Back in September, Twitch declined to renew the usage contract for BibleThump, a popular emote that had been available to all users on its platform for over a decade. That decision sparked two main questions:
1. Why would Twitch willingly give up one of its OG universal emotes (and frame BibleThump’s loss as unavoidable)?
2. Was Twitch’s plan to give up entirely on introducing new emotes, instead relying on streamers to pay for custom emotes for their own individual communities?
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Although Twitch has yet to say exactly why it declined to renew BibleThump’s contract, we theorized the decision was a small part of overall belt-tightening, since Twitch has never been profitable and is reportedly under financial scrutiny from executives at parent company Amazon.
As for what Twitch would do for future emotes, there was no indication of its plans—until Dec. 6, when it introduced “CatintheChat,” a new universal emote that appears to be AI-generated.
Twitch dropped the new emote in a tweet where it announced expanded tools for its co-streaming function, including “boosted discoverability” for broadcasts with multiple participating creators. CatintheChat is meant to be a reward for streamers who embrace co-streaming: they can unlock it for their communities by co-streaming with one or more other creators for at least 15 minutes. (The group broadcast must also have merged chats turned on, so all streamers’ communities will be brought together in one single, big chat room for the duration of the ‘cast.)
If you thought the Holiday Hoopla was over, think again.
‘Tis the season for coming together like never before because Shared Chat now includes shared viewership. Get combined view count, boosted discoverability, and from Dec 6-13 a festive new emote named (jinglebells… pic.twitter.com/m8YRqY7Ecz
— Twitch (@Twitch) December 7, 2024
The emote is an orange kitten in a Santa hat, and it bears some pretty obvious hallmarks of AI, like whiskers that spring from nowhere and overly-glossy, mismatched eyes.
It faced immediate backlash from both streamers and viewers, with top most-liked replies asking Twitch why it chose to use AI instead of hiring one of the artists who make a living streaming their work sessions on its site.
“You literally have thousands of artists on your platform you could have chosen to lift up and celebrate by letting one of them create an emote for this, but instead you slapped them in the face by choosing AI,” VTuber LeeandLie replied.
Streamer/game developer PirateSoftware chimed in, “You have a community of creatives that would have jumped at the chance to make a global emote. This could have been handled with a contest or tapping any of the many artists on the platform. Generative AI gives a worse product and makes you look like a clown.”
Yall better get rid of your art category on twitch if yall are pulling this AI shit
— Buffpup VCHIBAN✨ (@Buffpup_) December 7, 2024
It’s genuinely disappointing to see this with SO many artist using and supporting the platform.
Please consider rolling this back.
Help support artists that continue to keep people coming back to Twitch by designing emotes, panels, stream assets and MORE.— ENVI Sheep Vtuber (@Envi_vt) December 7, 2024
You have sooooo many emote artist on your platform that would be so happy making a global emote, why do this?
— Niikiya ✿ | emote artist (@Niikiya_art) December 7, 2024
sometimes i really wonder what’s wrong with you guys, holy moly..
— Shylily (@shylilytwitch) December 7, 2024
You have an entire huge community and money making category for Art, it would be best if you didn’t use AI for emotes, maybe hire one of the many humans that stream under you?
— Kitty-Bit Games & Cosplay~ (@kitty_bit_games) December 7, 2024
I’m an artist who streams art on Twitch, and I’ve had a wonderful time building a community here, for which I’m truly grateful to Twitch That being said, I feel a bit disappointed seeing an AI-generated emote like this. In the meantime, if you’re looking for something custom,… pic.twitter.com/i0yuQIE56l
— (@osushichan6) December 7, 2024
When there are unbelievably talented emote artists dying for commissions during the holidays, this is such a slap in the face failure.
— Kenny Roy (@KennyRoy) December 7, 2024
One commenter seemingly brought up Kai Cenat‘s recent subathon, which closed with an estimated $3.6 million in total earnings:
Twitch just made a cool million from one person’s stream but can’t even spend 100$ on making something NOT ai.
This, right here, is why your users don’t trust your management.
— Dog | Subathon Dec 1st-30th (@TheDogVT) December 8, 2024
If Cenat’s revenue split with Twitch is 70/30 (which is likely), then that means this person is right: Twitch might have made just over $1 million from his subathon alone. For context, that’s 1/667th of the ad revenue it made in all of 2023.
Twitch has not said whether CatintheChat was made with AI. It hasn’t issued any public statement about the emote, nor about the flood of negative responses. The emote appears to still be live on Twitch’s platform, and is earnable for all streamers.
The replies to its announcement of this emote are a good distillation of what some creators think about the steadily growing usage of AI by major platforms. YouTube has been bullish about AI for over a year now, and creator services companies like Spotter have revamped their entire business models to focus on generative products. New companies have sprung up, too, with the goal of using AI in creative fields. Both platforms and individual companies have been careful to broadcast a “creator first” message, saying their AI offerings are meant to support creators, not supplant them—and there are plenty of creators on board with that message who are happy to work AI into their processes.
But in cases like this, it’s a clear example of supplanting. Twitch used to pay artists to make emotes. Now—at least this time—it isn’t. That loss of income for one emoji-maker represents anxiety faced by millions of artists around the world who are watching once-potential employers and clients choose AI over paying for human-made work.
