BAND is a third-party channel emote primarily associated with the forsen community and is used to address the shocking and TOS-bordering moments on streams. It was first added shortly after its creation in August 2022 and soon after became known outside of forsen when xQc added the emote to his chat, ultimately growing to 12,000+ channel additions across all third party emote services as of 2026. It is most commonly posted in response to something bannable happening on-stream, indicating that soon a ban might follow. After its addition, BAND was instantly approved by the bajs, who have ever since enjoyed spamming it during the moments when forsen might soon join the band as a sixth member.

Design & Origin

This emote depicts 5 members of a musical band with each one serving a distinct role, and the emote is a looped animation of them performing a song together. BAND is technically a composite of 10 different standalone emotes - 5 LUL / E emotes and 5 [word]Time musical instrument emotes. From right to left, the BAND's crew comprises LULW on the GuitarTime, LULE on the zululDrums, vibE as the central singer with a mic, pausE with 3d glasses on the PianoTime, and easE with shades and a black suit on the eGuitarTime.

The origin of the idea for this emote stems from the earlier tendency for chat to spam related emote combos, usually involving LULW and GuitarTime, with the accompanying text "BANNED". Therefore, this chat meta gave some plausible ideas on how to evolve it further.

Earlier chat spams which inspired BAND

Design Easter Egs

• The 3d glasses on the pianist is a nod to Artifact and the Baj DLC community. At the time of BAND's creation, the baj movies were still thriving ( 🕯️), and a friend of the emote's creator asked to include something for the DLC bajs in the upcoming BAND emote.
• The LULW is specifically playing a guitar in BAND to commemorate the origins of the emote.

Meaning & Usage

Incorporating from the precursor LULW guitar chat spams, the name and the entire premise of the emote is a play on words "banned" and "band", turning it into a musical band. Therefore, BAND carries the same meaning as the emote combo spams and is used whenever someone gets banned in chat (or the ban risk is high), when forsen watches a questionable link, when something possibly bannable happens in the game he is playing, or when a player or a streamsniper says or plays something which seemingly crosses the TOS. Chat also pairs BAND with text strings "UR DONE", "CYA", "VACATION", "BAJ BAJ" and others to emphasize the impact and severity of what happened. The more shocking the moment is on stream, the faster is the subsequent BAND spam. Notable examples include:

Spread & Reception

Even when BAND was specifically made for forsen's chat and started being used within forsen-adjacent and DLC streams, its external popularity exploded after it was added xQc's chat on August 17 2022. People outside of the forsen community started having fun with it due to its short name but wide format, which quickly clogged the chats with long walls of BAND. The emote required updating chat message length timeout rules, but at the time of the addition (see links below) it was still unregulated and wild.

Another reason that forsen's chat didn't get to use BAND earlier than anyone is because at the time of its creation in August 2022, BTTV (the third-party service which forsen is using) didn't allow emote artists to upload emotes with non-square dimensions. Thus the first users of BAND were the forsen-adjacent and DLC channels who used 7TV, and later the wider twitch community. However, BTTV had to soon adapt to the ever-increasing popularity of wide emotes to stay relevant and started allowing wider uploads 2 months later, with BAND eventually finding its home in forsen's chat in around December 2022.

The bajs' reception on the emote has overall been positive. Some critique that BAND received during its first moments in forsen's chat was related to the unfamiliarity with the irregular emote format at the time, being a new BTTV feature and some bajs only watching forsen (BAND was the first wide emote added to forsen's chat). Moreover, some people also voice their discontent in regards to BAND's non-forsen adaptation and roots. Nevertheless, most bajs appreciate it as it is now, and it has since been fully integrated into the standard baj emote package.

In 2025, the number of channels that added BAND reached 12,000.

Variants

Halloween & Christmas

The seasonal rotation cycle

Given the demand for the emote, both Halloween and Christmas versions were created for the next year's celebrations.

The Halloween variant turns every band member into a distinct monster, with LULW turning into a red demon, LULE into the Tyrant from Resident Evil, vibE into the Joker, pausE into the voodoo doll and easE into a zombie. The Christmas variant saw the members dress up as several known festive characters, such as Santa, Elf, Snowman and others. The musical instruments in both seasonal variants also underwent appropriate color modifications.

Other Variants

Due to the popularity of the BAND emote, several channel-specific BAND variants also popped up, and some kept the instruments, the composition and even the 3d glasses easter egg intact.