Yesterday, Twitch removed one of its emotes because its originator encouraged violence at the Capitol during an insurrection coordinated by Trump supporters. If you've been furiously googling "what is a pogchamp?" sit down, friend: I am here for you.
I mean… I guess it’s good that they did this eventually? But they should’ve done it months and months ago when he was tweeting about COVID conspiracy theories and shit. I suppose “waiting to do anything until it’s long past time to do something” is just how Twitch operates.
I’m all in favor of memes or emoji’s or whatever transcending their original meaning or point of origin, like how that one white supremacist wojak now just a represents a blonde man who is very blunt, but I can understand that this particular example was too extreme to not do anything
But gootecks apparently really hated his meme status, so it is a little sad that this won’t be a thing to hold over his head anymore.
I didn’t know about this guy’s history, all he’s been to me has been an emote and recently an internet adjective, so I’m glad it’s been challenged and removed (companies do it exclusively for PR points but there’s at least a net good).
It reminds me of how people will still use, maybe ignorantly so, reaction memes from JonTron and Pewdiepie ucritically…
In my opinion, emotes is one of the absolute worst parts of Twitch. I think it’s one of those things that probably “increases engagement” but overall is a net negative to the experience. It’s a way for people to shout in chat without having to think of something to say first. Chat in an environment like Twitch is going to struggle with low quality input by nature, and I think facilitating things like “emote spam” just exacerbates the problem.