© Ericksonvision, LLC

  • White Twitter Icon
  • White Instagram Icon

As Seen On or Quoted In

Pokémon NO

August 4, 2016

If you ever wanted an illustration of the devolution of society, two words: Pokemon Go. 


Hey, let's find a charmander! Look, over there, a magikarp!  Sweet mother of Jesus, a rhyhorn in your front yard! 


This is how we choose to spend our time. In a world with ISIS, warring political parties, and racial division, we instead choose to immerse ourselves in the pursuit of digital monsters. 


This ubiquitous augmented reality game has replaced actual reality. We're now a society of fantasy-obsessed drones with no grip on real life.


Last weekend, downtown Fort Worth, like a lot of American cities, resembled a Millachi Brothers demolition derby with cars dodging zombie-like Poke-disciples, faces buried in smartphones, wandering aimlessly into the streets. So oblivious to the world around them, they traversed Sundance Square without a care in the world, save for the one on their screens.


Pokemon NO.


Think that's bad? ​On Monday, cops busted a couple in Arizona and charged them with child endangerment alleging they left their 2-year-old son home alone so they could leave to play Pokemon Go. 

It's understandable. Why worry about a kid when there's a digletts to be found.


Then there's the group of miscreants who trampled Veterans Memorial Park in Winona, Minnesota.


Pokemon-chasing, disrespectful, millennial *ssholes (that's redundant, I know) have been setting up tents and overrunning the park. One Vietnam vet seeing the extraordinary disrespect tore into these idiots like a rabid wolverine after three days without food. "It’s not a f***ing campground! These are like f***ing gravestones right there!” 

Then a hipster-glasses-wearing, razor-fade-haircut-sporting, mocha-latte-drinking "pokey" (that's what I call them) called the vet a "crazy, old man."


One man proudly fought for his country, and the other searches for a fake monster, but the veteran is the crazy one?


So pervasive is Pokemon Go to these imbeciles that one of them had the unmitigated stones to proclaim he wouldn't mind getting punched in the face, if it could "get the veterans out of here."


When a moronic game app overrides civility, decency, and deference for our fallen veterans, then maybe it's time to reevaluate life.


Pokemon NO.


Sadly these incidents are indicative of a widespread world order, where rhyme, reason, and common sense are in short supply. ​Pokemon Go has drawn the ire of groups across the globe. The app has had among it's locations, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Arlington National Cemetery, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and other revered memorials. It's used fire stations, rail stations, churches, and places where people roam like they're on the way to see Bon Iver at Coachella.


Maybe societal issues are precisely why we care about Pokemon Go. It's an escape from an increasingly depressing world. 


But truthfully, what's more depressing than a life so vapid or void of purpose that a phone and a preoccupation with finding fake creatures is living?


Ferris Bueller said it best, and I'll take a liberty with his words and say perhaps these devotees should listen... "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop, put down your phone, step away from the Pokemon, and look around once in a while, you could miss it."


Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Please reload