Pokemon confession: Finding community, bit of hope in troubled times

I had almost written 2016 off as a lost cause.

Like many people, the vitriol and divisiveness of the upcoming presidential elections, coupled with the seemingly endless arguments over how to deal with violence around the country and world, have left me with a sense of hopelessness.

I used to look forward to reading the newspaper every morning - now I don't. Yet, sometimes hope can come from the strangest places. I'm talking about the viral phenomenon of Pokemon Go.

Now, you may think this is going to be just another rant by a disillusioned and lazy millennial, and maybe you're right - but at least hear me out.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Pokemon, and Nintendo - the franchise's owner - has declared a yearlong celebration. A main component of the celebration is the release of Pokemon Go, a game that uses augmented reality to bring the sport of catching Pokemon to your phone.

Pokemon, it should be noted, has been with me most of my life.

I remember begging my parents to buy me my first Gameboy Color and Pokemon game, and all the negotiating that entailed. They were suspicious of video games, not having grown up with any themselves.

Potentially, as they saw it, a Gameboy was one less reason to go outside to play; a screen to be sucked into and made antisocial. Perhaps their fears were warranted, as technology sped ahead everyone stopped looking up and started staring down at pocket-size devices.

Social media and the ability to message someone instantly has brought us closer in some ways, but has arguably isolated us as individuals. We have become a username and corresponding password. Extremist views flourish, as people can find like-minded individuals who will support their views and galvanize them. As our upcoming elections have shown, we are a country rapidly polarizing.

The game was released July 6 without any advertising and very little Twitter presence by Niantic, the game developers.

A large following quickly developed on Reddit after the game was initially released in New Zealand and Australia, with people speculating how soon it would make it to the United States. Within 24 hours, the app became available here and the craze took off.

Within a week, it has surpassed 15 million downloads, becoming the one of the largest mobile games ever developed. But unlike any video game I've ever played, the numbers are visible: everywhere you go, you will see people walking around catching Pokemon.

In order to catch Pokemon, "hatch eggs" (a form of obtaining Pokemon), or access PokeStops (places of historical significance that "drop" items for the player to use), the player actually has to walk around.

In the South Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia, there has been a foot-traffic renaissance. During the day, you mostly see youngsters who are out of school for the summer. As the sun sets and people get home from work, gamers of all ages are out roaming the streets.

In the game, you can place a "lure" on a PokeStop, which attracts Pokemon to that location for anyone to catch. In my experience, the lures tend to attract more people than Pokemon - and therein lies the beauty of this game.

My friend Alex and I have a new nightly ritual of going down to a public park and setting up a pair of lures next to each other. At 1:30 one recent morning, we placed some lures in the park before heading home from a night out. One of our friends, still incredulous of the game's effect, didn't believe us when we said people would come.

Within 10 minutes, there were nearly 20 of us - swapping stories and giving tips. At one point, someone shouted out that a rare Pokemon was spotted about 200 yards down the trail, and we all took off to go catch it.

The beauty of this game is not the interface itself, but rather the community that has rapidly evolved around it. Unlike many other video games, there is no guidebook or clear objective beyond "catching em all."

Like the Pokemon games of my youth, before the hyperconnectivity of internet became a household norm, we would have to learn strategies and tips by talking with other players. Through all this word-of-mouth, urban legends grew, such as the one about the impossibly rare Mew hiding behind a garbage truck in Vermillion city. Pokemon Go has brought back this fun exchange, and facts again are often muddled with myths. (There are a lot of Fire Pokemon by the waterfront in Gloucester City, was one of them.)

PokeStops are hubs for the swapping of such tales. This game forces us to interact with others in person.

At one PokeStop, I met a young couple. Both were overweight. They confessed to me that they loved playing video games, but that they rarely spent any time exercising. Pokemon Go, they told me, had given them the inspiration to get out and move. They bragged that they had already walked 30 kilometers (the game counts distance in kilometers, forcing Americans to finally use the metric system) and found loads of Pokemon along the way.

On the Pokemon Go forum on Reddit, one individual posted screenshots of having walked over 100 kilometers (62 miles) since the game's release.

For all the good the game has brought, there has been some negative pushback with reports of players getting hurt or becoming victims of crimes. This is just a reminder that while playing the game you need to be aware of your surroundings. But it also involves a bit of hype since people with cellphones were targeted for muggings long before Pokemon Go and we don't hear about any of them.

If eight year old me knew that in 17 years he would be walking around town with fellow trainers, catching Pokemon, he probably would have died of excitement. The community that has developed around this game is both large and diverse. I've seen people of all ages and races out playing together.

Of course, Pokemon Go is no cure-all for society's woes. It is just a video game on a cellphone that will likely lose the insane popularity it is enjoying in the coming weeks and months. In this day and age, nothing seems to last very long. Yet, for a moment, this game is purely magical.

A few nights ago, I bumped into one of the cashiers who works at our local Wawa. I see him probably four times a week, but we've never had more than the necessary transactional conversation. He, too, is a twenty-something who grew up with Pokemon. Like me, he played the Gameboy games and cards. We talked for a bit, initially bonding over Pokemon, but then also about other things millennials bond over, like music and microbreweries.

This game is not just about catching little pocket monsters, its about encountering people with whom we might cross paths every day but don't think twice about.

As the Wawa guy and I finished our chat, there was no adding each other on Facebook, no swapping of contact information. We simply wished each other luck, nodded goodbye, then head out in search of more Pokemon.

Andreas Gambardello is a student at the Rutgers University School of Nursing/Camden.