[ KOREAN INTERNET CULTURE ][ GEN Z BRAINROT ]
A Korean-internet laughter marker — a string of the consonant ㅋ (pronounced roughly "k") repeated to represent laughter, the direct Korean-language counterpart to typing "haha" or "lol," with more repetitions reading as harder laughter.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
"ㅋㅋㅋ he really just tripped over nothing"
LORE & ORIGIN
Standard Korean internet/text writing convention where the consonant ㅋ (the sound at the start of 크게 웃다, "to laugh loudly," and phonetically close to the laughter sound itself) is typed in repeated strings — ㅋㅋㅋ, ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ — to represent laughter, romanized in English-language discussion of Korean internet culture as "kekeke" or "kk."
FIRST SEEN
2000
PEAK POPULARITY
2026 (Korean Internet Canon)
CURRENT STATUS
Mainstream Slang
Related To:Hehehe (Korean)
EQUIVALENT CONCEPTS IN OTHER LANGUAGES
AURA IMPACT ⓘ
+1 AURA
TREND STATUS
↑ HIGH RISING FAST · MODERATE
CULTURE CATEGORY
[ KOREAN INTERNET CULTURE ][ GEN Z BRAINROT ]
RELATED TERMS
MENTIONS OVER TIME
2023202420252026
RELATED SEARCHES
TOP PLATFORMS
TikTok
52%
YouTube
20%
Twitter / X
14%
Reddit
9%
Others
5%
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