monkaS (or Monkas) is one of the many emotes on Twitch (via the third-party BetterTwitchTV) based on Pepe the Frog – this particular iteration is intended to convey anxiety and concern indicated by the sweat and bulging eyes on the familiar amphibian.

The origins of monkaS can be traced back to a 4chan thread submitted to /lit/ during the summer of 2011. More than five years later, it was added to the FrankerFaceZ Twitch extension, swiftly becoming an omnipresent part of the platform’s subculture after it made on appearance of Forsen’s subreddit. Many variations have emerged since then – examples of which include monkaOMEGA, monkaThink and monkaW –  but they all indicate a high-pressure situation in the stream, something for the audience to worry about. No wonder why it’s so often overused that this fact has become a meme by itself.

Unlike FeelsBadMan and other Pepe-based emotes, this particular one has a unique username, one that’s supposedly owed to a subscriber of Nymn called MonkaSenpai who used it as his personal emote. Nymn then eventually decided to co-opt it, using monkaS as its suffix. The rest, as they say, is history.

Learn more about KEKW and other internet memes

Now that you know the meaning monkaS has, how about further expanding your meme vocabulary? The KEKW emote has an interesting story of its own, which you can check out here. What does Kappa mean? If you don't know, you might want to check out our article!