There are Pokemon in my Front-yard!

And that’s a good thing.

As a kid who grew up in the 90s, Pokemon was a large part of my childhood. My very first Gameboy Colour was actually a Pokemon Gold-Silver edition with a Pikachu on the front of it. I played Pokemon Silver endlessly, and have gotten the new games ever since (anyone waiting for Pokemon Sun and Moon?).

Back then, playing Pokemon with someone else meant going over to their home, and hooking up your gameboys with a link-cable. Later on, when the Nintendo DS came out, and infra-red replaced link-cables, playing the game with others became a bit easier. In Pokemon Black and White, it even notified you when another trainer was nearby, and you could battle or trade with them instantaneously.

My point in all of this, is that Pokemon has always been a connecting force in people’s lives — maybe not in public, but as technology has advanced, the ability to play Pokemon in public has first become easier and second become more socially acceptable. This has also made chance encounters between players more common and frequent.

Today, the rise of Pokemon GO has moved both of these trends further. We’re seeing new secondary socialization opportunities pop up everywhere, that is, activities that don’t occur as the MAIN point of interaction, but which encourage other interactions to occur.

This can only be a good thing for our public realm. The last photo is of a Toronto Waterfront park, and so many people were playing Pokemon there, I had trouble getting onto the server! After the game was released, there were articles coming out from The Washington Post talking about how the game was so popular that people were hurting their feet walking around the city so much trying to catch em’ all. This is bringing people out into public.

There are naysayers to this of course.

Parks People, an organisation which I’m usually fond of, released a boneheaded video talking about how Pokemon Go is a step back for kids and others enjoying the outdoors, and keeps them glued to their smartphones. I would submit to the person in the video that based on the evidence in question, you may not know what Pokemon GO actually is.

First, unlike facebook or twitter (or most smartphone apps which exist spatially independent), Pokemon Go actually needs you to get up and walk around in order to play it. You need to visit other neighbourhoods (real neighbourhoods, located on a map) in order to catch different Pokemon species. And moreover, in order to collect supplies, you need to stop at different poke-stops, which are physical monuments usually with some historical or cultural significance. How you can argue this detracts people’s attention from their surroundings is beyond me.

If you think for one second that people getting together and playing something on their smartphones together (something that uses Augmented Reality mind you) is a bad use of public space, you need to rethink your definition of what public space is. It isn’t just for people playing sports, it isn’t just for people sitting down, it’s for all people. Including pokemon players.

This is a good thing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to try and catch a Dragonite.