Pokémon

Alexander Steinberg, an 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker managed to put together a video that encourages us all as an audience to take a minute, and ask ourselves, 'why does Pokémon GO! matter?'

Does it really? Or is there something more meaningful, impactful 'afoot? Is it the game's ability to unite strangers that'd otherwise never cross paths? One quote captured in the video sticks out in particular:

“You know my favorite part about this? Number one my brother and I used to play this as kids. He ends up passing away,” CrobinMaxxis said, pointing up. “He’s up there still, still, having a better fuckin’ collection than I do. But all the violence in the world, brutality, all this fucking racism. Look around here. You see this?” he said, gesturing to the crowd. “Not a single one is the same. Everyone is having a good time. This is what the world needs now.”

Courtesy of Set Phasers To LOL, a breakdown of the biggest fan communities around the internet. Click the image to embiggen!

Catch them all right here!

No seriously catch them all.

I'll wait until you get back.

Tell you what man, these guys certainly don't seem to hold anything back when it comes to exploring the outer boundaries of dark humor. Here's another one of their videos:



Wonder what they'd make of that whole time Koffing started popping up in the Holocaust Museum a bit ago...

Much of the Pokémon GO coverage thus far has been centered on whether or not Niantic's finally going to get it's sh*t together with server issues, if Articuno is actually legit in-game, and a steady procession of people making stupid mistakes/hurting themselves cause they were caught up in trying to catch their 170th Magikarp.

But today, today we've got a quick little heartwarming Pokémon GO story for you: 

Arizona resident Angie Swartout and her autistic son, Ty, were busy enjoying playing Pokémon GO together when they were approached by two male Arizona State University students in Tempe Beach Park, who sprayed the two with BBQ sauce and then yelled, '“Yeah, we got the [r-word]!”

After the terrible incident, Angie Swartout's daughter took to the Pokémon GO Facebook page to ask others to unite and take a stand against such immoral behavior.

“If you see something like this happen, please don’t stand idly by. Even if you can’t do anything about the people that did it, help the family. My poor mother had to wash her and my brother off with a bottle of water. She was humiliated. And for what??? She had no reason to be humiliated, but those 2 ASU students certainly need to be embarrassed by their behavior today.”

This post inspired a wealth of hugs and gifts from compassionate neighbors in the Tempe area. Angie Swartout told ABC15:

“I’m so grateful. I’m just so grateful because if this wouldn’t have happened, we would still be hiding in our house like a lot of families like ours do. And I just can’t thank everyone enough.” 

I remember those days fondly. We would sit by at the beach after a long night of talking and laughing, trading stories about our Pokemon journeys long into the night. We would recount our victories, our failures, our missed chances at catching shiny Pokemon. The sound of lonesome waves lapping the shore in a natural syncopation. And in the morning, we'd see a beautiful Pikachu sunrise.