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Small Batch: The Rise Of (And Backlash Against) Pokemon GO

Pokemon Company
/
Niantic

If you've listened to NPR or stepped outside in the last week or so, then you've probably already heard about Pokemon GO, a new "Augmented Reality" app in which players encounter and "catch" Pokemon characters the game has (virtually) situated around their own neighborhoods. In addition to its massive success, the game has sparked an assortment of controversies, the latest of which involves players showing up at "Pokestops" located in, for example, Arlington National Cemetery and the United States Holocaust Museum.

For this Small Batch edition of Pop Culture Happy Hour, Glen Weldon and I sit down to discuss the game: its allure and ubiquity, the inevitable backlash and glitches, and its zeitgeist-y collision of gaming, community and nostalgia.

Also, though it's certainly not necessary in order to follow this discussion, I highly recommend catching up on Glen's day-brightening 3,000-word Pokemon GO essay.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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