Wait, Twitch licenses emojis? – Tubefilter

These days, most emotes used on Twitch are introduced by streamers, who either make the little emotion-expressing gremlins themselves or hire artists to draw them. Getting access to a streamer’s emotes is a major perk of subscribing to their channel, and using (or spamming…) said emotes can be big for community bonding. But back in the day, Twitch used to license emotes–and now the rights to one of its most popular are expiring.
BibleThump, a crying pink blob Twitch acquired in 2013 to celebrate the release of indie video game The Binding of Isaac, is considered one of Twitch’s OG emotes, alongside other cultural touchstones like Pogchamp and Kappa. It’s a global emote, so people can use for free it on any channel, and has become a universal symbol for tears of all kinds.
On Sept. 25, Twitch announced that at the end of this month, the deal it signed with The Binding of Isaac developers Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl expires, and it’ll have to remove…