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Okay, I'm sure a lot of people want to ask me, “Why do you hate Pikachu so much?” And the answer to that is not a simple one. Many sites have said, “Man, Pikachu and Pokemon are so gay” and think that’s a good answer. BZZT!! WRONG! Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny! “Well, they’ve won a brand, new kick in the @$$, worth over 10000 pimp slaps!” Well, here’s the proof you’ve been waiting for.
I’ve been reluctant to admit this. I did once play Pokemon. I was one of the first people to buy it. It was just I, and one of my friends up the street. Little kids that are about 5 or more years younger than me populate the rest of my neighborhood. None of those kids had ever heard or even seemed interested in Pokemon when we mentioned it.
Probably about two months later, we were still thoroughly enjoying the game, though playing it a little less. This is probably about when the little kids found out about it. Don’t ask me how, I still wonder how the #ell Nintendo did it. I had only seen a few commercials on at the time, and I believe there was some sort of camp going around in Kansas that a lot of kids found out about. I’m assuming that word of mouth somehow spread it around, which is exactly what Nintendo wanted.
Well, however the #ell they did it, the craze was on. Actually, to be honest, only one kid in our neighborhood knew about it at the time. It was the kid next door named Joey, who we know as “Demon Kid” (trust me, if you saw the kid, you’d know what I was talking about). I watched him one day skip over to one of the kids on our street, and say, “Hey guess what I got Pohkaymon!! You don’t have it so you’re not cool!” I’m not joking about this either. The kid was saddened, and I was just disgusted.
I saw the kid the next few days, as he begged his parents to buy him all sorts of Pokemon stuff. He got the game, and played it so much. All he would do was play it. His parents had to set limits on the playing time, actually, just because he wanted to play it so much. Then as the months went on, he got everything, including the card game, dolls, pencil sharpeners, etc. During this period, word of mouth spread around about the game and characters and such. Then the craze was truly on.
I took a long hard look at what I was playing. What was the kid so attracted to? What was the central figure that kids really really liked, and practically sucked them into the craze? What figure were all the kids supposed to like? The answer is simple: Pikachu.
Why do I say they are “supposed” to like it? Well, when you see the word Pokemon, what do you expect next to it? Pikachu’s face. It’s subliminal messaging. I believe it’s when the kid sees something he likes (Pokemon), and sees Pikachu’s face next to it, he knows who Pikachu is. After seeing that 1000 times, he’s probably come to adore Pikachu, thinking that to like Pokemon, he must like Pikachu as well.
You may think this can’t be done, but Pokemon’s target audience is about 6-12 years of age. In my opinion, kids can be easily swayed during this time.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Nintendo. They’ve brought out many quality games and gaming systems (although a bit delayed, but I’ll discuss that in another rant). It’s just sad to see so many kids manipulated this way by a company that I trusted for many years.
And I don’t hate people that like Pokemon. Pokemon is a fun and addictive game. But I don’t like how Nintendo manipulated people through their advertising. I don’t like it how they used a little electric rat to do it. And I don’t like it how it ruined the game for the die-hard gamers who knew about Pokemon months before it was out, and were fans long before kids even knew what a Pocket Monster was.
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