Playing Pokemon Go on my college campus is an absolutely surreal experience. Hundreds (I’m not exaggerating) of grown ass adults, walking around at 1am with their phones out, all completely confident in the knowledge that they are participating in a group activity. The corroboration is effortless. A dozen Pokestops with activated lures lit up the area with a drizzle of flower petals. Shouts of “I got it!” and “Yeah team ____!” filled the air. A group of people passing by you in the opposite direction would excitedly tell you where all the coolest Pokémon were. “There’s a growlithe up by Parker Hall!” A couple would race by to try and catch a scyther before their phones died. It’s just so pure and innocent and magical.
But perhaps the best part of all is when my mother called me, from many states away, to tell me about how my autistic sister voluntarily left the house to walk around and catch Pokémon.
There’s a very old graveyard next to my uncle’s house that happens to have (apparently rare?) Pokémon. As caretaker of the lot, which has a LOT of cool texas history associated with it, he doesn’t see a ton of people come visit because it’s out in the middle of nowhere.
But recently, there’s been truckloads of college kids, teens, families, and grandparents all coming by to catch Pokémon. Some just pass through, but many accept his offer of a Coke and a lawn chair to sit and talk for a while. Once pokémon have been successfully acquired, he starts to tell them the cool history of the area, and the visitors are fascinated.
People have sent him emails and called him later, asking for more details and doing their own research on the battles fought there and the people who died. There’s now a Facebook page about it? It’s a thing-catch pokémon but more importantly ask the caretaker about Texas blood feuds.
And like, you see so much negativity about how games distract and people are mindless drones because of them. But a video game brought dozens and dozens of people to my uncle’s plot and gave him an audience of interested listeners who are taking that knowledge back to their own communities and spreading the word to come visit.
Like, y’all. This is honestly the coolest thing.
The possibility of this kind of thing being on offer is the first thing that’s made me really want to play the game.
I spent an hour messing with assholes on Pokemon Go today
I sat at the campus gym for like, half an hour whittling its prestige down so I could take it over, then just as I did, some random red dude sniped it from under me. So I healed up and cleared him out of there with a sound beating, but before I could get anyone in the gym, his buddy stuck a pokemon in there. It took some careful timing, but I eventually managed to stick a random flareon in there (I have so many flareon, guys. It’s a problem. I just want a jolteon or vaporeon. Either one would do. Just not another flareon, please)
So naturally, the guy starts fighting the flareon to take it out, but this time, I was ready. As soon as he wiped out the flareon and the gym turned grey, I struck. I stuck another flareon with the same nickname and nearly the same cp in there.
Cue “WTF is this piece of shit glitchy game doing?” reaction from the guy. "I beat it, why is that thing still there?“ Meanwhile, I healed up my first flareon, so when he tried again, I just stuck it back in the gym. After a few times, the timing got really easy. He beats flareon, I stick the other in, heal while he’s fighting, rinse and repeat.
I was just gonna let it go after a few repetitions, but then his buddy said “Maybe it’s that girl over there doing it?” and he replied “No, can’t be, girls suck at Pokemon.”
Bitch, it is on.
I kept it up for half an hour until he ran out of healing items and had to storm away frustrated that he couldn’t seem to capture this “glitchy” gym.
You wanna be a gym sniping asshole? Fine, I’ve got better things to do. You want to be a sexist dudebro asshole? I will destroy you and everything you love.