PogChamp is one of the most used emotes on Twitch. However, it has now been deleted by the operators. The reason for this is a statement about the current protests in the USA made by the person whose face was used for the emote.
Update January 8: In the meantime, Twitch has introduced the return of “PogChamp.” The emote is set to change every 24 hours.
What happened? As the platform Twitch announced via Twitter, the emote “PogChamp” was removed on the night of January 7. Twitch stated that the person depicted in the emote called for further violence in the USA:
We decided to remove the PogChamp emote due to statements made by the face of the emote calling for further violence after what happened today at the Capitol.
However, it is not the end of the emote. According to Twitch, work is already underway on a new version that will be released soon:
We want the spirit and usage of Pog to live on – its significance is much greater than the person depicted or the image itself – and it holds a large place in Twitch culture. However, we cannot, in good conscience, continue to allow the use of the image.
We will work with the community to design a new emote for the best moments on Twitch.
gootecks talks about civil disobedience after riots
What did “the face” say? In light of the current situation in the USA, where some protesters stormed the Capitol, a woman was shot. Learn more about the events in this article from ZDF.
The streamer gootecks referred to the situation at the Capitol in a tweet. In it, he questions whether there will be civil disobedience now that a woman was “executed” upon entering the Capitol. Some see this as an indirect call to violence, including the operators of Twitch.
In further tweets, the streamer also accuses Twitter of censorship because he is not allowed to share the URL to a related video.
The emote was controversial even before the tweet: The tweet regarding the situation around the Capitol was not the first trigger for protests against PogChamp.
Previously, gootecks had already attracted negative attention with conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19. Following this, some Twitch users demanded a revision of the emote.
How popular was PogChamp? The website StreamElements provides statistics on chats on Twitch. Since January 9, 2016, PogChamp has been used 813,916,297 times according to this statistic. This makes it into the top 5, behind Kappa, <3, LUL, and TriHard in first place.
PogChamp is not the first emote that Twitch has deleted. In May 2020, there was a wave of deletions affecting several emotes related to “Simp”:
Twitch deletes emotes related to “Simp” – What even is a Simp?
