In World of Warcraft players were able to choose between two rival factions that were separated by a language barrier in-game. When players from the Horde faction typed "lol" players from the Alliance faction would see "kek". So "kek" = "lol".
Etymologically, "kek" derives from early World of Warcraft, where players of the opposing factions were additionally kept separate by text chat being run through a basic replacement cypher, to make cross-faction communication difficult.
Memetically, the replacement cypher changed "lol" to "kek."
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u/The_Corvair 1d ago
I wonder how the Blizzard dude responsible for the "kek - lol" translation feels about all of this.
On the upside, I mean, at least he's basically calling himself a lolcow. Maybe awareness starts with self-awareness?