There are two potential and mutual origins to the proliferation of "KEK."
In World of Warcraft there are two factions, Alliance and Horde.
They often kill each other in the open world.
If Horde could talk to Alliance and visa-versa, it would promote spying on potential city sieges. There are other reasons, but that's the most gameplay focused.
So, they scrambled the text to make sure the factions couldn't talk to one another.
LOL - Laugh Out Loud
When someone from the Horde types LOL, the Alliance can still see the other person typing but it is scrambled to KEK.
Orcs are on the Horde side, so the most common thing an Alliance player would see when they get ganked (killed while questing) are the letters KEK. It became synonymous with trolling.
Jump to, and Pepe comes along. He is green. Orcs are green. People who post pepes are shitposters and trolls. So, it was just natural they also adopted the KEK term.
Additionally, some trace it to the Egyptian god Kek, which is also a frog.
Whether KEK was used before Pepe while trolling or Pepe reinforced the use of KEK due to the Egyptian god association is unclear by nature of continually developing meme logics.
Edit:
Also, this statue has an epitaph that looks like a shitposter on a computer making meme magic.
There are two potential and mutual origins to the proliferation of "KEK."
In World of Warcraft there are two factions, Alliance and Horde.
They often kill each other in the open world.
If Horde could talk to Alliance and visa-versa, it would promote spying on potential city sieges. There are other reasons, but that's the most gameplay focused.
So, they scrambled the text to make sure the factions couldn't talk to one another.
LOL - Laugh Out Loud
When someone from the Horde types LOL, the Alliance can still see the other person typing but it is scrambled to KEK.
Orcs are on the Horde side, so the most common thing an Alliance player would see when they get ganked (killed while questing) are the letters KEK. It became synonymous with trolling.
Jump to, and Pepe comes along. He is green. Orcs are green. People who post pepes are shitposters and trolls. So, it was just natural they also adopted the KEK term.
Additionally, some trace it to the Egyptian god Kek, which is also a frog.
Whether KEK was used before Pepe while trolling or Pepe reinforced the use of KEK due to the Egyptian god association is unclear by nature of continually developing meme logics.