It's just past dark, it's 90 degrees, and Josh and I are trudging through shin high grass on someone else's property in the rain. Why? Because there was a Bulbasaur nearby. By this point, we had been hunting for over three hours, we were pouring sweat, and we had walked three miles. We had a blast. I hadn't played outside so much in years.
We each caught an Abra on the street outside my house. I nearly tripped over an Ekans that took three of my pokeballs. Josh snuck up on a Venonat and caught it in one shot. I won a gym battle, but at the cost of the health of my poor Venusaur, Hugo. I left my Eevee, Bell, to guard the gym while I'm away. We went home victorious and smiling like overgrown kids.
We knew the creatures weren't really there and that we were running around the woods chasing pixels on a screen, but it was real enough for us. I wish I could say that that I've always loved Pokemon and dreamed of catching them as a kid, but that would be untrue. My parents didn't let me watch it or play it as a kid, so I just got into Pokemon 3 years ago, my freshmen year of college. My boyfriend and I watched all of indigo league and I fell in love with Pokemon.
I'm still no Pokemon master or an expert in any way, but I think that Pokemon Go might just be the cure to the 90’s kid nostalgia that my generation seems to suffer from. It mixes virtual and physical reality in a way that makes you want to pack your bags and start your journey to become the best Pokemon trainer in the world. Or at the very least, to get outside and run around for a while.
It also seems to have an amazing ability to bring even total strangers together as friends. As Josh and I walked around the park tonight, we met several other Pokemon trainers, traded tips, and made friends with people we wouldn’t have met otherwise. This is something that doesn’t just happen out of nowhere. Pokemon Go gave us something to talk about with strangers who all just happened to be looking for a good Pokestop.
Some people may judge Pokemon Go and the people that play it, condemning them as technology obsessed young adults glued to their phones as their real lives pass by. But we know better. We’re having fun and we’re getting to do something that’s been impossible up until now. We’re finally catching Pokemon and we have no time for critics-- there are creatures to be caught.
