LUL

LUL is Twitch's illustrated version of game critic and broadcaster John "TotalBiscuit" Bain laughing. Photographer Jonathan Tayag took the original photograph at MLG Anaheim in 2013. Bain later cropped it into a subscriber emote on his Twitch channel under the command CynicalLaugh.

That use created a copyright dispute because Tayag objected to the photograph being offered as a paid subscriber perk. The original photo was removed from Bain's subscriber emotes, while a free version circulated through third-party Twitch emote tools. Bain later commissioned an illustrated version that preserved the laugh without using Tayag's photograph directly.

On September 1, 2017, Twitch announced that the illustrated LUL would become an official global. The command functions as Twitch's version of "LOL," while community variants such as LULW and OMEGALUL later exaggerated the same TotalBiscuit laugh through tighter crops and distortion.

Bain was one of gaming YouTube's most influential critics, best known for his WTF is...? first-impression series and the Co-Optional Podcast. After he died in May 2018, Twitch described the emote bearing his face as part of the mark he had left on the platform and gaming culture.

Type LUL in Twitch chat to use this emote. Viewers use LUL for strong laughter, jokes, ridiculous statements, funny failures, TotalBiscuit references and callbacks to the wider LUL, LULW and OMEGALUL family.