What does "<>" mean?

I feel like I missed something, but see a bunch of people sharing this in chat, twitter replies, etc. I can guess based on context that it's like "no equal", or something? Doesn't help that it's also nigh impossible to search for a meaning as most search is going to strip out the special characters. Thank you for anyone that can help the old guy.

Also I too may have shed a few tears during the goodbye stream so I've just wanted to figure out what other folks were meaning with "<>".

Its used as like "peace" or "peace out"

I believe it originated from The Sims 3(?) E3 show. I know it’s based on the Sims plumbob, but I think the actual origins was some endearing joke that somehow caught on during E3. There’s a picture of Drew doing that somewhere.

It somehow transitioned to “peace out” and has been used by chat to say goodbye at the end of a live stream.

Peace out is from a Professional Wednesday when Chris Watters said "Peace out" to end a stream and Ryan lovingly hated it. So now we make a Peace Out poll to end streams with the traditional <> to send us out.

Ahhhhhhh, that makes a lot more sense. This is what I get for never being able to watch most of the streams live. Appreciate the context!

I believe E3 2010. I think this was the moment where it started (30:45 mark). I remember people putting it in the chat as well.

Here's the gif where it became a thing. There was an earlier discussion about a Sims event at E3 where the event runners were throwing that symbol about their heads and none of the attendants knew what it was supposed to mean. It became a running callback during this E3 aftershow, and the moment it became a GB meme is this gif, where Vinny threw it up during a particularly heated part of the conversation. The cut to Drew is what cemented it.

https://twitter.com/marinov1/status/1273259066756935680

@tonyblue87: thanks! haha, looking at that twitter thread I'm happy to realize I'm not the only one that had no idea what it meant!

OMG y’all are so OG ~~ I’ve been here a long time and somehow missed this too.

Thanks for the explanation. I also had no clue why.

@johnaze: That was 11 years ago already!? I remember watching that stream live.

E3 2010. I watched it live on Giantbomb.com.
EA guy (I forget his name now) said how they made that symbol with their hands (The Sims team at EA at the time I mean). It became a thing for those who were there for the last million years.

I remember watching those old E3 streams live and feeling like I was peering in at a different world.
Speaking of different worlds, in the weird parts of the internet where I grew up,
the <> meant that this furry or scalie was open for romantic RP.

I honestly thought it was a clever emoji for tearing up eyelids like you’d see on faces of characters in distress in anime. Go figure...

@cornbredx: I believe this is the origin. And now it kind of means, "peace out duders"

It’s rumoured to have cost 775 billion to create.

Not sure if it's intentional, but it always reminded me of the Jay-Z/Roc-A-Fella diamond symbol

@l33t_haxor: I don't know if you did it intentionally, but I get irrationally mad when people call the DDP diamond pose the Jay-Z diamond symbol. There was a court case about it and all!

@retris: And DDP explained in an interview that I've long forgotten wherefrom, I assume either from the Steve Austin, Chris Jericho, or Joe Rogan podcast, that the symbol was supposed to be a vagina in which he bangs onto his crotch. It was the 90s.

@tonyblue87: That takes me back, I remember that stream. There were some bad forum posts about some of the guests that night, but that's ancient history and shouldn't be dragged up.

The good part, the symbol was born. I think every stream since then usually ends with a series of <>.

@fetchfox: One might say that the diamond symbol became what it is today as a direct result of how that guest was acting throughout that night and the staff trying to get them to calm down which resulted in throwing up the diamond and that great moment now cemented in history.

I would very much like to remove that knowledge from my brain now.

@rongaryen: Isn't that from the David Arquette classic Ready to Rumble?

I think it comes from anime where characters make peace gesture with their hands horizontally.

I didn't find a picture that has it but they do it a lot on anime.

^This is the origin. Leigh was drunk and saying some ridiculous stuff, and every time she did, the whole crew started a shtick where they'd hold up a diamond symbol over their head (similar to the symbol in The Sims, as The Sims 3 was announced that year) and said, "AND THAT WAS E3!" The whole thing was ridiculous, but became such a meme in GB history, that everyone started spamming chat with <>

Easily one of my favorite moments of all the years of E3 coverage.

I learned something new today.

I'm so used to putting it in GB streams that I find myself putting <> at the end of other streamers streams I watch on twitch. Then my brain goes 'derp', that's not a thing anyone here will get.

and THAT was e3

yes, its from that year where they had paul on and they were throwing up the sims diamond symbol with their hands above their heads. chat really latched onto it and ever since its been used to spam the end of a gb stream.

@white_silhouette: Which makes it even better that you do it.

@johnaze: $775,000,000

God, I remember that. Chat was going nuts.