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You see a lot of w and ww and even www in Twitter and casual chat. What does
it mean? I've always thought it was わいわい but never found out. How is it
pronounced?

Here's an example from
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/ayav_v/status/75719460031430656)

> なんでじゃろうねwwとりあえず電車なうだから間に合いそう笑
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slang internet-slang abbreviations
What is the meaning of all those "w"s in email and SNSs?
www is Internet slang like lol in Japanese. It stands for warai (笑い), often
used on online message boards

笑 is like www, it's another internet slang, like lol in Japanese. You will
also see people adding 笑 at the end of sentences on the Internet just like the
example you gave.
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They derive from 笑う(わらう). They're the Japanese equivalent of "LOL".
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It is an abbreviation for _warai_ (laugh), and it comes from gamer slang. It
can be translated as "LOL."
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As the others have said, the "w" stands for 笑う(わらう).

~~You might also see someone write "ちょwww" online. This is similar to somebody
saying "ちょ~かわいい" if you've seen that line before. In this case, the ちょ is
actually 超(ちょう) so "ちょwww" would translate into something like "so funny" or
"very funny" compared to the standard "www" or "wwwwwwwww (ad infinitum)"
which would just be "lol" and "roflmao".~~
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Incidentally, you can also use 草 (grass) instead of 笑 or www for the same
purpose. This comes directly from the fact that www resembles sprouting grass:

> 「www」と表現しているのが草が生えているように見えることから「草」と言われるようになりました。 Since it looks like
> sprouting grass, people also started to say "草" to mean "www".

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pRzAj.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pRzAj.jpg)

[source](https://www.hamuwo.com/netslang-warai-kusa/)
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