NaM

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About

NaM is a BTTV Twitch Emote showing the face of streamer "nam______________________" (aka Namja or "nam"). Since being introduced in 2015, it has come to be known as shorthand for the phrase "Weebs, get the fuck out" and is frequently spammed (known as "namming") as a counter to non-Asian anime enthusiasts in Twitch chats, particularly those who spam the AYAYA emote when anime is mentioned on stream.

Origin

NaM was uploaded to BetterTTV^[1] (commonly shortened to BTTV) by NightDev on December 12th, 2015 (seen below). According to Namja, the face comes from a moment in which he looked incredulously at his chat, though he does not recall exactly when it occurred.^[2]

Spread

According to Namja, the emote first started gaining virality among the community of streamer Nymn around 2016, where it was spammed along with messages like "SHUTTHEFUCKUPWEEBS" and "WEEBSGETTHEFUCKOUT."^[2] According to YouTuber Syrmaa, it is often a counter to the AYAYA emote, which is seen as the emote of choice for weebs and anime enthusiasts (video shown below, left). The use of the emote in this way was aided by a clip from streamer pajlada in which he saw "weebs" in his chat, opened a door and said, "Weebs, out!" (shown below, right). The moment turned "Weebs, out!" into a popular catchphrase on Twitch, as well as NaM.

The prevalence of the emote inspired song parodies in the following years, including DJ FGT's "NaM or Die," uploaded August 1st, 2019 (shown below, left), and ayyybubu's "Damn NaM spam," uploaded February 20th, 2020 (shown below, right). The songs gained over 160,000 and 590,000 views in over two years, respectively.

The emote will also appear whenever the country Vietnam is mentioned on stream, as Vietnam contains the letters "nam" and has long been slang and shorthand for the country, particularly in reference to the Vietnam War. ^[6]

The emote has been criticized as a "toxic" and a "bullying" emote by some publications, such as getonstream^[4] and streamerfacts.^[5] There is also a misconception that NaM is an acronym for "Non-Asian Minority," but that is false, as the emote's name simply comes from the streamer Namja.

As of July 2022, NaM is the fifth-most popular BTTV emote used on the site, seeing over 1.9 billion uses.^[3]