jebait

English

Etymology

Blend of Jebailey +‎ bait, popularized by the "Jebaited" Twitch emote added in 2016 which depicts Alex Jebailey with an amused expression.

Verb

jebait (third-person singular simple present jebaits, present participle jebaiting, simple past and past participle jebaited)

1. (Internet slang, Twitch-speak) To manipulate or trick, especially in a benign and light-hearted way.

   Synonyms: troll, mess with

   My viewer base likes to jebait me.

   • 2019 May 11, Eli Becht, “Pokimane delivers heartfelt message to fans after finally reaching Twitch milestone”, in Dexerto‎^[1]:

     When asked if she reached the goal yet, she had to clarify what happened. "I did and they unfollowed to jebait me," she explained.

   • 2019 July 22, Jim Salter, “AMD exec: Nvidia fell for our double bluff”, in Ars Technica‎^[2]:

     Ever seen a T-shirted division vice president of a $35B company crow about "jebaiting" a corporate opponent by "double bluffing the Super strategy?" No? Well, today's your day.

   • 2021 March 21, Sarjyo Mukherjee, quoting Daniel Francesca (Dafran), “Dafran blasted for sexist remarks by Pokimane”, in TalkEsport‎^[3]:

     E-girls can be fucking scary as a twitch streamer. They will try to jebait or photoshop evidence and then fuck you. I'm not saying she is one, but she could be.

Noun

jebait (countable and uncountable, plural jebaits) (Internet slang, Twitch-speak)

1. (countable) An instance of jebaiting; a trick or prank.
   • 2019 July 12, Dave James, “AMD baited Nvidia by faking its original RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 pricing at E3”, in PCGamesN‎^[4]:

     And once Nvidia had made its move with the RTX Super cards just ahead of the Navi launch AMD "made the appropriate move not only to deposition their Super series," says Herkelman, "but also to log jam their 2060 and 2070. Because we knew that they're having slower success, and we wanted to do a double Jebait."

   • 2021 April 3, Danyal Arabi, “GTA RP player gets hailed for "the greatest jebait of all time" during cop chase”, in Sportskeeda‎^[5]:

     The clip in question rose to the top of the LivestreamFails subreddit and is now hailed as "the greatest jebait ever".

   • 2022 September 7, Dylan Horetski, “Fuslie reveals why she "jebaited" fans before move to YouTube Gaming”, in Dexerto‎^[6]:

     Many of her fans in the comments made it clear that they enjoyed the "jebait," and are glad to see Fuslie continue to make moves throughout her career.

2. (uncountable) The process or act of jebaiting.
   • 2018 November 8, Nicole Carpenter, quoting Daniel Francesca (Dafran), “Dafran confirms that he's still playing for Atlanta Reign in the OWL after tweeting that he's quit”, in Dot Esports‎^[7]:

     I messed up, don't know what to say except sorry to the community, my fans and ATL. It wasn't jebait, sometimes I have these days and make dumb mistakes.

   • 2022 September 2, Aarnesh Shrivastava, quoting Sykkuno, “"It's weird to say Leslie Jebaited" - Sykkuno responds to fans claiming Fuslie 'baited' the audience by making an emotional final speech”, in Sportskeeda‎^[8]:

     'Leslie Jebaited us,' not really. I mean, guys, do people not remember Leslie repeatedly saying, 'Why does everyone think I'm leaving?' and then also say, 'Stop wasting your channel points, you'll have plenty of time to spend it.' So, what part of that was Jebait?