Twitch Unveils New Animated Emotes To Liven Up Chats

Livestreaming platform Twitch announced on Friday that it will soon support dynamic animated emotes ahead of its 10 year anniversary.

Calling emotes the “unofficial (but official) language of Twitch,” the company said that the new animated chat function will be available to Partners in a few weeks and to Affiliates by the end of the year. Creators can add up to five new animated emotes as a benefit to their top tier subscribers and can manage these assets from the emotes page.

Creators will be able to upload custom GIFs to animated slots, or easily add one of six preprogramed animations to an existing emotes, including Shake, Rave, Roll, Spin, Slide In and Slide Out.

Twitch said it was also experimenting with Follower Emotes and will be making these available in the beta testing phase to Partners and Affiliates. “This new tier of channel emotes lets creators grow their communities by offering viewers a fun, free benefit to hitting the ‘Follow’ button,” the company said. “Follower Emotes can only be used on the channel in which they are unlocked.”

Additionally, the company is rolling out an “Emote Library” to help creators better manage their digital assets. “Creators will be able to control which emotes are active and assign them to different tiers, all from one place,” Twitch said.

Last month, Twitch updated its platform with 350 new tags to promote gender diversity and also added a dedicated “Pools, Hot Tubs and Beaches” section.