YouTube 'Emotes’ Launched: How And Where To Use Colorful Twitch-Like Images

YouTube has started rolling out "YouTube Emotes", a large collection of colorful images. The feature is supposed to help users express themselves on the crowd-sourced video-sharing, social media platform. Let's look at the available details and places where YouTube Emotes could be useful.

YouTube Emotes Are "Fun, Static Images" For Communication

YouTube confirmed via a blog post the launch of YouTube Emotes. The platform indicated "YouTube Emotes" is a new way for users to express themselves with fun images across streams and comments.

"Emotes are fun sets of static images you can use across the platform to help build a sense of community, exclusively on YouTube."

Essentially, YouTube is offering a collection of emojis that can be used to comment or communicate. The feature is quite similar to the one already available on Twitch, a popular interactive platform for live-streaming content generated by users.

🚨 Now introducing YouTube Emotes!

🗣️ A great new way for @YouTubeCreators to react and express themselves via live chat

🎮 Current emotes are @YouTubeGaming themed - stay tuned as more emotes are coming for different communities 👀

🔍 More info: https://t.co/Wt5AkdKsox pic.twitter.com/FPuebEr5J5

— Neal Mohan (@nealmohan) December 6, 2022

YouTube has indicated that it will begin rolling out the Emotes feature with images that have been created for the "Gaming" segment. Gaming Emotes were created by independent artists Abelle Hayford, Guy Field, and Yujin Won.

YouTube will gradually add more themes and categories. The platform hasn't indicated if it is testing the Emotes feature with a small group or rolling it out in select regions. Hence, it appears YouTube is ready to offer the feature to all its users.

How To Use YouTube Emotes?

Nearly every virtual keyboard on a smartphone or tablet has a small button with a smiley icon. It usually opens up the emoji tab which has several types of emojis. These are usually arranged according to themes. YouTube Emotes should work in a very similar manner.

A smiley icon should appear in a live chat or comments section underneath a video in the YouTube app. Clicking on the icon should reveal all of the Emotes and emojis available.

YouTube emotes could be placed below any channel membership and custom emojis. YouTube has added that emotes also have names. Users can choose to start typing a name, and the platform will attempt to autocomplete an emote in live chat. For example, if a user types ":cat-orange-whistling:" in a live chat, then the respective Emote should appear.