Following the events at the U.S. Capitol, Twitch announced that it had removed the PogChamp emote, one of the oldest, most iconic, and frequently used emote on its streaming platform.
Twitch eliminates the PogChamp emoticon
The reason? The Amazon company did this in response to tweets from Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, whose face is on the emote. The popular streamer and fighting game player tweeted in support of the far-right protesters who took over the Capitol building in Washington DC.
Twitch said Gutierrez’s tweets encourage more violence, and that they cannot continue to allow the use of his image.
“We decided to remove the PogChamp emote after the emote’s face statements that encouraged more violence after what happened today at the Capitol,” Twitch said on their Twitter account.
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 (@Twitch) January 7, 2021
“We want the feeling and use of Pog to continue, its meaning is much greater than the person represented or the image itself, and it has an important place in Twitch culture. However, we cannot consciously continue to allow the use of the image. We will work with the community to design a new emote for the most exciting moments in Twitch.”
PogChamp emote had emerged more than 10 years ago, in a Cross Counter TV video. Since then, the emote has been used by millions of users in the Twitch chat, in moments of surprise or something very exciting.