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Everyone Calm Down About Pokemon Go

By Christina Roberts

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Pokemon Go has taken over the world, or so it feels. We’re here to talk both sides of the argument.

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Since the release of Pokemon Go, it feels like I’m back in elementary school. Not in the way that Pokemon is the hot new thing everyone is playing, more in the way that I used to get made fun of for loving Sailor Moon.

If you’ve somehow been hiding under a rock for the past month, let me give you the cliff notes. Niantic launched a gaming app, Pokemon Go, that makes its players have to explore the world around them while playing. You wander around your neighborhood, the local mall/park/industrial drive and track down Pokemon that pop up on your map. You can also get Pokemon from eggs that hatch only after you walk a certain distance. It became a phenomenon in a matter of days. And the internet loves and hates its cultural phenomenons.

It’s all of this backlash on social media that has me feeling like I’m in elementary school. I loved Sailor Moon when I was seven, but popular culture? Not so much. You had to scavenge for toys or anything related to it. My mom used to drive me to the Toys R Us off the 401 in Windsor, Ontario nearly every Saturday because they actually had dolls and accessories (side note: I live in Michigan). I had tennis shoes, I had shirts, I loved that dang show, but the kids at school didn’t love it like I did.

I play Pokemon Go, maybe not as hardcore as others. It’s a fun way to kill some time. But when I scroll through my Facebook feed in the evenings, I see post after post of people complaining about others playing the game.

It’s posts on the right that crop up quite often that fill me with momentary rage because it lumps anyone playing the game into a group of twenty-somethings living in their parents’ basement without a job.

Not every single person playing this game is a jobless Millennial. I’m a twenty-something married woman with a full-time, salaried job. This “stupid game” makes me actually take walks in the evenings with the husband after a nine-hour work day instead of sitting on my couch eating potato chips and watching Stranger Things on Netflix for a third time.

Not all new things are bad. This one helps plenty of people get outside and get active when they struggle to find a reason to leave their house. C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan is using it to help their patients either leave their beds or kill some waiting time.

It’s not all idiots walking off piers or getting hit by cars. The media leads many to believe it happens more often than it really does. It’s just a game for people to enjoy.

On the other hand, I get how annoying this game is to those not playing it. If you’re an avid park-goer or a runner who does much of their running in a park, it may feel a little bothersome to see groups of people wandering around, lost in their phones. I walked to a nearby park the other night just to hit a few PokeStops, hatch an egg or two, and was surprised by the amount of people, my age and younger, in little clusters roaming through the park, yelling about Poliwhirls.

It’s a little obnoxious for sure.

It’s hard to make the opposing argument without sounding irritable, bitter, and a little like Liz Lemon: there’s more people wandering around on the streets in cities! Too many people glued to their phones! Yet another silly reason for people to ignore the world around them!

In all seriousness, public places like malls and parks look noticeably more crowded. Central Park has looked like this. People have been so absorbed in the game that they’ve walked off of piers, walked into traffic, stopped randomly in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

But what might be the most unbelievable thing is people playing in places like the Arlington National Cemetery. The Cemetery even put out a statement:

It feels like common sense not to play the game at such a respected location. There are boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed for the sake of a game. The same goes for wandering into someone’s backyard at night in search of a Snorlax. It’s not worth it.

There’s no winning in this argument. Both sides have their solid reasonings. Case in point: while that park I went to was obnoxiously crowded for a Wednesday evening, a fair amount of the crowd was parents with their young kids who were so excited to hunt for Pokemon. It was heartwarming to see.

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A coin has two sides, people. No amount of comments on articles or internet memes will make people stop complaining. Can’t people just complain about what they want in peace? And can’t we just enjoy our silly games in peace? A happy medium lies somewhere; we just need to find it.

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