Memes / Pokémon GO

• Shortly after the announcement, people have suggested hypothetical dialogues of players breaking into places they shouldn't be in an attempt to get Pokémon. Like so.^note Given that Niantic imposes restrictions on where Ingress portals can be placed (must be placed somewhere that is open to the public, among other things), this GO scenario may not be as likely as some people think. And then this is pretty much exactly what happened upon release and drawing attention to all the wacky predictions being right has become a meme in and of itself.
• Jokes about how Nintendo will abuse Pokémon Go by timing rare, shiny, and legendary spawns to disrupt E3, Tokyo Game Show, and PAX, are already making the rounds, which has ocassionally mutated further into gags like Nintendo stealing the hype from Half-Life 3's announcement at E3 by deploying shiny Jirachi spawns, or breaking up the announcement of the PS Vita's successor by spawning Mew outside the Sony Conference.^note This can and does happen in the game proper, in which certain public events (labeled Safari Zones) can be made to spawn special encounters with non-native continental exclusives and Unown forms themed to the event. Some big name conventions have also led to massive numbers of Unown spawning, such as a four-day outbreak in October 2018 across New York City for New York Comic Con 2018.
• There are also many jokes about Pokémon spawning in private places like bedrooms, especially ones like Mr. Mime or Hypno.
• Now everyone can be real Pokémon trainers and stand in one place waiting for other trainers to pass them.
• There are many jokes about how Arceus^note who is currently unavailable as the first release only covers Generation I will be found at the Vatican. Some take it even further and suggest that in order to catch him, you will have to defeat the Pope in a Pokémon battle. Related to that, once the game came out it was found that a number of PokéStops and Gyms are located at churches.
• Once the game released, people started sharing pictures of Pokémon they encountered in odd places. Recurring themes include Pokémon found in the bathroom and silly Magikarp pics. Exeggcute is also a favorite subject for similar reasons as Magikarp (finding one in a kitchen, or on a frying pan).
• In the early days of the game, many players faced an error screen caused by Demand Overload. Many memes have been made of this, often involving people finally excited to play Pokémon GO... only to be met with the error screen.
• Size memes ^explanationThere was a period after size evaluations were added and prior to the trading update where word filters didn’t exist. Cue penis and mom memes by using the Pokemon’s nickname.
• "Who is Pokémon Go's Professor Willow and why is he such a daddy?" and other assorted "praises" for the new Professor.
• Canada is not part of North America. ^explanationMany news outlets are reporting that the game is available across North America, but not in Canada, prompting Canadian fans to wonder if they realize that North America contains countries other than the U.S.
• "The Authentic Pokémon GO Experience in ____" followed by an empty screen.^explanationIf you live in a less populated area, Pokéstops and Pokémon can be miles away. This results in a lot of people being disappointed in finding blank screens or nothing but Com Mons.
• Picking a team is Serious Business for the internet. It only took a couple days before memes were flying around left and right about how one team is better than the other two. Doesn't matter if you're on Team Valor, Mystic, or Instinct, you'll find plenty of memes bashing all three. Instinct tends to get treated as a Butt-Monkey out of the three, Valor is full of challenge-seeking, power-hungry mad-men with no manners, and Mystic are full of smartasses.
• Jokes about "[insert some other popular game] Go" and just what that would entail, Neko Atsume, Digimon, and Dark Souls being popular choices.
• Posting pictures of real animals and complimenting the graphics.
• The fact that the team colors are also colors of major gangs — Blue (Mystic) for Crips, Red (Valor) for Bloods, and Yellow (Instinct) for Latin Kings.
• Drowzee City.^explanationFor whatever reason, Drowzee is by far the most frequently-seen Com Mon in the streets of Toronto, leading its GO-playing citizens to give it this nickname.
• As soon as Team Instinct's leader Spark was revealed, comparisons to Owain/Odin were immediately made. The fact that Yusuke Kozaki is the character designer on both games does not help.
• Minor text fixes. ^explanationWith finding and catching Pokémon (aka the entire point of the game) having become a Scrappy Mechanic with the patch that removes tracking and nerfs catch rates, people have latched onto the fact that most, if not all updates have "minor text fixes" in the patch notes. Fans have sarcastically exaggerated that into being Niantic's number one priority. Niantic actually acknowledges this in an update, saying "No text fixes".
• GOLD TEAM RULES! ^explanationA derisive quote against Team Instinct, which actually uses the color gold, to highlight how few members have joined them and making its members appear lonely compared to teams Valor and Mystic.
• The Team Instinct Dab Salute!^ExplanationThe dab has become synonymous with Spark, and by extension Team Instinct itself. Essentially canonized when one post on the official Twitter had Spark do that very action. Team Go Rocket even made fun of it in their Twitter takeover
• r ^ExplanationOne user had his complaint e-mail responded to with just a one-letter response from Niantic. While everyone's fairly certain this was just an honest mistake, Niantic saying "r" in response to things quickly became a meme.
• I PLAY POKéMON GO EVERYDAY, I PLAY POKéMON GO!^ExplanationThanks to SiIvaGunner, a So Bad, It's Good song about Pokémon GO by a young Czech boy nicknamed "Misha" (no, not that one) has become memetic.
• My preference in the mobile video gaming market is of the mobile video game titled "Pokémon GO", of which I perform with routinely.^ExplanationAn overly "posh and verbose" version of the above song, complete with Misha being voiced with an upper-class adult male British accent TTS voice.
• Spark going missing from the game/"Candela killed Spark".^ExplanationFor unknown reasons, Spark disappeared from the game when it updated on July 20, 2017; during this time any Team Instinct member who asked for an appraisal of their Pokémon was given it by Candela for some reason, leading to fans joking that Candela killed Spark and took over Team Instinct. Spark has been added back to the game by the next updates.
• Even before a major Generation 3 update on December, there were tons of Mudkip memes throwing into the GO fanbase, along with the revived "Hoenn Confirmed" slapped to a lesser extent. Come this update, some people hilariously nicknamed their Mudkip when walking as their Buddy Pokémon. Like so:
  So I herd u found a Candy!
• Also before 2017 Halloween event, the revived "Hoenn Confirmed" meme was also slapped in amongst the rumors.
• Groupon ^Explanation Discord autocorrects "Groudon" into "Groupon".
• Jokes about how Professor Willow looks like Rick Sanchez also surfaced when the game initially released.
• Pokemon GO to the Polls^ExplanationAn attempt by Hillary Clinton to be Totally Radical and get out the youth vote in the 2016 election. It was widely derided and became an ironic meme, though after the results of that election there were many people who joked "We should have Pokemon Went to the Polls!" It got Meme Acknowledgment in the 2020 elections when Niantic itself used the phrase in an ad campaign.
• Where's Kecleon? ^ExplanationKecleon gained notoriety over the years for being the only Hoenn Pokémon to not be implemented into the game, which only increased as more species were added. It eventually reached the point where every time a new promotional image for the game was shown, people joked that Kecleon was hiding somewhere in it. Kecleon was finally released in January 2023, over five years after the first Hoenn Pokémon were added.
• "Please don't use this" (in reference to Aggron). ^ExplanationDue to Aggron's relative commonality and (per updates post-2020) a number of good moves, it is common for newcomers to have it as their automatic "Recommended" Pokémon during raids. However, its base stats remain middling for its type (Rock and Steel—especially when competing with Community Day-move equipped Tyranitar, Metagross and Rhyperior). Bringing Aggron to a raid or gym attacks usually invites ridicule from older players. Not even the debut of Mega Aggron entirely fixes its issues beyond being a Steel Support Party Member, much like Mega Steelix. Not to mention Mega Metagross is also on the way.
• Singaporean Grandma ^Explanation Niantic anticipated that the player base would be extremely angry over the changes to remote raiding (doubling the price of Remote Raid Passes and limiting how many remote raids a player can do in a day), so they held an interview explaining why the changes were needed. Niantic went on to say that the average player is like a Singaporean grandma who spends her time walking 30 to 60 minutes with her group of friends as a part of their exercise routine and focuses more on catching Pokémon than raiding. People quickly mocked the statement and cite how incredibly tone deaf it was.
• Several memes involving players getting run over by a vehicle while crossing the street by distracting with the game which became notorious how dangerous is playing the game while walking without looking both ways if a vehicles passes by.

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