About

PogChamp, also known as Pog Champion, is one of the oldest emotes on Twitch that uses the face of Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez with his mouth open wide. The Twitch emote is used as a way to express excitement or surprise both genuinely or sarcastically. Typically PogChamp is spammed during a stream when something exciting happens, such as pulling off a clutch kill or play, but the emote can also be used in a trolling fashion where there is no hype, like a streamer failing a challenge or being killed in a mundane setting.

Starting in 2017, multiple phrases and derivatives of PogChamp surfaced online like POGGERS, PogU, My Little PogChamp and KomodoHype. In 2021, the emote was banned following statements made by Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez about trump supporters during the January 6th Storming of the United States Capitol, resulting in a decision to remove the PogChamp emote from Twitch in early 2021.

Origin

The iconic image behind PogChamp was first seen in a Cross Counter TV video from 2010, which features an outtake of streamer and professional Street Fighter player Ryan Gutierrez, better known as Gootecks, making an exaggerated face with his mouth and eyes wide open in surprise after the cameraman bumped into his tripod and shook the camera (alongside fellow streamer Mike Ross). On November 26th, 2010, the outtake was uploaded to YouTube found below.

Though popularized on Twitch, the image is rumored to have originally surfaced on the website 4chan before spreading elsewhere. The image was used on 4chan within the gaming community shortly after the 2011 “Pogs Championship” video (shown below) was uploaded when users stripped stills of Gutierrez’s shocked face and began using these to express surprise or excitement throughout the website in a number of threads.

Spread

By 2012, Twitch added the now-famous face of the surprised Gutierrez from the original video to its pool of global emotes with the name “PogChamp.” As of January 2020, the emote is used on average over half a million times per day on Twitch^[1] but consistently spikes to over a million uses on certain days. After a massive boost to his renown as the image became widespread on the internet, Gutierrez boomed in popularity and later went on to sell merchandise around the image.

On the subreddit r/Twitch^[2], u/ThatSchmoDude42 posted the first entry on January 3rd, 2016, in the Twitch sub that explained the term "PogChamp" alongside a link to the original video.

YouTube channel theScore esports released a video discussing the story behind the Twitch emote back on May 26th, 2017 where resident meme expert Josh Bury takes a deep dive into PogChamp history. Since being uploaded, the video has garnered over 663,000 views despite releasing many years after the meme's origin.

Strongly associated with gaming culture and Twitch’s platform specifically, the meme has near-ubiquitous association as an expression of hype within these circles, but can now be seen as a reaction for many situations outside its gaming origins as both image and word.

Related Memes

Poggers

Poggers is a Twitch Emote featuring an image of Pepe the Frog with a surprised and excited emotion similar to the origin PogChamp. Like the MonkaS emote, it is one of the more notable Twitch emotes featuring Pepe. The emote (shown below) was submitted by Better Twitch TV^[5] on February 23rd, 2017. Over the course of three years, it was used by over 160,000 Twitch channels, becoming one of the most popular global emotes.

On January 28th, 2018, Urban Dictionary user Seltz^[6] posted a definition about the emote (shown below), explaining how the POGGERS emote is often used in place of the PogChamp emote.

PogU

PogU is a FrankerFaceZ extension Twitch Emote that uses a different image of Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez with his mouth open. On June 3, 2018, custom Twitch^[7] user Amiccuz submitted the PogU emote (shown below). It uses a still image of Gootecks facing the camera during a November 2010 YouTube^[8] video that is the original PogChamp video. The emote is commonly used instead of the PogChamp emote.

My Little PogChamp

My Little PogChamp refers to a catchphrase used in memes that addresses the viewer in an endearing manner, calling them "My Little PogChamp." The first meme to use "My Little PogChamp" was posted to Facebook^[9] on September 24th, 2020, by the page Smol, using fan art of Kill la Kill character Ryūko Matoi. The meme (shown below) received over 460 reactions and 400 shares in two months.

The catchphrase received viral popularity in September 2020 following a viral video that voiced over the meme. It was posted to Twitter on September 25th of that year by the user gothmei. However, this original tweet has since been deleted. Before deletion, it received over 236,000 views and 6,000 retweets and was later used en masse for bait-and-switch videos.

The "My Little PogChamp" original video was reposted to YouTube on September 25th, 2020, by the channel TORPE GAMING. The video (shown below) amassed roughly 232,700 views over the course of a year and a half.

PogChamp Twitch Ban

The PogChamp Twitch emote was banned from Twitch on January 6th, 2021, following comments made by Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez on Twitter regarding trump supporters and the January 6th, Storming of the United States Capitol. Gootecks posed a question on his Twitter^[3] regarding the woman who was shot and killed by police during the event (shown below).

At around 9 p.m. that same day, Twitch announced via a tweet^[4] that they’d made the decision to remove the PogChamp emote following the statements. They labeled Gootecks as provoking civil unrest and “encouraging further violence” (shown below).

24-Hour Rotation Solution

One of the solutions Twitch made to replace the PogChamp emote was called the "24-Hour Rotation Solution." On January 8th, 2021, Twitch announced it would be introducing a new "PogChamp" face every 24 hours, picking from popular streamers on the platform. The first face chosen was that of Kenny "Unroolie" McWild. The tweet announcing this plan (shown below) received roughly 89,500 likes over the course of one year.

Yo @Twitch suggestion for PogChamp: create a database of streamer and/or general faces. Whenever someone types PogChamp, display one of those faces at random. Would give a really nice crowd feel to a chat spamming PogChamp and allow the meaning to be tied to all of us instead.

— Sean Plott (@day9tv) January 7, 2021

KomodoHype

Another solution to the removal of the PogChamp emote was started organically within Twitch circles, when a new emote called the KomodoHype emote was championed as a replacement for PogChamp. The image used in the emote is a komodo dragon with its mouth wide open, similar to that of PogChamp's mouth being open. The emote was added to Twitch sometime in 2015, but of course, became notable after the removal of the PogChamp emote in early 2021, acting as a replacement for it (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References