Twitch Removes PogChamp Emote She Said To Be “The Face Of … More Violence”

One of the oldest and most popular global emotes on Twitch was removed from the service after Twitch declared “the face of encouragement from[ed] more violence after what happened at the Capitol [Wednesday]. ”

This face belongs to Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, for a long time street fighter pro and commentator. Since 2012 and until yesterday, Gutierrez had been immortalized on Twitch in the form of the “PogChamp” chat emote (short for “champion gaming player”), which depicted an exaggerated and excited face that he had of. first made in a 2010 video.

Twitch’s decision to remove the emote (one of its custom chatroom emojis) appears to be focused on a series of tweets Gutierrez posted on Wednesday afternoon, expressing sympathy for the shooting of “#MAGAMartyr” during the violent pro-Trump invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Gutierrez then asked if her death would lead to “civil unrest” or if she “would die in vain.” In the hours leading up to Twitch’s decision, a number of people in and around the Twitch community had started drawing attention to Gutierrez’s tweets and / or suggesting that the emote be removed or replaced.

In 2018, Twitch rolled out a new harassment policy that began to factor “verifiable hateful or harassing behavior that takes place outside of Twitch” into its moderation decisions.

“We want the feeling and use of Pog to endure – its meaning is much greater than the person depicted or the image itself – and it has a big place in Twitch culture,” Twitch said in the frame. of his tweeted statement. “However, we cannot in good conscience continue to allow use of the image. We will be working with the community to design a new emote for the hottest moments on Twitch.”

Twitch viewers used the PogChamp emote about 2 million times per day, according to statistics from TwitchEmote.com, and it was the fifth most popular site-wide, according to StreamElements. The meme behind emotes has evolved to the point where just saying ‘poggers’ or ‘pog’ on a stream or chat can express the same excitement or surprise, to the point that even Rep Ilhan Omar (D-Minn .) The tried to use it.

As recently as 2018, Twitch partnered with Gutierrez to promote a paid, personalized animated “cheermote” of the PogChamp image. This promotion included a video where Gutierrez joked about a “strong legal team” creating the cheermote as an alternative to “suing all of you for copyright infringement”.

In 2016, Gutierrez told a Reddit AMA that being the face of the emote “doesn’t look like much because it’s not something I designed, made on purpose, or even said ‘okay.’ “

Until Twitch decides on a new PogChamp emote, there is a lot of people on social media make very entertaining suggestions for the best amazed facial expression available.