Earlier this week, Twitch made the decision to remove the PogChamp emoticon from their platform after the person in front of it made inflammatory comments about the violent riots in the US Chapter. The reference to the emotion of the shocked face became something basic both in Twitch and in the game circles more generally, so they didn’t want to leave the PogChamp spirit for good. For now, they have decided to “roll with him” and replace the emoticon with a new face of surprise every 24 hours.
Looks like Twitch liked it suggestion proposed by Sean “Day 9” Plot to create a group of shocked facial emotions and to choose a random one every time the PogChamp emoticon is used. They didn’t do exactly that, but they are faces of crowdsourcing.
“In the spirit of discovering 2021 together,” they say, Twitch will have a brilliant new global PogChamp every 24 hours. First, because the new PogChamp seems to be Kenny “UnRooolie” McWild who he looked up for consideration as a possible replacement. Of course, there is a lot of other streamers throwing his own faces as much as possible Pogs in response to Twitch’s announcement.
At least for now, it seems that we will be treated every day with a new face of shock and amazement. I can’t imagine that Twitch keeps this strategy indefinitely, but it will give them time to come up with a more permanent solution, whether it’s a pool of possible PogChamps or a new standard Pog for everyone. Earlier, Twitch said they want to “work with the community to project a new emotion for the most hype moments on Twitch.”
Until tomorrow, Unrooolie is your PogChamp of choice.