Twitch Is Bringing PogChamp Back - But Not How You Might Expect
Earlier this week, Twitch announced that it was removing PogChamp – one of the most popular global emotes on the platform – after the face behind it expressed support for the mob that stormed the US Capitol Building on January 6th. At the time, the company suggested that the emote would be making a return in some form, saying that it wants "the sentiment and use of Pog to live on." Now we know how PogChamp will live on, and it's safe to say that Twitch is taking a route few expected it to.
As announced on Twitter today, Twitch is bringing PogChamp back, but it seems for now there won't be a permanent PogChamp emote. Instead, Twitch will rotate new PogChamp emotes in every 24 hours, so each day, PogChamp will look different. We don't know how long this will go on, but for PogChamp enthusiasts, the promise of a new emote each day is definitely intriguing.
You know what? In the spirit of figuring out 2021 together, let's just roll with it for now!
Get ready for a new PogChamp every 24 hours, starting today. https://t.co/R16EyASsFx
— Twitch (@Twitch) January 8, 2021
Twitch decided to take this route in response to a suggestion by Sean "Day9" Plott, one of the more well-known streamers on the platform. "Yo @Twitch suggestion for PogChamp: create a database of streamer and/or general faces," Plott said in a tweet to Twitch. "Whenever someone types PogChamp, display one of those faces at random. Would give a really nice crowd feel to a chat spamming PogChamp and allow the meaning to be tied to all of us instead."
"You know what? In the spirit of figuring out 2021 together, let's just roll with it for now!" Twitch said in reply. "Get ready for a new PogChamp every 24 hours, starting today." So, while Twitch's solution isn't quite what Plott suggested, it is similar in that we're going to see different PogChamps on a regular basis.
The original face of PogChamp was David "gootecks" Gutierrez, who was also the face of many PogChamp-related emotes available through Twitch extension services like Better Twitch TV and FrankerFaceZ. Yesterday, FrankerFaceZ administrators announced that they would be removing emotes featuring Gutierrez, though Better Twitch TV indicated in a statement to Rod Breslau that it would not be doing the same, giving users the choice of which emotes they enable for their channels.