Pog Twitch Emote Meaning & Origin

Last Updated on 02/17/2023 by Dean

What does Pog mean on Twitch?

Pog is a variant of the PogChamp emote that can be used on Twitch through browser extensions BTTV and FrankerFaceZ. The Pog emote is a close-up of the original -now removed- PogChamp emote which used to feature Ryan ‘Gootecks’ Gutierrez’s face.

Pog means Play of the game and the POG emote is generally used when something clutch happens on a Twitch stream. If someone does something cool or impressive, the POG emote and its variants are spammed.

The word POG has taken a life of its own within the Twitch community and is often used in regular speech alongside pogchamp and poggers.

Since pog is an extension emote, it is only available through FrankerFaceZ and Better Twitch TV, if you have neither of these extensions installed, every time the chat is spamming the POG emote in chat it will just show up as regular text for you.

Read further: why you can’t see Twitch emotes

Return to all Twitch Emotes

Origin of the Pog emote on Twitch

The Pog emote is a variant based on the original PogChamp emote which was added to Twitch back in 2012. This variant was added to FrankerFaceZ and BTTV in 2018.

There isn’t much known about the origin of this particular emote, it’s just a close-up variant of the very popular and controversial PogChamp emote.

PogChamp is a global Twitch which until January 2021, featured Ryan Gutierrez’s face. This emote and its name, have a long history in the Twitch community.

Added in 2012, after Ryan made the infamous face expression during an interview. His expression, now known as PogChamp, was a reaction to the cameraman tipping over his tripod.

The emote instantly became popular and has pretty much always been in the top 5 used emotes on Twitch.

However, after a series of controversial tweets by the face, Ryan Gutierrez himself, Twitch was forced to remove his face from their website.

Twitch later re-uploaded the PogChamp emote with a lizard instead of Ryan’s famous expression.

You can read the full reason why PogChamp was banned in our PogChamp emote article.

How to get Pog emote on Twitch

If you want to get Pog on Twitch, you will have to install the Better Twitch TV browser extension. We have a separate article dedicated to the installation of BTTV. Here’s the TL;DR:

if you can't see the pog emote it is because you need the betterttv extension installed

Go to BetterTTV.com select your browser and download the browser extension, you can then see the emotes on supported Twitch channels.
To configure your BTTV options, head on over to the chat of any Twitch streamer (they don’t have to be live) and hit chat settings, where you can personalize your BTTV settings. You want to enable FrankerFaceZ emotes so you can see their emotes as well.

If you wish to add the Pog and other emotes to your OWN Twitch channel, you can do so by signing in to BTTV using your Twitch credentials and authorizing your Twitch account. Next, you can head over to the emote list and add Pog to your Twitch channel.

Afterward, your viewers will then be able to use the Pog emote on your Twitch channel and they will see it if they have BTTV installed as a browser extension (which the majority does already anyway).

When to use Pog on Twitch

If something clutch happens in a game, someone makes the play of the game, something cool happens on stream, you can spam the Pog emote in the chat.

Pog Variants

Emote	How to use this	Meaning
PogChamp	This is a global Twitch emote	PogChamp is the original emote. It used to feature Gootecks’ face but it was replaced by a lizard in 2021 due to controversy.
PogU	FrankerFaceZ / BTTV	PogU features Ryan’s face from a different angle. The emote is taken from the same video. PogU is used when something exciting happens on stream.
PauseChamp	FrankerFacez / BTTV
WeirdChamp	BTTV	WeirdChamp is used whenever you are in disbelief or are dissapointed.
PainsChamp	FrankerFaceZ / BTTV	PainsChamp is a close-up of Ryan Gutierrez’s face in a painful expression. This emote could be used to express pain but it’s mainly used in sarcastic manner.

Pog emote banned

Since the Ryan Gutierrez controversy, FrankerFaceZ has removed every emote based on the PogChamp emote and Gootecks’ face.

You can still see the Pog emote on BTTV.

BetterTTV (BTTV) leader Night says as of now they will NOT be removing any Pog emotes. “in general BetterTTV has never removed emotes due to controversies, and likely won’t as a result of this behavior. users have the ability of choice on our platform” https://t.co/3c5KSBuIUl
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) January 7, 2021