Is PogChamp the Face of Hype? Or the Face of Violence?
On the many faces of the internet, emotes or reaction images can be fun. They can tell an entire emotion or even conversation, with just a few pixels on a computer screen. They are most often used on a website called Twitch.tv. Twitch is a live streaming platform that can be used for almost anything. Gaming, talks, sports, if you can think about a topic, there is probably a stream about it. In the chat, you can use emotes to express all kinds of emotions. Those emotions being excitement, hype, frustration, sadness, etc. Many of the emotes used on the platform use an actual person as an emote. One of the best examples and unfortunately most sour being the “PogChamp” emote. The face of PogChamp is Ryan Guiterrez. He is a famous streamer playing the 90s game “Pog”. He has caused a lot of uproar and has completely thrown the platform off balance.
While Twitch adored Ryan and his charming face, some unrest has bubbled to the surface. After the storming of the United States captiol, Ryan tweeted some very questionable things to his audience. The tweets below show how and why his face was removed from the live streaming platform. He was blatanally encouraging violence and quoting insane conspiracy theories like “Big Brother.” Exactly like the book “1984”.
Why do these tweets matter when his face is pretty much disasociated from the emote itself? Well, in 2018 Twitch rolled out a new harassment policy stating that “verifiable harassment or harassment outside of Twitch” is unacceptable and will be included in moderating decisions.” Ryan’s tweets were off platform, onto Twitter. And while the Pogchamp emote was implemented years ago, Twitch cannot be seen with one of it’s most famous emotes being the face of someone who supports violence, especially against a capitol of a country.
And so, one of Twitch’s most famous emotes was removed from the platform. Although, this is not Ryan’s first run in with Twitch. Ryan in all of 2020, was been seen making similar and disturbing remarks about similar issues related to the far right. He was often seen supporing many of the far right conspiracy movements, the biggset one being that he did not agree with COVID-19 or it’s exsistance. Ryan has also been banned from the platform previously due to his vocalization of misinformation related to different topics.
But why would this matter? It’s just Ryan’s face on a website. The connotation and the meaning of what lies beneath the image is what the issue is. On the internet is where it is most important, where images are readily available at all times in all situations. In the beginning, PogChamp started out harmless. It was an emote about hype and excitement towards video games. After the tweets mentioned above, the whole connotation and meaning of the image has changed. The entire PogChamp emote now stands for hate, violence and strong alt right Republican views. Since those tweets broke out, the PogChamp meme has been seen igniting heated debates and angry arguments all over Twitch before it was banned. A small streamer would be playing a video game and someone would raid their stream with the PogChamp emote over and over. That is not good publicity for that streamer. That streamer could be banned from Twitch for life because of the hatred and the political discourse spewed on their stream. And it wasn’t even their fault. They were a victim of the PogChamp emote and the bullying seen behind it.
Since the PogChamp emote has changed connotations and meanings, the medium in which the emote is being used has also changed. Twitch had banned the emote — so where would the emote be used? It had been seen used all over the social media platform Twitter. Political discourse is often found in all 4 corners of this platform. No matter what political leanings you have, it is being talked about on Twitter. People retweeting, tweeting and sharing anything all over the platform. Since Ryan is associated with the alt right and Republican standpoints, it was often seen used as an emote or reaction image to many alt right posts. It was seen promoting drama and “clout” on many infamous Donald Trump posts and similar Republican figures throughout the platform. With the intense circulation of such lucrative topics, users who had not even heard of Twitch were seen sharing the PogChamp emote in different political conversations.
It’s incredible to watch the circulation of an image that many have not heard of or seen used in a multitude of political conversations. The changing of the PogChamp emote into something more sinister and dark from something so lighthearted and sweet is astounding. Because it is just an image and it has caused so many issues on the internet, it is important to analyze exactly why this image has caused so many issues. I believe it is due to the circulation of the image. If PogChamp had stayed on Twitch and its removal was easy and simple, the image and it’s meaning would have died. Instead, it had moved to one of the most politically spilt platforms on the internet. This had caused the image to absolutely explode and take off. Ryan’s opinions, no matter if someone agrees or disagrees, would’ve died right there on Twitch. The case of this image and the study of it is one that needs to be discussed and focused on. PogChamp is a facinating case of politcal discourse and overbearing opinions changing the face of streaming and platforms as they stand.
