Twitch Global Emote

SabaPing arrived on 30 March 2017 in a batch of eleven new global emotes, most with Japanese-style names: KonCha, PunOko, TehePelo, InuyoFace, Kappu, BigPhish, SabaPing, TearGlove, BegWan, ThankEgg and ArigatoNas. Twitch never explained the set, and viewers were left guessing where it came from.

'Saba' is Japanese for mackerel (鯖), and Japanese gamers also use 鯖 as slang for 'server', because it sounds like サーバー. Together with 'ping' that makes a neat server-lag pun, though nobody has confirmed it was intended. Either way it became chat's fish emote, and Twitch itself replied with nothing but 'SabaPing' when the fishing game Moonglow Bay was revealed in March 2021.