Amid mass controversy surrounding the face of the PogChamp emote, Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, Better Twitch TV has said that it will not be removing any related emotes from its services.
BTTV leader “Night” said that BTTV “has never removed emotes due to controversies, and likely won’t as the result of this behavior.” Some fans are upset with the decision, but others praised the service for refusing to delete an old emote that everyone who uses Twitch has come to know.
Is Twitch removing the PogChamp emote?
Shortly after a successful attempt to breach the United States Capitol, tweets from Gootecks surfaced where he claimed he had video of a woman being shot inside the Capitol, and that he was going to post it on Twitter. This led to people digging deeper into his account, only to find conspiracy theories and false information.
Word started to spread on Twitter about the decline of Gootecks’ social media presence, and some people began calling for Twitch to delete the PogChamp emote. Some folks who were tuned into his posts before the incident involving the Capitol were urging Twitch to finally ban the emote because of the man whose face was used as its image.
BetterTTV (BTTV) leader Night says as of now they will NOT be removing any Pog emotes. “in general BetterTTV has never removed emotes due to controversies, and likely won’t as a result of this behavior. users have the ability of choice on our platform” https://t.co/3c5KSBuIUl
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) January 7, 2021
FrankerFaceZ, another extention that adds emotes to Twitch, announced it was going to remove PogChamp from its service. Founder Dan Salvato told Rod “Slasher” Breslau that they would be removing every variation of the emote, including PogU and WeirdChamp. FrankerFaceZ was also looking into other emotes which remained in a gray area.
The reaction to the removal of the emote from Twitch and FrankerFaceZ has been mixed. Some are glad that a problematic person behind the emote was getting his comeuppance in regards to having his emote removed from Twitch, while others were upset that one of the most iconic emotes from the platform was seemingly gone forever.
In the meantime, Twitch has announced that there will be a new PogChamp emote every 24 hours to replace the previous Gootecks version.
