Twitch previously pledged to work with its community to design a new emote for the platform, and, in that spirit, has made the decision to adapt an idea presented by gaming personality Sean Plott. “Create a database of streamer and/or general faces,” Plott suggested in a tweet directed at Twitch yesterday. “Whenever someone types PogChamp, display one of those faces at random. Would give a really nice crowd feel to a chat spamming PogChamp and allow the meaning to be tied to all of us instead.” Responding to the post on Twitter, Twitch wrote, “You know what? In the spirit of figuring out 2021 together, let’s just roll with it for now!”. Rather than serving up random emotes on request, however, it will be introducing a new PogChamp every 24 hours, starting today, 8th January, with an emote based on fighting game streamer Kenny “UnRoolie” McWild - who put his own name forward as a replacement in a tweet yesterday. ORIGINAL STORY 7/1/21: Twitch has pulled the popular PogChamp emote. “We’ve made the decision to remove the PogChamp emote following statements from the face of the emote encouraging further violence after what took place in the Capitol today,” Twitch tweeted. “We want the sentiment and use of Pog to live on - its meaning is much bigger than the person depicted or image itself- and it has a big place in Twitch culture. However, we can’t in good conscience continue to enable use of the image.” The PogChamp emote is based on Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, a famous face within the fighting game community. The emote itself originates from a 2010 video blooper reel from the Cross Counter YouTube show, in which Gootecks expressed surprise. Last night, after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attack that saw four people die, Gootecks called for “civil unrest” over the shooting and death of a woman inside the Capitol building, using the hashtag “MAGAMartyr” in a tweet. Twitch said it will now work with the community to design a new emote “for the most hype moments” on its platform.
