(Since then, internet-savvy congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has also streamed Among Us with a cast of all-star broadcasters.)Ī Twitch spokesperson told me in an email that the company wanted to update the emote given what happened this week, and that Sean “Day9” Plott had a great idea.

The idea that there was a difference between Twitch influence and mainstream influence evaporated at the very moment AOC’s stream went dark.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) stream with some of Twitch’s biggest stars, which was one of the largest individual streams the site has ever seen. Perhaps the biggest win - and the strongest signal - that Twitch was beginning to achieve those goals was Rep. Twitch’s push toward truly mainstream relevance didn’t start in 2020, and a year spent mostly inside helped move the site there. “So the PogChamp debacle is basically perfect for Twitch - a small change that signals they’re no longer aligned with Gutierrez and everything within the specific toxic strain of the pro-gaming community he represents.” “The other big part of this is that Twitch’s long-term goal as a company seems to be fully divorcing themselves from the reputation as an ESPN for gamers,” Broderick writes. As the writer (and, full disclosure, my friend) Ryan Broderick put it in his excellent newsletter Garbage Day, Twitch removing the PogChamp emote was probably in service of taking the site truly mainstream. The reason PogChamp was popular was because it was the site’s global hype emote: when anything cool happened on Twitch, you could be sure to see people pogging in the chat. Get ready for a new PogChamp every 24 hours, starting today. You know what? In the spirit of figuring out 2021 together, let’s just roll with it for now!

Twitch pogchamp emote