When the Hunting Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro
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By Paulo Pacheco on July 14, 2016
Imagine yourself exploring a river near your home. You want to try to catch a Pokémon that shows up near water. There’s a lingering hope that it might even be a rare one. You feel tired. The hunt has been going on for a while and, if you didn’t know, hunting is more about patience than all-out action. You look down into your smartphone. Nothing yet. All of a sudden, you notice something on the river’s shore. Not one of the “Pocket Creatures” but a dead body.
Maybe you just arrived home, tired from a long day’s work. You sit down in your sofa, for a welcomed rest, and casually pick up your boyfriend’s cellphone that’s next to you. You access the Pokémon GO app to see what all the craziness is about, when you realize that he caught a Pokémon in the exact location of his ex-girlfriend’s house.
If you have dedicated your life to crime, fear not. The game app has already been used to rob some players, by exploring Pokestops. These are real-world landmarks where users can stock up on digital game gear, and there’s generally a lot of people visiting them. But players are already warned and attentive to this danger, and your life of crime may have been cut short.
For those of you who have an entrepreneurial spirit, be sure your business is located next to a Pokestop. You may invest in some digital lures in order to increase the chance that rare Pokémon turn up. This investment will have its return by attracting more players to the area, who will then be more likely to stop by your shop. If you don’t want to own a business and prefer the freelancing route, there’s a new market for professional Pokémon trainers. You’ll catch and train Pokémon for other people who don’t have the chance to do it all day long, and you’ll make money out of it.
With all of these weird findings, cheating boyfriends, robberies and entrepreneurial opportunities, please keep in mind that not all places are appropriate for playing the game. Graveyards, Holocaust museum and even hospitals should be avoided, if you can. You might get looks of disapproval if you venture out into these. Also, if a “Pokestop” is in a location where a police station stands, you don’t need to go in. You can catch them outside.
If you are one of those players who like to model or take a lot of selfies, you can always use the Pokémon Go app to share your love with the cute digital creatures while being almost naked, or in suggestive poses. There’s already a lot of NSFW images making the rounds in the internet, taken utilizing the app.
Pokémon GO has not been out for a long time yet, but its players and others already have had their fair share or weird occurrences. It’s inevitable that the weirdness would creep in, even in something as a Pokémon game. That should be expected when you have so many people enjoying and interacting with it.
So go out. Explore. Catch ‘em all. Share. Hunt safely and keep your eyes out for the weirdness that might also show up.
Sources
- The top five most surprising stories about Pokémon Go… so far. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/12/top-five-most-outlandish-pokemon-go-stories
- Wagner, Kurt (2016). People are getting robbed and finding dead bodies while playing Pokémon Go. Retrieved from www.recode.net/2016/7/11/12142366/pokemon-go-robbed-dead-body-crazy-stories
- “Pokemon Go” digital popularity is also warping real life. Retrieved from www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article89057312.html
- Fitzpatrick, Alex (2016). “Pokémon Go” is affecting people’s lives in very strange ways. Retrieved from time.com/4402951/pokemon-go-weird
- Barrat, Georgie (2016). Pokémon GO: The weird places fans have found Pokémon characters in the real world. Retrieved from www.mirror.co.uk/tech/pokmon-go-weird-places-fans-8398333
- Hernandez, Patricia (2016). Pokémon Go nudes are a thing now. Retrieved from kotaku.com/pokemon-go-nudes-are-a-thing-now-1783460692
