ANELE

ANELE shows Anele Andeshmand, a longtime member of Twitch's partnerships organization who later oversaw the Twitch Partner Program. Andeshmand explained the emote's origin himself: Twitch employees could once upload a personal image as a global emote, and he chose a goofy straight-on photograph because he rarely took conventional portraits. In the picture he is wearing a white beanie.

At Twitch chat size, the beanie could look like a turban. Andeshmand said that visual misreading took the emote far outside the context of the original photograph.

ANELE developed a documented history of anti-Muslim and terrorism-related stereotyping after viewers treated the white beanie as a turban. That use was created by viewers, not by Andeshmand or by the original photograph. The headwear is a white beanie, and the emote is most accurately understood as one of Twitch's old staff-face globals.