Emotes are an essential aspect of chatting on Twitch, and the PogChamp emote has been one of the most spammed in the platform’s history. At the start of the year, Twitch removed the original PogChamp after Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez, the original face of the emote, made offensive remarks responding to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Over a month later, Twitch has finally come to the decision on what will replace the iconic emote.
As a temporary measure, Twitch has been rotating through different PogChamp emotes each day using different streamers on the site. Unfortunately, some of the streamers who had the opportunity to be the face of PogChamp were met with harassment, such as CriticalBard and drag streamer Deere. Many also felt that Twitch was not doing much to address those situations after putting those streamers on display. In any case, the rotating PogChamp idea couldn't last forever, and Twitch eventually wanted to make a permanent decision.
In a livestream today, Twitch asked viewers to vote for a new permanent face to PogChamp, and thus KomodoHype was crowned the new PogChamp. Twitch announced the change to the public with a meme-worthy video in its own right, going from clips of vintage technology to an epic kaleidoscope of PogChamps and airhorns. KomodoHype is already a global Twitch emote, and it has often been used instead of the original PogChamp since it was uploaded to Twitch. The image itself is of a Komodo Dragon with a wide-open mouth, and has been used through the years for memes and various Photoshop edits.
While both KomodoHype and PogChamp will still be global emotes, the two have a tiny difference in the eyes, but are otherwise the same. It will be interesting to see the rate that each is used. Twitch may even remove the original KomodoHype emote, although that might not go over well with its users. Hopefully, the hype of this new PogChamp will help settle out the whole situation. There also shouldn't be any more issues with the emote, especially since this meme-lizard is neither related to or based on a person.
Twitch is the biggest streaming platform there is, but many users feel that there are many changes Twitch could make to become a better platform. While users are still critical of many of Twitch's decisions, like the aptly called "Purple Screen of Death" which ruins embedded streams, this new emote may be a bit more well-received.