By Chris Boline
Nostalgia is a sweet thing, especially when it involves Pokémon.
To kids growing up in the 1990’s, Pocket Monsters, as they were originally called in Japan, were an integral part of many a youth’s childhood. While the games have gone from being identified by colors and minerals (Red, Gold, Emerald and Diamond, etc.) to letters (X and Y), they have ultimately retained the same principles.
However, a recent online phenomenon known as TwitchPlaysPokemon (TPP, without the accent mark) has not only renewed interest in the games, but it also has brought millions of people together for a very peculiar social experiment. The event has become world-renowned and gained attention from sources like The Guardian and Forbes.com.
Photo provided by MattLeyva/ Flickr.com
The game itself is streamed online through the video game website Twitch.tv, which normally just allows users to watch live streams of gamers. However, instead of just typing in praise or crude remarks in the chat box, the TPP channel switched things up by allowing users to type in commands to the modified version of Pokémon Red. Now let’s think about that for a second: one user controlled by thousands of people? Sounds like a party to me.
What resulted was nothing short of heartbreak, triumph and most importantly, madness. While I can talk about the make-up of the game and the general chaos that has ensued, one Twitch user has already summed it up best:
“Man. This isn’t a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters. It’s twenty thousand monkeys at a single typewriter, and half those monkeys are screaming and desperately trying to progress, while the other half throw shit everywhere. It’s wonderful.”
While the gameplay itself is exactly the same as in the Pokémon games, what makes TPP a phenomenon is the numerous memes that have followed from the game’s misadventures. For example, imagine taking the above quote and applying it to everything you do in life. Having thousands of voices in your head, some of which only want to cause mayhem, would make even the most mundane daytime tasks incredible adventure in themselves. The stream has been watched by over 40 million people, and over a million contributed to defeating the first version of the game.
There is already a devoted following through Reddit and KnowYourMeme.com, and there is an incredible amount of lore and fan art devoted to the mishaps of the game. Even though it could take days to complete the most mundane of tasks (cutting a tree, traversing numerous ledges and solving rooms with the dreaded spin tile), TPP has enchanted the hearts of many.
The insanity of TPP boils down to three concepts: How stupid it can be (using the most powerful poke ball in the game on a mere Goldeen), how amazing (somehow the collective players managed to defeat the final boss when many thought it couldn’t be done) and finally, how just fascinating it is (the amount of in-jokes devoted to the game are too numerous to count, and the community that developed over time is inspiring).
It is incredibly impressive that the team beat the game’s final boss after 17 days of trying, because so many users were trying to thwart the efforts of the protagonist to do so.
TPP users are currently meandering through the end of Pokémon Crystal’s first half, desperately trying to find the way. Some have said this is reminiscent of a drunken sailor trying to find buried treasure. Does it serve a higher purpose? Probably not. But is it entertaining? Absolutely.
Chris Boline can be reached at cboline@sagebrush.unr.edu.