Pokémon GO is a great example of a joke getting out of hand. What started as an April Fools joke became an innovative app, exploiting our fantasies by bringing it into (virtual) reality.

When I first played the game, I was immediately excited. Being able to collect Pokémon by venturing through your neighbourhood, just like Ash Ketchum in the TV series or the yet-to-be named character in the original handheld game.

As I wandered through my neighbourhood I explored new areas in which I haven’t been before. Dead end streets with just houses: areas I would otherwise not explore. Urban exploring is considered a good thing (especially if I have to believe my parents), because we’re outside. Which is good! Right?

Thing is: this app persuades you to go outside, but not in the way our parents wanted us to do when we were younger. People born in the 90s can fill in on this. Growing up with television, videogames, internet, etcetera we were never bored. Being forced to go outside would cause us to be bored. And whenever we were be bored, we became creative. A stick became a sword, the big tree in the garden was a castle and your younger brother was your squire (or horse, whenever he was being a little shit).

Putting it into technical terms, our instruments of entertainment (internet, television, videogames) are hyperstimuli for the brain. Whenever we something we find fun, our brain releases neurochemicals, which gives us a buzzing feeling (Notably dopamine and serotonine, among others). After a while, it becomes less fun because it becomes repetitive. (Try doing the same puzzle over and over, it becomes boring. Not just the puzzle, but also the activity of making the puzzle). In order to give a spur of neurochemicals, there has to be some novelty to it.

Internet or videogames offer this novelty. By constantly pressing this button (as all know this one girl who every hour posts a new snapchat) our brain releases more neurochemicals. Eventually, our brains become numb, and anything else won’t give this feeling of satisfaction anymore.

Pokémon GO combines the hyperstimuli with an activity which was to make you bored. And by doing so, it completely undermines the benefit of going outside. Pokémon GO is a videogame (and a great one in doing so), and not the tool of the neoliberalist that claims it is there to ‘make us healthier’. It should be treated as a videogame, not the path to that sixpack.

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If you’re thinking of downloading this game, please be aware of your surroundings.