On January 6, the day a pro-Trump supporter rebellion invaded the United States Capitol, Twitch removed the iconic PogChamp emote because the person portrayed made statements calling for more violence. Two days later, the company pledged to switch to a new version of PogChamp every 24 hours, which means that many streamers soon became the new face of the emote – but were sometimes subjected to harassment after their new prominence across the website.
On Friday, the Twitch community voted to crown a new face for PogChamp – and the winner is not the face of a streamer. It is a Komodo dragon. Here is what the emote looks like:
If you’ve participated in Twitch chats, you may recognize this emote: it’s the beloved KomodoHype. And I can see why he won the community vote. Although the original PogChamp was the exaggerated Twitch emote, I think the Komodo dragon’s face is even better expressing hype, especially with his shockingly huge mouth that somehow seems to be smiling.
KomodoHype was chosen instead of another excellent PogChamp made by streamer UmiNoKaiju. If you want to watch the full stream on voting, you can check it out on Twitch.