Talk:kek

This is some kind of recent slang on 4chan, meaning "lol" (i.e. laughter), probably from a supposed typo because K and L are nearby keys. Sometimes something is "top kek", i.e. excellent comedy. Equinox ◑ 20:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe it started off as typing kik instead of lol, with the fingers one column to the left. But later on, presumably in reference to this, the chat scrambling system of World of Warcraft would turn "lol" into "kek" for players of the "opposing" side. Something like that. —CodeCat 20:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What is chat scrambling, and what's it for? Equinox ◑ 20:38, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a Caesar or Caesar-like cypher that messes up text so that the two factions of the game can't communicate with each other. The idea is to make it seem like the opposing faction speaks "foreign". The scrambler was designed, likely on purpose, to replace "lol" with "kek". —CodeCat 01:20, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It isn't. They first hash the word and use the resulting value to select a ‘translated’ word from a relatively small dictionary. Blizzard really didn't want interfactional chat to happen.

So anyway, the article claims it's Korean in origin. If true, I think it probably comes from ㅋㅋㅋ. Or possibly from 케케케, assuming that page is correct. 케케케 is a redlink here.

White supremacist connotations
It is obviously in the interest of a dictionary to indicate when a word has strong connotations beyond its literal denotation. I added a well-sourced usage note clarifying that, since the appropriation of the term by white supremacists in 2016, the word's connotations have clearly shifted. The note was straightforward, factual, and as neutral as possible. It did not call the word offensive or proscribe its use; it merely described the current usage of the word (with no less than eight sources). My work was immediately reverted. I reverted it back, and the user who removed it apologized as they'd mistaken it for vandalism. (That's partly my fault; I prefer not to make an account and I accidentally forgot to include an edit summary.) However, it was then reverted again, and the justification given for its deletion was that it had been reverted once before. I don't believe that anything about the content I added violated Wiktionary policy, and I see no problem with my choice to be bold and add well-sourced content without justifying it ahead of time. If there is a problem with my content, let's please discuss it. Otherwise, it should be reinstated. 50.79.5.81 17:14, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I can partially understand the first part of what you added, but I don't understand how the second part is relevant to the kek word itself. S URJECTION ·talk·contr·log· 17:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * How is it not relevant? The flag of "Kekistan" (transparently derived from "kek" + "-stan") appearing prominently at a white supremacist rally where a woman was murdered is fairly relevant to the question of how the word "kek" is understood in a broader context. 50.79.5.81 17:21, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I see from your contrib history that you do a lot of good anti-vandalism work, but I think I've made it clear that it wasn't vandalism. Surely the correct way to move forward here is to leave it in and allow it to be improved by other editors, if there are minor problems with the wording? 50.79.5.81 17:29, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't feel the Kekistan part is important enough to be mentioned here - albeit if you feel it has to be mentioned, I would be fine with something like "For more information, see the Wikipedia article on Kekistan" or a similar link (it isn't an actual article, but a subsection). S URJECTION ·talk·contr·log· 17:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Hm - I don't have a problem with that on principle, but I've never seen that kind of language on Wiktionary before. It seems more typical to simply include a brief mention of what kek/Kekistan connote in the current context. It's only half a sentence - we may disagree about exactly how relevant it is, but I don't think there's a policy problem with simply including what I wrote as it stands, is there? 50.79.5.81 17:58, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I'd keep it on Wikipedia. We're defining words, not judging their users. (BTW, reminds me somehow of "mega lolz" and Ian Watkins. We don't mention that at "lolz".) Equinox ◑ 18:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think the definition as given is complete, though. The word itself can't, and shouldn't, be marked as derogatory or pejorative, but the usage note makes it possible to add the context that using the term has powerful connotations. There's a usage note on the German definition of Führer noting its historical context and that it's now common for German speakers to use various synonyms for the word "leader". The definition wouldn't be complete without that. And that's an extremely common word which has been tainted by its context; this was a niche word to start with, so the fact that most people who know it associate it with white supremacists affects its connotation even more strongly. The Ian Watkins analogy is quite different; that was one use by one person, not a complete appropriation of the word by an extremist community. 50.79.5.81 18:18, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

There don't seem to be any further strong objections, so I'm going to reinstate it. If there are minor issues with the wording, they can be addressed over time in the finest wiki traditions. 50.79.5.81 12:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There are objections. I deeply object to a dictionary of the English language, spoken by hundreds of millions of people in dozens of countries, being used to memorialize some marginal political event involving 500 people in an unimportant corner of the USA. That is not a usage note, that is an attempt to turn Wiktionary into a vehicle for US politics. Tetromino (talk) 13:07, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That "marginal political event" is by far the most notable thing associated with this marginal niche word. The note isn't intended to memorialize or politicize anything, only to note that the word has been politicized, which is something English speakers should know when they look up the word. The note was crafted to be purely descriptive, not prescriptive. 50.79.5.81 13:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That said, though I personally feel it was quite relevant, I'll accept that people were unconvinced by the relevance of the second clause. The first clause does most of the necessary work and, unless someone else feels that the second clause should be reinstated, I'm willing to leave it off. 50.79.5.81 13:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was meant to memorialize a marginal political event which would otherwise fade into irrelevance. Here is an example of an important violent rally: lasts for months, draws hundreds of thousands of people, causes hundreds of deaths and injuries, and most importantly, has consequences: results in regime change in a major country. Compare to the event in Charlottesville. Look again at your words: "a violent rally". The word "violent" can cover a wide range of possibilities, and this event is at the very low end. The word "rally" can cover a wide range of possibilities, and this event barely qualifies. An honest description would be "500 protestors, 1 dead counterprotestor plus 2 cops who coincidentally failed at piloting their helicopter" - and then it would be obvious that any mention of such an event does not belong in Wiktionary. Tetromino (talk) 13:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * We're getting onto a bit of a tangent, but I don't think there's any reason to compare Euromaidan and Charlottesville. Both were important events in very different ways and for very different reasons. Euromaidan was certainly notable, but it's remembered by most of the world as a pro-democracy, anti-corruption movement in which hundreds of protestors were killed by government forces. That's obviously very different from a Nazi rally in the US (a country where openly fascist movements had long been thought irrelevant in national politics) where the protestors were the ones who murdered someone and were indirectly supported by the government. I don't mean to downplay the difference in scale, but humans and human societies don't respond linearly or rationally to scale: both events (and the responses to them) shocked the nation and the world. Regardless, either event belongs in Wiktionary if and only if it's relevant to the definition of a word. Euromaidan is mentioned in the maidan article because English borrowed the word to refer to Ukrainian protests. I mentioned Charlottesville in the kek article because it's likely to be one of the few reasons that non-gamers will have heard the word in use. Neither of the two events is mentioned to memorialize an event, but to contextualize a word. But, as I say, I'm leaving it for other editors to decide if that second clause warrants inclusion. 50.79.5.81 14:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

kek as an approximation of a snicker
When I first saw the word kek I thought it may be an approximation for a singular, stifled snicker, like hehe is the approximation of a giggle. Does anyone have any sources showing that this isn't part or all of the etymology? Saltedcoffii (talk) 16:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Look at the etymology. It has a reference. Equinox ◑ 19:13, 11 December 2022 (UTC)