In the various Pokemon games, during informational conversations with parents, professors and other knowledgeable NPCs, you’re often given the choice to say “yes” or “no” when asked if you’re familiar with whatever they’re going to tell you. If the information isn’t critical to the game mechanics, or if you can easily speak to the NPC again to get the same dialogue prompt, selecting “yes” usually shuts the character up, so that veteran players don’t have to sit through the same explanations over and over. But at certain other times – if a core concept is being explained, or if the NPC is just particularly zealous – then hitting “yes” still gets you the same explanation, just bracketed by slightly different phrases. “Oh! So you know how [thing] works? You just [detailed rundown] and you’re set! Isn’t it wonderful?”

As a gameplay mechanic, it’s generally meant as a failsafe against player error: some conversations can’t be done over again, and the game is trying to make sure that players who accidentally hit the wrong button don’t miss something important. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to have a declaration of “yes, I understand this concept” met with a cheerful explanation of the thing you already know.

Which makes it a perfect metaphor for mansplaining.

At a fundamental level, mansplaining is the failure of the speaker to adapt their conversation to acknowledge the listener’s expertise, for one or a more of the following reasons:

a) The speaker assumes themselves to be more knowledgeable than the listener at a basic level (presumption);

b) The speaker feels duty-bound to educate others in their own words, even if the listener “thinks” they already understand the topic (condescension);

c) The speaker considers the listener to be an unreliable judge of their own knowledge (paternalism);

d) The speaker hasn’t considered the listener’s probable knowledge, even if their ignorance would be contextually incongruous – for instance, explaining what a particular job entails to someone already working in that capacity (thoughtlessness);

e) The speaker prefers to demonstrate their knowledge through explanation rather than discussion, thereby casting their peer as a student rather than their equal (superiority);

f) The speaker wants to “make sure” the listener really does know what they claim to know, and so gives an explanation “just in case” (infantilisation);

g) The speaker wants to “test” the listener on their comprehension, the better to catch them in a lie (bad faith);

h) The speaker views the listener as their social, moral or intellectual inferior, and so feels justified in lecturing them (arrogance);

i) The speaker believes they have the right to the listener’s time and attention, such that they should be able to “speak their piece” without interruption, correction or comment beyond encouragement to keep speaking (entitlement);

j) The speaker expected the listener to be ignorant and, even when corrected on this point, believes that both their planned explanation – and they themselves – are engaging enough that no alteration is necessary (egotism).

Whatever the reason, the end result for the listener is the same: having clicked the metaphorical “yes” button as many times as possible, they’re still forced to sit through an unskippable tutorial on something they already know, the delivery ranging from blithely oblivious to openly hostile. Which, in addition to being inherently frustrating, is also deeply insulting. By ignoring, doubting or otherwise eliding the listener’s expertise, the speaker is acting as though the listener never spoke at all – and if the listener’s attempts to treat the exchange as a conversation rather than a lecture are rebuffed, then not only is the speaker being rude, but they’re refusing to treat the listener as a person, let alone an authority.

Mansplainers: the conversational Pokemon NPCs of daily life.