Why Twitch fans are upset over the new AI Christmas emote

Fans are bashing Twitch for allegedly using an AI-generated Christmas emote rather than giving the job to an artist.

The streaming platform Twitch has been in multiple controversies recently. These range from vtubers accusing the platform of discrimination to advertisers stopping ads because of the content being streamed. Twitch introduced a new political and sensitive content label to try and fix the second problem. However, it looks like the platform has no intention of staying off the news for negative things.

On November 7, 2024, Twitch displayed its CatintheChat emote for Christmas and it was met with instant backlash and claims that the emote was AI-generated.

Did Twitch use AI to generate the Christmas emote?

The new Christmas emote looks like it was AI-generated, but Twitch hasn’t responded to the allegations.

Twitch tweeted the new emote that streamers could earn for Christmas called CatintheChat, and fans immediately pointed out that it looks AI-generated. The emote features a cat with its mouth open wearing a Santa hat. While some found the emote to be cute, others accused Twitch of using AI rather than giving work to artists.

AI taking over the jobs of artists is a real threat and a huge fear among artists. Furthermore, Twitch has a huge amount of artists streaming on the platform. This has caused fans to claim that Twitch doesn’t care about its own streamers and would rather use AI to make content.

Twitch hasn’t responded to the allegations at the time of writing.  However, a community note has point out artistic direction in the emote that indicate it being artificially generated. The community note claims that the unnatural lightning in the cat’s eye and the smoothness of textures point towards the emote being created by a neural network.

Some fans even shamed Twitch by posting their own creations. One fan posted that they aren’t an artist but it took them only 10 minutes to crop a cat and put a hat on it. On the contrary, some fans have defended Twitch. They argue that it is normal for companies to use AI. They claim it isn’t just to save money but to ensure the resources are better used.

Regardless, the general consensus among fans appears to be that Twitch should have hired a proper artist rather than using AI. Streamers who want to earn the emote need to use the new shared viewers feature for a minimum of 15 minutes. Furthermore, the stream’s title needs to contain the hashtag HolidayHoopla.