Twitch’s BibleThump will soon go to emote heaven

Pretty soon, Twitch users will no longer be able to express their sadness with the BibleThump emote. According to Twitch, on September 30th, its rights to display the popular crying pink blob will expire after over a decade of being one of the foundational Twitch emotes along with Kappa, FrankerZ, and Pogchamp.

The BibleThump emote comes from The Binding of Isaac, a 2011 roguelike created by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. In the game, you play as Isaac who must make his way through procedurally generated dungeons fighting demons and monsters in order to escape his fanatical, homicidal mother. The game, based on the biblical tale of the same name, frequently features Isaac curled up in a ball sobbing as tears stream down his fleshy pink face, and thus the emote was born. BibleThump is frequently used as a way to express sadness or frustration, and it's been a global Twitch emote since 2013.

That decadelong run is apparently coming to an end as Twitch says its rights to the image expire in a couple of days. However, McMillen says might not have to end this way.

"I'm 100% fine with coming up with a good solution to keep or modify the emote," McMillen wrote on social media.

McMillen said he's open to Twitch renewing the rights, potentially indicating that the emote can stay if Twitch is willing to pay to keep it. However, Twitch - like a lot of tech companies these days - is undergoing a period of retraction. Twitch is no longer offering big streamers multimillion-dollar exclusivity deals. It discontinued service in South Korea - a country with a massive esports scene - because the cost to run there was "prohibitively expensive." The company has also undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and price increases with CEO Dan Clancy stating frankly that "we're not profitable." So, if BibleThump sticking around is an issue of price, Twitch just may not be willing to pay. Whatever the reason, McMillen made it clear it's on them.

"I'm not in control of the new Twitch policies so it's really up to them."