Twitch let its users vote on who should be the new face representing the popular emote PogChamp. The decision was made in favor of a Komodo dragon.
This is what happened with PogChamp: On February 12, the fate of the popular Twitch emote PogChamp was decided. In the “PogChampening” vote, Twitch allowed its users to choose one emote from 35 different options.
The competition was fierce. Big streamers like Myth, whose emotes made it to the final selection, rallied their communities to secure a top spot in the voting.
But they were all overthrown by a lizard that doesn’t even own a Twitch channel. The Twitch users opted for a non-human face for PogChamp.
The chosen emote is KomodoHype and will now be the face of PogChamp. It depicts a Komodo dragon opening its mouth in the typical PogChamp manner, looking hyped.
KomodoHype – An old competitor of PogChamp
This is KomodoHype: The emote with the big lizard is not new. According to the meme site knowyourmeme.com, it was introduced as a global emote on Twitch in 2018.
The origin of the KomodoHype emote lies in a stock photo uploaded in 2008. It was edited and widely spread on websites such as DeviantArt and Reddit. It was particularly used extensively in the popular Photoshop battles subreddit.
Since its introduction on Twitch, it has been in a joking competitive relationship with the PogChamp emote, which was used much more frequently and also represented hype moments during streams.
When the PogChamp emote was replaced with the image of KomodoHype, the supporters of the lizard celebrated their triumph over the opponent. With the vote for the new PogChamp emote, they were able to win the war.
Despite their size, they are excellent swimmers and climbers and primarily stay in trees. Komodo dragons are also carnivorous and prefer to ambush their prey (via Wikipedia).
This was the problem with the old PogChamp: Originally, the face represented by the PogChamp emote belonged to streamer Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez. It was one of the most popular emotes on Twitch and was used millions of times by users.
After the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which resulted in several deaths, Gutierrez posed a question on his Twitter profile about “civil disobedience” (Read more about the events on ZDF). Twitch interpreted the tweet as a call for further violence and decided to remove Gootecks’ face.
Initially, the emote was completely deleted but soon returned in a new form due to its popularity. As a solution, PogChamp’s face was rotated and alternated between different streamers from the Twitch community. However, this also led to a problem as some streamers were harassed because of it.
The solution with the KomodoHype emote now seems to be final.
Another emote that caused trouble on Twitch was “Simp”:
Twitch deletes emotes related to “Simp” – What is a Simp anyway?
