forsen5G

About

forsen5G is an emote on Twitch depicting a purple warped face of the streamer Forsen. It's ultimately a variation of the ForsenE emote that emerged in 2018. In comparison, forsen5G was created in 2021 and quickly became the number one trending emote. Many believed it was bots that were spamming the emote. Others believed it was used by Forsen's fans to annoy and troll other communities. The forsen5G emote is also associated with the shungite meme and conspiracy theory, notably popularized by Dr DisRespect in April 2020, due to the mineraloid's supposed ability to block or absorb EMF radiation.

Origin

Background

The original unwarped image of Forsen’s face featured in the emote comes from a Viagame Q&A at DreamHack Summer 2015 where Forsen and other streamers were asked random questions during the convention. Uploaded on June 22nd, 2015, the video (shown below) is the origin of the photo.

ForsenE

In 2016 as Forsen gained traction on Twitch, he held multiple contests with viewers to select custom emotes for his subscribers. During the push to add new emotes, Reddit user landerwi pulled the image of Forsen from the previously mentioned interview and warped it before submitting it. A Reddit post on Forsen’s subreddit (dated April 12, 2016) shows the original full size version of the ForsenE emote.^[1]

Forsen5G

Sometime in mid-2021, the Twitch^[3] channel forsenisbanned created the forsen5G emote,^[4] however, this original has since been removed (shown below).

On August 18th, 2021, Twitter ^[5] user SPIEG0 tweeted a link to the Stream Elements "Top Twitch Emotes" dashboard, expressing disbelief that forsen5G was the number one emote and likening the fact to "botting." This is the first-known mention of the emote online.

Two days later, on August 20th, 2021, Redditor Ispieg0 posted a screenshot of the "Top Twitch Emotes" dashboard to /r/forsen.^[6] In the comment section of the Reddit post, Redditor^[4] SlazZzor stated that it was forsenisbanned's emote and theorized it was a bot pushing it to the top spot. This post is also the first instance of shungite being referenced alongside the emote.

Spread

On August 21st, 2021, Twitch^[7] user YamadaAoi created a similar emote called forsenGalaxy. The forsen5G emote continued to trend at or around the number one spot for Twitch emote usage going into December 2021, evident via tweets^[8] posted in December 2021.

As stated previously, the original forsen5G emote was lost, however, on March 7th, 2022, Twitch^[11] user lileliislul created a new forsen5G emote. This new emote quickly climbed to number one on Twitch and received meme attention in March 2021. For instance, on March 21st, 2021, Redditor Powerful-Break4138 posted two long memes in one post to /r/forsen^[9] that utilized many memes and other Twitch emotes such as PogChamp, Withered Wojak and Touch Grass, among others (shown below, click to enlarge). The post received over 75 upvotes in four months.

forsen5G continued to compete with the homyLol emote, also thought to be botted, in memes such as the ones shown above and within other Reddit posts to /r/forsen.^[10] As of July 2022, the forsen5G emote has been used roughly 8.5 billion times according to the StreamElements Chat Stats, as well as evident in an article written by Sportskeeda^[12] in July 2022.

Search Interest

External References