Wait, Twitch licenses emojis?

Emotes are a universal presence on Twitch. They’re used by streamers and fans the same way you use emojis in text–to express some sort of emotion with a cutesy (or not so cutesy) miniature piece of art.

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 for everyone on the platform to use for free–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 BibleThump from its platform.

“The end of the BibleThump Era (2013-2024) is nigh!” it tweeted. “While this is sad news, we know that all emotes go to heaven. SPEAKING OF SAD – we’re going to need a new emote to spam these feelings…”

Twitch’s tweet comes off mournful, like BibleThump leaving is something it wants to prevent, but can’t, due to circumstances out of its control.

There’s just one issue: it can.

Shortly after its tweet went live, McMillen issued his own tweet. “For those wondering what happened with the Bible thump emote,” he said, “I’m 100% fine with coming up with a good solution to keep or modify the emote but I’m not in control of the new twitch policies so it’s really up to them.”

It’s not clear what “new Twitch policies” McMillen is referring to, but we’re wondering if those policies are quite simply that Twitch doesn’t want to pay to renew the rights to emotes anymore. In later tweets, McMillen confirmed he owns the rights to the BibleThump emote, and “would be 100% fine with [Twitch] renewing,” indicating that Twitch chose not to.

McMillen also said no one else bought the rights to BibleThump, so there’s nothing legal preventing Twitch from renewing–although it’s worth noting that he later retweeted a post from the ever-opportunistic Kick, which @’d him with a shot of BibleThump done up in its color palette and said, “we cooking?” So, Twitch may not only lose BibleThump, but lose it to what might be its biggest competitor.

It’s possible Twitch is choosing not to renew because it’s keeping a tighter rein on spending. According to its own CEO, the platform isn’t profitable, and it’s had an especially rough few years, with multiple rounds of layoffs and remaining staffers worried parent company Amazon is letting it morph into a “zombie brand” that’ll languish with no support or future feature developments. Twitch no longer offers the kind of exclusive, multimillion-dollar deals that once secured it livestreaming’s biggest stars, and completely ceased service in South Korea, claiming that continuing to operate in the country was “prohibitively expensive.”

One single emote license certainly doesn’t cost as much as an exclusive streaming deal with a top creator, but Twitch’s focus on tightening its books could be a motivating factor here.

We here at Tubefilter were told earlier this year that Twitch is pulling back on outside initiatives. We’re wondering if that pullback extends to contracting independent artists to make emotes, too, and if Twitch is hoping the established culture, where streamers are responsible for creating their own emotes, will carry it, without it needing to shell out any cash.