Twitch Reveals Replacement for Removed PogChamp Emote

Twitch has unveiled its solution for the removed PogChamp emote this week following the removal of one of Twitch’s most-used expressions. Adopting an idea suggested by a community member shortly after the emote was removed, Twitch said that it’ll feature a new PogChamp emote within the streaming platform every 24 hours. The rotation of PogChamps will start on Friday with more version of PogChamp to come in the days afterwards, according to Twitch.

The idea itself was suggested by Day9TV’s Sean Plott who suggested that Twitch create a database consisting of different streamers’ faces or just faces in general. Whenever someone typed “PogChamp,” a random face would be chosen from the database and displayed in the Twitch chat. Twitch publicly responded to the suggestion on Friday to say “let’s just roll with it for now” while confirming that the new plans would be in effect as of Friday.

A longstanding emote on Twitch used to embody moments of excitement or disbelief, PogChamp was removed from the platform after Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, the face of the emote, shared inflammatory comments on Twitter following the events at the United States Capitol Building this week. Twitch said in a statement shared on social media that it was removing the emote and that Gutierrez’s comments were “encouraging further violence.

“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 said in a statement. “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. We will work with the community to design a new emote for the most hype moments on Twitch.”

Though the new idea for the PogChamp emote is to go into effect on Friday, it’s unclear how long this idea of rotating emotes will last. Twitch’s phrasing where it spoke of “figuring out 2021 together” and rolling with the idea “for now” suggested that this might only be a temporary solution, though we’ll likely hear more about the plans for PogChamp soon.