetterTTV), or FFZ (FrankerFaceZ), which are third-party emote services that Twitch users commonly use to enhance their chat experience with additional emotes beyond Twitch's official offerings.
When to use
The Shrug emote is typically used in Twitch chat in the following contexts:
• When something unexpected or confusing happens in a stream • To express indifference about an outcome or decision • When a streamer or chat member makes a questionable play or decision • As a response to rhetorical questions • When viewers don't know how to react to something • To convey a sense of 'oh well' or 'what can you do?'
