The streaming platform Twitch has hundreds of emotes that allow users to express themselves when watching their favorite broadcaster stream. One of these emotes is PogChamp, the most frequently used emote on the platform. Emotes are constantly used on Twitch as users rapidly spam the chat with emotes when the situation calls for it, as PogChamp is used to represent excitement. However, this emote was actually removed after the “face” of the emote, Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, made some comments regarding the assault on the U.S. Capitol. Although the comments made by the face of the emote were insensitive, I do not believe that the emote should have been removed.

Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez is a member of the fighting game community as well as an avid Trump supporter. Even though the emote is so popular on Twitch, Gutierrez himself actually dislikes it as he is unable to get himself known as anything other than the “PogChamp guy.”

To affirm that point, emotes on Twitch usually have no relationship with their origin. Nobody on Twitch used the PogChamp emote because they were directly referencing Gutierrez. It was used because it meant excitement. Whenever a thrilling situation occurred, users would immediately spam the emote to indicate that they were feeling immense joy. Sure, Gutierrez himself as a person may not be the best individual as he supported the riots on the U.S. Capitol, but it’s unlikely that anyone was deliberately thinking of committing crimes when they used his emote.

Additionally, it is ironic that Twitch immediately handles this issue while not immediately handling a lot of the other issues occurring on their website. One of these main issues is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedowns of channels. If a streamer plays just a small portion of copyrighted music on their stream, they could be punished with jail time. Even some of Twitch’s biggest streamers have been banned by the platform for having played just a few seconds of copyrighted music in the past. Twitch’s solution to this problem is just to delete the streamer’s broadcast after they are done streaming, which essentially tells creators to delete their life’s work. The removal of PogChamp was completely unnecessary as Twitch should be focusing on this copyright problem to keep their most famous streamers happy.

An alternative solution would be to keep the emote but to allow people to change it if they wanted to, as people who are offended by Gutierrez’s comments would be happy with the result while others would be able to keep their beloved emote. Overall, I believe that removing PogChamp was unnecessary and by removing it, Twitch is associating the emote with Gutierrez.

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