/HOW TO PROTECT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FROM THE “KING LAUGHING EMOTE” /

-What is the “King Laughing Emote”?

The “King Laughing Emote” is a usable emote from the hit mobile game Clash Royale. In Clash Royale, two players are represented by kings situated on towers on opposite sides of vertical battlefield optimized for the shape of modern day smartphones and smart tablets. The battlefield is viewed from a birds eye view with a slight shift in perspective towards the player’s king’s side. In addition to the towers the kings rest on, or the “King Towers”, there are also two “Princess Towers” located at the left and right of the “King Tower”. The objective of the game is to destroy the other side’s “Princess Towers”, and then “King Towers”, and end the battle with more towers than your opponent. Players accomplish this by placing troops of various roles on either side, who target and damage the enemy towers and troops. The “King Laughing Emote” is one of many emotes that players can use to express their emotions to the enemy and spectators. When used, the emote will appear in the form of an animation of a 2-Dimensional representation of the king’s face while laughing, making a short, punctual laugh along the lines of “HEE HEE HEE HAW” or “HEHEHEHA”, or “HEEHEEHEEHA”*. This emote has become a “meme”, used in videos depicting strategic gain of any kind, ironic or unironic, both inside and outside the game of Clash Royale. As a reaction to the strategic gain, either a sound file, the animation itself, or both of the “King Laughing Emote” will be played. The sound file or video file is usually purposefully corrupted.

-Why has the “King Laughing Emote” become popular?

The “King Laughing Emote” exists because of the structure of social media and the workings of how memes work. Memes are essentially a popular phrase, sound file, image file, or any piece of information that is consistently shared and altered. A meme gains popularity mainly through repetition, and its base value. If the meme by itself provides value, such as amusement to its viewers, they will be more likely to spread it. After it has been spread a sufficient number of times, the base value of the meme is added on to by the value of suggestiveness. Essentially, social media users are more likely to enjoy something that their close contacts also enjoyed and shared. With this newfound value, individual people become highly likely to spread the meme, causing it to spread at an exponential pace.

The “King Laughing Emote” has been spread in the same way as described above. In the game of Clash Royale, players often wish to emotionally degrade their opponent. They accomplish this by using emotes depicting happiness or sadness at specific times in accordance to the state of the ongoing battle ingame. The “King Laughing Emote” is also used for this purpose, often used after defeating the opponent. This has a negative effect on the opponent because of the Clash Royale player culture. In Clash Royale, players earn trophies when they win matches and lose trophies when they lose matches. Thus, trophies are an indication of a player’s skill. In Clash Royale, troops can be “levelled up” through the use of various ingame resources, raising their performance in a linear fashion. These two factors create a very unique culture within the game of Clash Royale. Most Clash Royale players believe themselves to be of high skill, and the only thing holding them at a lower trophy count than what they desire is because of their low card levels. An Additional proposed factor by the player may be the opponent receiving beneficial scenarios due to minor mistakes or pure luck. Because of this culture, when an opponent is defeated, they most likely believe that they lost by a small margin, or due to minor reasons, expecting an emote of comment by their opponent praising their skill or acknowledging the close margin of victory. Instead, if the opponent uses the “King Laughing Emote”, it shows that the opponent does not care about the methods that they used to achieve victory, only the victory itself. Since, as confirmed by many studies and anecdotes, humans receive positive emotional response from causing others’ negative emotional responses in certain scenarios, emotes like the “King Laughing Emote” are very commonly used. Additionally, while some emotes have to be payed for with high amounts of resources and can only purchased at certain times, the “King Laughing Emote” is a free emote given to the player when they first start a new account. Because of these factors, the “King Laughing Emote” is often used in Clash Royale Matches. Because of how memes work, this repetition eventually led to the spread of the “King Laughing Emote” throughout social media as a meme.

-How do I protect myself and my loved ones from the “King Laughing Emote”?

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