Twitch, the popular livestreaming platform owned by Amazon, removed 36 global emotes on January 7. This sudden purge surprised many users because it included well-known emotes such as PotFriend, PoroSad, HungryPaimon, KEKHeim, and WhySoSerious. Two emotes linked to Kai Cenat’s channel were also removed without official explanation. Livestreaming reporter Zack Bussey first shared the news on X and speculated, "...Pure Speculation, but many of these look like third-party characters that maybe they had some sort of licensing deal with... so that is one possible reason for this purge." Fans had mixed feelings. X user @hannahvtuber demanded, "BRING BACK POT FRIEND THIS INSTANT." Streamer Kair said, "awww I love PoroSad." Meanwhile, @pocks_pocket was happy to see some emotes go: "I'm so glad that KEKHeim emote is gone, kept getting in the way of KEKW in tab-to-complete." The full list of removed emotes includes AndalusianCrush, BangbooBounce, CaitlynS, ChewyYAY, DarthJarJar, DarkKnight, FC26GOOOAL, FallCry, FallHalp, FallWinning, FamilyMan, FlawlessVictory, ForSigmar, Getcamped, HarleyWInk, HungryPaimon, IronmouseLuv, KEKHeim, KingWorldCup, Lechonk, LionOfYara, Mafiathon3, MechaRobot, McDZombieHamburglar, MegaphoneZ, NiceTry, NRWylder, PikaRamen, PogBones, PopGhost, PoroSad, PotFriend, RyuChamp, StreamerU, WhySoSerious, and ZLANsup. Although these emotes are gone, others remain popular. StreamElements reports SMOrc leads with over 9 billion uses, followed by emotes like x0pashL, forsen5G, suwieOwO, homyLol, cuviTest, TriHard, LUL, smolFine, and chipsaKEK.