Dong Squad 420

About

“Dong Squad 420” is a catchphrase coined by the League of Legends (LoL) player Michael Santana, better known by his online handle Imaqtipie, that is associated with the champion character Heimerdinger. Although its precise meaning is unclear, the phrase has since been adopted by his fans on the live video chatting service Twit Chat, along with the emoticon phrase “ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ.”

Origin

According to Redditor Cosmoviking,^[5] Santana would often play the LoL champion character Heimerdinger, whom he initially nicknamed “donger.” Santana subsequently used the phrase “dongsquad” as a password for his subscribers, which fans began spamming in Twitch TV along with the code-term “420”, in a similar vein to the expression “420 blaze it”.

Spread

On April 8th, Santana posted a tweet which included the hashtags“#dongsquad” and "#FrankerZ."

TK34LD7Y_467 fill in da letter, #frankerz#dollars4dongers#dongsquad

— Michael Santana (@dignitasQtpie) April 8, 2013

On April 28th, 2013, League of Legends Forums^[2] member TheeSeacow created a thread asking for someone to explain the story behind “dong squad 420,” to which several users cited Santana’s Twitch Chat as the origin of the phrase. On May 24th, a T-shirt featuring an illustration of Santana with the word “Dongsquad” underneath (shown below) was placed for sale on the LoL player website Team-Dignitas.^[6]

On June 17th, Santana tweeted the message “ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers,” which received over 130 retweets and 70 favorites within the first week.

ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers

— Michael Santana (@dignitasQtpie) June 17, 2013

On June 20th, League of Legends Forums^[1] member iJamioo started a thread requesting an explanation for the meaning of “raise your dongers.” On June 22nd, Redditor Spenceful submitted a post titled “ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ” to the /r/nocontext^[7] subreddit, accumulating upwards of 400 up votes and 20 comments in 48 hours.

Search Interest

External References