BabyRage and Arteezy

An emote with a crying baby

BabyRage is one of Twitch’s early emotes: a picture of a crying baby. According to OWN3D, it appeared “in the early days of Twitch” and is one of the platform’s original emotes; the exact date it was added is unknown, and the earliest mention the outlet cites is in Urban Dictionary in 2009. The real origin of the photo has not been established either.

PC Gamer describes BabyRage as a reaction to a streamer “throwing a tantrum.” Dotesports contrasts it with SwiftRage, the emote for reckless fury, and adds that BabyRage also fits whining that turns into nagging. According to OWN3D, chat spams it when a streamer yells at everyone, and sometimes to make him even angrier.

How BabyRage became Arteezy’s

As Dotesports writes, the emote originally wasn’t tied to anyone, but it later became “firmly attached” to Dota 2 player Artour “Arteezy” Babaev. OWN3D specifies that BabyRage was popularized on Arteezy’s Twitch channel and ties that to his emotional reactions to bad games. Streamscheme also mentions the emote’s link to Arteezy, without details. No source gives an exact date for when the link formed; 2014 is a rough estimate of the period when his streams were gaining popularity.

The Dota 2 Wiki explains the joke this way: Arteezy’s loud outbursts on stream and his reports get compared to a crying child; the same entry mentions that he often picked Techies. It even works in reverse: chat calls any baby that shows up on stream “Arteezy.”

BabyRage PEDUUUUUR and crying on the chat wheel

In 2015 a well-known variation appeared: “BabyRage PEDUUUUUR.” According to the Dota 2 Wiki, AdmiralBulldog, in a joke cast, played Arteezy on Sven whining and calling for help from support Peter “ppd” Dager whenever an enemy hero spotted or harassed him, stretching his name into a long wail. The cast also poked fun at ppd for picking defensive supports such as Treant Protector or Dazzle.

The references made it into the game itself: TV Tropes mentions a crying-baby sound on a seasonal chat wheel as a nod to babyrage. That way the Twitch chat emote got its own echo inside Dota 2.

Arteezy at TI2018 on the card

The meme card shows a photo from The International 2018: Arteezy in headphones and an Evil Geniuses jersey, looking off to the side with focus. It is not the emote itself or a stream frame, but a shot of the player at the tournament.

A BabyRage caption turns the tournament photo into a joke: in the shot the player is focused, while in the memes he is the “crying baby” from chat. The photo itself isn’t directly related to the emote; it is a portrait of the player whose name chat stuck to BabyRage.

What BabyRage means and caption examples

Today BabyRage mocks any player who tilts, whines, and blames the team, not necessarily Arteezy himself. OWN3D, though, calls the emote “somewhat outdated.” These examples are made up for illustration:

“Lost one game and I’m already reporting all four teammates BabyRage,” “Support didn’t place a ward. BabyRage PEDUUUUUR,” “The baby in the next plane seat started crying. Chat: ‘Arteezy, is that you?’” “Fifteenth loss of the night, and the streamer is still blaming his ping BabyRage.”

Related Arteezy memes include Cliffteezy, “Good Jokes mate,” Artour Babaevsky, and Arteezy’s 3rd curse.