Pokemon Go Schooling...

As our world is going to hell in a hand-basket there seems to be another huge phenomenon happening as well and that would be Pokemon Go.  I got to experience this first hand last night and it was one of the funniest, most ridiculous things I've seen in a while.  It's so what I needed in this mess of a society we have right now.

So a few days ago I texted one of my rad nerd friends asking what the hell this thing was.  She explained best she could via text.  It's basically a phone app and you find these little cartoon creatures.  I also learned that the little yellow guy is not Pokemon but rather Peekachu.  Peekachu is a Pokemon.  Apparently Pokemons are little monsters.  I don't know why they're monsters though because they seem to be fucking adorable.  Anywhoo - you apparently can walk around in live time and these little monsters pop up at random places and you "catch" them.

Yesterday I spent the latter half of the day into evening with my dear friend Ber.  She mentioned she was playing this new game.  I was fascinated and asked her to show me how it works.

You have a little map on your phone like a live GPS.  There's little paw prints that tell you how far away one of these little dudes is.  You walk around trying to find them.  When you get close to one your phone will vibrate.  When you do find them - they appear in your camera.  It's hilarious!  There's now a little cartoon creature in your camera and you can snap a photo with the little dude in it with you!  I screeched with excitement.  "Is this how all the pictures I've been seeing are happening?!" I asked.  I wanted to take a photo with the little thing so I jumped in front of her phone.  She wasn't too keen on taking the picture because apparently there's a time limit to catch one of these but she humored me.

I was so excited!  I now have a photo with a tiger with a mohawk!!!  Although I'm told this is a puppy actually.  It's name is Growlith.  How cute is that name?!

Anyway - Ber then shows me that you throw these little ball things at the tiger/puppy.  Tiger/puppy dodges them or bats them back but eventually gets "Captured."  I'm still a bit unclear what you do when you have them.  A gym was mentioned where you can fight them and there's places you can collect these balls but other than that it looks to be a little app that makes you walk around and catch little cartoon creatures.

There are way more peeps in the picture but they were behind pillars.  Every damn person in the photo was Pokemon hunting!

Later in the evening our friend Fatima and her pup Beckham joined us.  Ber decided to take us out and show us some real Pokemon hunting.  This is when shit got real.  There were people everywhere!!  

Downtown Fullerton is a hub bub of these little dudes.  Ber was telling us that a lot of landmarks and well known areas is where a lot of these things will be.   I was laughing so hard as we walked around.  People were everywhere walking around with their nose in there phone hunting these things.  We would pass people and they would say hey to Ber and exchange things like "Did you catch the snarfle?"  "Pokemon!" "The kookadoodle is right around the corner!"  It was like a secret language.  I could not stop giggling.  We of course kept coming across little creatures so I got Ber tracking then capturing one.

Ber trying to catch a dude with the little ball things

What everyone is staring at

 

As you can see it's pretty involved.  All night as we walked around we passed fellow Pokemon hunters.  It was seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  Yet - also kind of this super rad community thing.  The whole thing has taken off and the posts that are coming out are damn hilarious.  Here's a couple that tickled my funny bone:

 

I love me some Buzzfeed and they've already jumped on the train.  Click to giggle 

Another friend of mine posted the FB status of : My girlfriend has wandered off into the night. Something about catching them all.

CNN had a pretty good explanation if the craze you'll find here.  I sort of understand?  I'm loving the fact that you look around now and these people are everywhere!

I don't know why I find this so funny but I do. It's certainly a much needed laugh in our world right now.  It's actually probably a good thing.  It's getting these folks who usually spend all their time in front of a computer playing games out into the world.  It also is a really great community.  Everyone wandering around last night was having a blast and sharing stories and "catches" and it was awesome.

I will never jump on the Pokemon Go train but dammit if I'm not having a blast watching everyone else!  

I mean they're cute as hell right?