Gaben

About

Gaben is a nickname given to Gabe Newell, the co-founder and leading director of Valve Corporation. In 2008, Gabe Newell said "Gaben" while doing a commentary on Team Fortress 2, leading to a series of video mashups and songs.

Origin

On February 13th, 2008, YouTuber foodeatsppl uploaded a clip of Gabe Newell giving commentary on the Gravel Pit in Team Fortress 2 (shown below).

Welcome to Team Fortress 2. After 9 years in development, hopefully it would have been worth the wait. To listen to a commentary node, put your cross hair over the floating commentary symbol and press your primary fire. To stop a commentary node put your cross hair over the rotating node and press the primary fire again. Some commentary nodes may take control of the game in order to show something to you. In these cases, simply press your primary fire again to stop the commentary. In addition, your secondary fire will cycle you through all the commentary nodes in the level. Please let me know what you think after you've had a chance to play. I can be reached at gaben@valvesoftware.com and my favorite class is the Spy. Thanks and have fun! ^[1]

The word "gaben" comes from Gabe Newell's email address, gaben@valvesoftware.com.

Spread

One of the earliest known and most well-known instances of the use of Gaben is used by remix artist Mastgrr based on Fatboy Slim's 1998 single "Fucking in Heaven," gaining over 3.1 million views (shown below, left). On October 19th, 2011, YouTuber STBlackST posted a remix that gained over 1.2 million views (shown below, right).

The nickname "GabeN" followed Newell in parodies online years after it peaked in popularity. For example, on February 12th, 2017, YouTuber grandayy posted a Shooting Stars remix featuring "GabeN," gaining over 5.7 million views (shown below, left). On January 6th, 2019, theScore eSports posted an explainer of the GabeN meme, gaining over 730,000 views (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References