After a day mired in controversy for the United States, Twitch did something rather unexpected. The platform officially removed the popular and long-standing “PogChamp” emote. Viewers can no longer find the emote or use it in chats. The reason behind this is the man behind the emote, Ryan Guterriez, sent out a disturbing tweet regarding the situation going on in the US. As a result, Twitch decided it was best to eliminate all affiliation with the former streamer. While the reasoning is sound, many fans were disappointed to see their favorite emote gone without a trace.
PogChamp emote officially removed from Twitch
The origin story behind the emote stems from Ryan Guterriez’s YouTube channel. While Guterriez, also known as Gootecks, made the famous face on YouTube, he was also a popular Twitch streamer at the time.
During one of his outtakes from the YouTube series Counter Cross TV, Guterriez made the now infamous face and the rest is history. Twitch decided to implement the face on its platform and use the PogChamp phrase to express it.
However, earlier today, Guterriez sent out a distasteful tweet regarding the violence happening in Washington D.C.
Will there be civil unrest for the woman who was executed inside the Capitol today or will the #MAGAMartyr die in vain?
The video will be aired soon on (banned dot video) & (theresistance dot video) and it sounds pretty gruesome 😔
— gootecks (@gootecks) January 6, 2021
Essentially, Guterriez is defending the violence that occurred when protesters stormed the US Capitol Building. Certainly in the minority with his opinion, many fans were outraged upon reading the tweet.
Obviously, Twitch felt the same way and immediately decided to remove PogChamp from the site.
We will work with the community to design a new emote for the most hype moments on Twitch.
— Twitch (@Twitch) January 7, 2021
Twitch did state it will join forces with the community to come up a new emote to replace PogChamp. Previously, the now-removed emote was meant for great and exciting moments on stream. Now, something else, most likely a face of some kind, will be used for that purpose.
We’ll be sure to keep you updated with any further developments to this story here at Daily Esports.
