Popular Twitch emote “Pogchamp” removed from the popular streaming platform
Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, face behind the popular twitch emote, encourages “further violence” amid the Wednesday Capital Protest
“Pogchamp”, one of the most prominent and popular Twitch emotes, hyped by the gaming community, has been removed by the widely used gaming and broadcasting platform, Twitch. The decision was regarding the face of the emote, Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, who was inciting further violence amid the violence and death of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt during Wednesday’s Capital storming.
The gaming community supports Twitch in its decision to remove the emote. Many have responded on Twitter, such as esme! Stating, “the face of the pogchamp emote was a man condoning violence and encouraging riots. Making the decision to remove it from the platform was the right thing to do, you can delete a reaction emote, but you can’t delete the anxiety, fear, and injuries…” and many streamers like Kahlief Adams have petitioned his face to be the next face for the emote, lastly many people have posted memes that have a similar look to pogchamp to be the next face of the emote.
The following night after the violent events at the capital, Twitch removed the emote. However, the company wants the emote to live on as a legacy in gaming culture. In conscience, they can no longer enable the use of the image but live on with what it means.
Although the image of the emote is being removed, the use of Pogchamp will continue under a different picture. Twitch has worked with the community to replace the image that is equally as hyped as the original image.
Instead, by a popular suggestion by Sean Plott, It “would give a really nice crowd feel to a chat spamming PogChamp and allow the meaning to be tied to all of us instead.” in response, Twitch will “roll with it” and have a new image for the emote every 24-hours.
Here’s the face of Pogchamp for 1/10/2021 :)
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