I’ve been thinking about this for a long time: How does the pokemon universe make any sense and why is it so compelling? Yes, it has animated cute monster violence that is digestible for small children 7-10, but why do so many older players come back to it? Is it nostalgia? Am I bored? Yes.
I did not play a lot of video games growing up, I guess in comparison to a lot of people who self identify as “gamers” so to speak. I had an older brother who played a lot of NBA2K so I was much more of a watcher and be told to shut up consumer of video game media than a player. One thing I did play, however, was pokemon on my gameboy that my brother gave me when my uncle got him a PSP in middle school. I found these little guys very compelling, despite my brother and friends protests that I was “playing it wrong” because I chose the pokemon on my team solely because they looked cool rather than if they were I guess good at the game with the right stats (form or function baby). With the drop of the newest Pokemon game for Nintendo Switch, the remake of Diamond and Pearl, coming out tomorrow, I think some of the quirks of the universe and world building have been back on the brain.
Over quarantine, in the throes of isolation depressive habits, the sun setting early, sleeping on the couch with my hat covering my eyes like a suburban father, and endless nights of easy throw-everything-in-a-wok-and-call-it-stirfry, my roommates showed me a 2016 online essay about the socialist and ecological harmony themes of Pokemon by Taylor Beck (https://www.theodysseyonline.com/is-pokemon-leftist-utopia). In short, the game, which has universal healthcare for both Pokemon and people, encourages children to travel alone?? Which they do I guess mostly safely, and heavily respects and drives to improve science, seems like a dream world. Minus the fact that the creatures they live in harmony with they also may duke it out for prize money and glory, the tried and true message of the series revolves around the bond you form with the natural order of the world, all those who inhabit it, and the society the game is built within is designed to support those themes (Every village has an identical nurse named Nurse Joy and every Police officer is an identical woman named Jenny???). While there are villains who try to warp this relationship with the world (Team Rocket or whichever it is in each region), they are defeated tirelessly, painted as silly, and often shown to learn their lesson.
So why do you care, as the reader, about my eating habits and my pokemon nostalgia? Well, the one-two punch fatal combo of Pokemon’s “leftist dreamworld” as Beck put it, combined with the down horrendous vibes of the last year, and dare we say entire life, make it all the more lethal form of game choice, since it combines childhood nostalgia and escapism from both my present, to my past, and also from the hellscape of late stage capitalism in the ongoing plague year(s). Is it so wrong to want to have a piplup and listen to “Punisher” on repeat? To eat almost bad veggies and beat the Gym leader for the umpteenth time while humming along to grammy nominated trauma? Maybe, the path forward for successful video game interaction with players is actually a reframing orientation backwards. How can nostalgia be revitalized to reimagine our futures? Why don’t we have pink haired nice nurse sisters who treat out wounds for free so I don’t have to beg for tylenol in the University library? Perhaps we’ll wait out the end days by climbing to Mt. Coronet… Nostalgia will save me from the apocalypse. Cue the Indie lyrics.
Driving out into the sun
Let the ultraviolet cover me up
Went looking for a creation myth
Ended up with a pair of cracked lips
Windows down, scream along
To some America first rap, country song
A slaughterhouse, an outlet mall
Slot machines, fear of God
Windows down, heater on
Big bolts of lightning hanging low
Over the coast, everyone’s convinced
It’s a government drone or an alien spaceship
Either way, we’re not alone
I’ll find a new place to be from
A haunted house with a picket fence
To float around and ghost my friends
No, I’m not afraid to disappear
The billboard said, “The end is near”
I turned around, there was nothing there
Yeah, I guess the end is here
The end is here
The end is here
The end is here
The end is here
sources cited:
I Know The End (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ9-xN6dCW4) lyrics by Phoebe Bridgers, Marshall Vore, Christian Lee Hutson, Conor M Oberst
Taylor Beck, https://www.theodysseyonline.com/is-pokemon-leftist-utopia
