*excerpts from “Pokémon Fever: The Real Monsters Were Us”
[Part I: Catching the Bug]
“If a kid considers trading Pokémon cards the very best way to spend recess, who are adults to tell them it’s not? And what about the autistic or socially hesitant kids who want to interact with their peers, but find open-ended, non-rule based social exchanges overwhelming and unpredictable, and for whom Pokémon trading cards […] provide a safe and non-anxiety-provoking way to do so?”
—Shannon Des Roches Rosa, “Why was Pokémon Banned from my Daughter’s School?” (March 19th, 2015)
I was almost eight in 1999 and Pokémon Fever had already begun. It wasn’t something I noticed or knew about and I was not waiting for it on release day. I kept my head down when I was young and I rarely knew what other kids were doing until it was already out of fashion. Pokémon was something that spread quickly because of word of mouth, but I didn’t talk to anyone and they didn’t talk to me. I was a very unpopular eight year old.
Lots of things about my development worried my parents, but my solitude worried them the most. Their only child spent all their time alone in the house playing make-believe with simple objects. Cups, soap, the core of a doorknob, whatever. I couldn’t hold a real conversation to save my life. I talked extensively to stuffed animals, but clammed up around other kids. Other kids made me anxious. But I did have one friend, a best friend, that somewhat mitigated my parents’ concerns: a girl my age with wealthy parents named Nancy.
My family was poor and got by on the basics, but Nancy’s family had rolls of bread with dinner every night. That was crazy to me. It was like a restaurant - with a basket and everything. My parents let me go over there a lot because they thought it was important to nurture my only friendship, but also because I got fed. Nancy was a leader and I was a follower, so we got along easily. I was happy to watch her play Tony Hawk or stand guard while she snooped around in her older brother’s room. If Nancy was the hero, I was the faithful sidekick, and I was very comfortable in this position. That is why we were friends. I liked her because she didn’t ask much of me.
Nancy’s father was a successful carpenter with a lot of local pull. He also sold cocaine, but we didn’t know that yet. Every childhood fantasy was something real for her: a trampoline, a treehouse, a hot tub, internet that let you use the phone at the same time, dirt bikes, paintball guns, skateboards, surfboards, scooters, roller blades, drum sets, electric guitars, DVD players, game systems, a finished basement with a pool table and a real slot machine, dartboards, poker chips, Super Soakers, remote controlled helicopters; she had been to every state in her family’s RV and had been parasailing, rock climbing, snorkeling, bungee jumping, horseback riding, and even gold panning. She and her four older brothers had everything. They did everything. It was incredible.
Nancy loved to impress people, especially me, with the next big thing. Hanging out with Nancy usually meant seeing or doing something I had never done before. She always had it first, she always did it best, and she introduced me to more new experiences than I could count.
Except Pokémon.
I learned about Pokémon while taking a walk with my father in the blocks surrounding my neighborhood. Our walks were spontaneous and stressful, but I complained less about walking than bike-riding. My father and I didn’t share anything together. He was the authority figure in the house who usually had to play the “bad parent”, and being around him always felt like it was ten seconds to impact. Since he and I had nothing to talk about, we spent our walks in silence.
One particular walk, we passed a kid named David. I went to school with him. He was a weird looking boy whose lower lip protruded too far from his face. He spoke loudly and always wore sweaters, even when it was hot. That day, he was sitting on the curb fixated on something I hadn’t seen before. My father noticed me looking over my shoulder after we had walked past and we came to a sudden stop.
He asked if I knew him. I said no. David looked up and greeted me by name. I blushed. Terrific.
Much to my anxiety, my father told me to go talk to him. He always did stuff like this, as if all my problems would evaporate if he gently suggested I “go play”. Not wanting to get in trouble or offend this kid I barely knew, I indulged them both and glanced at the first Game Boy I ever saw.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s Pokémon,” he said with emphasis, insinuating I was stupid.
“What is that?” I asked again, stupidly.
“It’s a game.”
My brain sketched images of Connect Four and Hangman. I hated this conversation, especially since my dad was watching. Not knowing what else to say, or how long I would be under my father’s microscope, I resigned to the circumstances and asked if I could play too. My worst fear was being realized: I had to play with another kid.
He handed me his Game Boy and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My palms started sweating and I was afraid I would drop it on the pavement. The expectation of Connect Four exploded as my mind scrambled to process this new stimulus. There were little houses. Little people. Water and flowers and fences. I didn’t know what to do. I pressed down on the D-Pad and the character moved. This was like nothing I had ever imagined and I only pressed one button.
I was mesmerized. I walked around in-game and pressed buttons and listened to the chiptunes. Even hearing the noise that played when you ran into a wall was thrilling to me. David kept asking for his Game Boy back, but I kept telling him to hang on while I tried to make more happen on the tiny screen. As David’s demands got terse, my father said to give back the toy and that it was time to get going.
Reflexively and thoughtlessly, I tried to hand the Game Boy to my father instead of back to David. My father didn’t move. He didn’t go to take it or laugh or speak or anything. He just looked past the Game Boy and stared hard down at me. David, too, seemed unamused as he snatched back his Pokémon and returned to his perch on the curb. I had an uncanny ability to embarrass myself in public. This moment of confusion was no exception.
As we walked away, I was glad that my father and I didn’t talk to each other. I wouldn’t have known what to say. I wouldn’t have been able to describe what I was thinking or feeling. I got lost in my own imagination, seeing that tiny fenced in area where I bumped into walls and fished up a Magikarp. I had to have one too. I had to have Pokémon. I had to see what was beyond the fence.
The next time I saw Nancy, I told her all about it… She had already heard of Pokémon, but was not of the mind that it mattered. She tried to one-up David by demonstrating Sonic Adventure. But I didn’t care about Sonic. I cared about that little guy who could fish on David’s Game Boy. I wanted to be that little guy. She felt rejected and disappointed that all I cared about was Pokémon when she had “full-color 3D Sonic the Goddamn Hedgehog on her motherfucking Dreamcast.”
Nancy swore a lot.
Before the school year started again, I got a Game Boy.
[Part II: Showing Symptoms]
"And though she has been going to school with and playing with the same group of kids for almost six years, and had only been playing Pokémon at school for two months, she assured me the ban has all her friends asking, “what are we going to do during recess now?”
—Shannon Des Roches Rosa, “Why was Pokémon Banned from my Daughter’s School?” (March 19th, 2015)
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“The school said in a letter to parents: “Please can you ensure that your child does not bring Pokémon cards into school.
“Many young children do not really understand the concept of swapping cards, and this is much better undertaken at home, with parental supervision.”
It is not the first time a school in the UK has banned Pokémon cards, which peaked in popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s.”
–Anna Roberts, Crime Reporter, “Brighton School’s Ban on Pokémon” (May 13th, 2013)
Pokémon consumed my school district. All other hobbies and activities took a backseat and how much you mattered was dictated by your relationship to the brand. It didn’t matter who you were before. The social reset meant nobody was too cool for Pokémon, but Pokémon could be too cool for you. If you didn’t play the game then you were a nobody. You were invisible. As more kids bought into the system, the kids who didn’t just disappeared.
Pokémon’s first and most basic divide was between kids who had Red Version and kids who had Blue Version. Friends often bought the same one, and everyone who bought that version became a circumstantial associate. Your cartridge color indicated who you ran with, so you wore your color proudly.
Rivalry wasn’t hostile yet, but it was distinct. Advocating your color choice was personal because you were also defending your faction. Kids always championed their own version as the better one for arbitrary reasons (like that Charizard was a cooler Pokémon or Blue was a better color palette). But the real, measurable reason for the rivalry was also the first form of commerce: the version-exclusive Pokémon. Red Kids and Blue Kids needed each other to finish their Pokédex.
Red ended up the more popular version because Scyther and Arcanine were more popular than Pinsir and Ninetales, but you were kidding yourself if you pretended you didn’t want them all. This was designed to encourage friendly interaction and mutual benefit between fans. This was not what happened in my school.
Red Kids and Blue Kids were loyal to their comrades, which meant evaluating players from the other team before you indulged a request. Although you acted independently, your actions reflected on the group, and you didn’t want to compromise the prestige of your color by devaluing its assets. It didn’t take long for trades for version-exclusives to become extremely political maneuvers.
If you wanted an Electabuzz, you had to pay for it. If the person willing to go all the way to the Power Plant and catch you an Electabuzz already had a Victreebel, you’re outta luck. They’re not going to waste their time if you couldn’t offer something new or precious. The players with more always held sway over the players with less. When a powerful kid expressed a desire, the lower class raced to fulfill it. One player would get lucky, the rest would get nothing. Other times the kid who got their first would find themselves bullied and coerced into a trade they weren’t expecting. Lots of kids just stayed quiet and forever went without trading.
I got Pokémon later than most kids, but still early enough to get ahead of some others. I had a good team and had lots of time to catch rarer Pokémon in the Safari Zone. This gave me some clout, but not a lot. Everybody could catch these guys and it was getting harder and harder to impress people with these finds.
I had Red Version and I wanted a Meowth.
Meowth was one of my favorite Pokémon, which motivated my acquisition more so than Pokédex completion. I spent weeks trying to catch one, but it never appeared. After so much frustration and desperate effort, my personal investment in getting one was very high. Someone finally tipped me off that they could only be caught in Pokémon Blue, which meant I would need to talk to Ronny.
Ronny had Blue Version and was a total jerk to me, but not all the time. I preferred a snide remark from him than a kickball to the face from somebody else, at least. He’d made a name for himself as a picky salesman who wasn’t willing to let his coveted catches go for simple swaps. Blue Kids, with their smaller numbers, traded their hot commodities selectively. Ronny took that to the Nth degree. He hooked a lot of kids up with the monsters they wanted, but his demands got bigger as his Pokédex expanded. He was the mad king of Pokémon Blue, but he was still my best chance to get a Meowth.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but his demands were completely unreasonable. You see, Ronny had a problem: he was terrible at catching Pokémon.
He wanted an Articuno. He didn’t save his game before his personal encounter and lost the wild one to poison before he could catch it. Lacking legendaries meant you were a quantifiably lesser trainer than your peers, so people didn’t trade one-shots like that. They were trophies as much as teammates, and Ronny didn’t want the big bird as much as he wanted to reverse his status as a failed trainer.
Getting my Meowth out of anybody would have been difficult before, but it was definitely impossible now. Even if you refused, a proposition by Ronny was considered a pending transaction. Kids of both colors would embargo me out of principle. Feeling cornered, and not wanting to be one of those kids who never got anything they wanted, I accepted his trade that afternoon.
The next few days were rough: I was known as the kid who traded away an Articuno for a Meowth. Ronny inflated the story into some sort of charming grift he had pulled that made me look even dumber than I felt. I was happy to have my Meowth, but the buyer’s remorse was humiliating. The loss of status was not worth the zoological gain. Worse, a request to trade with others netted jeers and jabs. As the village idiot, associating with me was now a liability. Trades took time and I wasn’t worth anybody’s time.
I devised a plan to steal my Articuno back. It was the kind of nefarious idea that only a lust for vengeance could fuel. Ronny took his Game Boy with him everywhere and guarded it closely. When we were in class, he would compulsively reach into his desk and touch it to make sure it was still there. Under normal circumstances, he would be untouchable. But Ronny sat next to Nancy, and Nancy would do anything to impress someone. Especially me.
Nancy’s Game Boy was white, like Ronny’s, and I proposed she carefully swap hers for his during class. We would then meet in the bathroom, reverse the trade, and switch the Game Boys back. Likelihood for success seemed low, but the first part was the hardest, and we could circumvent the one-kid-at-a-time bathroom rule by playing the “it’s an emergency” card.
It took a while to muster the courage, but the plans were laid and the day arrived. I glared at Ronny across the classroom and felt my link cable burning in my pants pocket. I was still psyching myself up when Nancy shot her hand in the air and asked to go to the bathroom. She had already made the switch.
Once she was gone, I claimed an excretory emergency, and rushed to meet her in the girl’s bathroom. She was ready, poised to trade, just like we had planned. We got connected and Nancy put up the Articuno.
I was very nervous and considered my options here. If I just traded him back the Meowth, everything would be back how it was before. But I didn’t like how it was before. If I traded him something else, something useless, all Ronny would lose was a Meowth. Certainly I deserved to keep the cat after what I had gone through. That’s no big deal, I thought.
I put up a Nidorina, which wasn’t exactly garbage, but something I could replace if I wanted to. Nancy didn’t even blink. She accepted the trade conditions and the lengthy trade animation began. This was the time it took to complete a trade. This was the time most kids didn’t want to waste on me.
I thought about all the players who made fun of me and all the status Ronny got at my expense. This could be my only chance to get ahead, I thought. This could be my only chance to shuffle the cards. I told Nancy we were going to keep going.
“Cool,” she said.
We siphoned Ronny’s best Pokémon out of his game and into my own. We were starting to run late, but this was a limited opportunity. I took his legendaries. I took his starter. I took his Pokémon with tricky evolutions. I took his unspoiled Eevee.
Ronny had a habit of releasing Pokémon he didn’t want once he got the confirmed catch in his Pokédex. His first PC box wasn’t even full, which meant there were only around twenty creatures to plunder. It may not have been much, but it was top-shelf stuff, and I didn’t feel finished until there was nothing left to take.
“Cool,” I said. We went back to class separately.
I got back first, took my seat, and resumed glaring at Ronny. He put his hand in his desk, peeked down at Nancy’s Game Boy, and unsuspectingly returned to posture. But I was nervous, what would Nancy say if she got caught? We were so close. It was the perfect time for something to go wrong. I was sure that it would. Nancy appeared in the doorframe and my heart sank. She would fail the final switch. I was sure of it.
But then, to my complete and utter disbelief, Ronny got up to sharpen his pencil. It was a Pokémon pencil, covered in teeth marks and Pikachus, and the old-school sharpener ate the whole thing as he tried to get it to sharpen more than one side of the point. In the meantime, Nancy made the switch. He returned to his seat, compulsively touched his newly returned Game Boy, and it was over.
Total success.
Ronny’s reputation was annihilated after that. He told everyone his game had been hijacked, but didn’t know what to say when they asked what happened. His conspiracy theories weren’t compelling to his peers and their impatience made him irritating. He tried to salvage his save file with the Pokémon he had left, but they were undesirable combatants and he simply wasn’t good enough at the game to turn things around. Desperate, he resorted to playground promises of unseen Pokémon and secret locations to encourage charitable trades. When he failed to produce any of the secret content he claimed to have found, Ronny was ruined.
Frustrated by all the refusals and cold shoulders, he finally broke down crying at recess. It was one of those uncomfortable situations where all the kids pretended not to look even as they formed a gawking perimeter. He sat flush against the side of the school, crossed his arms to hide his face, and cried into his knees. One of the teachers went over to see what was wrong, but he wouldn’t talk to her. He kept sidling a few inches away and groaning at her when she tried to get close. She touched his shoulder to comfort him and he reflexively whipped his arm out and slapped her in the neck. That was game over.
Ronny didn’t come to school for the rest of the week. When he did come back, he didn’t have his Game Boy. He wasn’t allowed to play Pokémon anymore. Ronny fell off the map.
But Nancy and I had been sloppy. After the scheme, Ronny had resumed his game in front of the NPC that initiates trades instead of where he left off. Furthermore, one of the Pokémon I dumped in his game had a nickname he came to recognize as one of mine. He never said anything, but he would give me the same angry glare that I used to give him. I tried not to let it bother me, but I knew that he knew.
