When I was a kid I was obsessed with Robin Hood. What a guy. Living in the woods with a big gang of violent, tax-dodging pissheads who worshipped the ground he walked on. Fighting with sticks by day; making love to his kidnapped princess by night. Robin Hood was a hero kids everywhere could relate to. No-one can relate to Pokémon. What even is Pokémon? Not even the kids who claim to love them know. Kids like my son, himself seven and slavishly, manically, disturbingly in thrall to these brightly coloured, nonsensical animations.
The stupid imaginings of some demented, presumably alcoholic, Japanese loon who – like Forrest Gump accidentally becoming a shrimp billionaire – unwittingly stumbled upon the jackpot: something which presumably started out as a fever dream and turned into a commercial franchise that would hypnotise generations of idiot youngsters in a manner that the creator of Robin Hood (I believe it was Walt Disney) could have only dreamed of.
I would express my enthusiasm for Robin Hood by dressing up in an outfit fashioned by my mother in green felt and galloping around the house using a broom as my makeshift horse. It was innocent fun. It was healthy. And the vaguely socialist values that seemed to guide Robin Hood’s activities helped mould my nascent political consciousness. All in all, mine was a wholesome obsession.
Please don’t bother writing in if you’re one of those next-level weirdos who have sustained an interest in this sort of thing into adulthood
There is nothing wholesome about my son’s relationship with Pokémon. Quite the opposite: he wakes up in the morning behaving like a cocaine addict, pacing around the living room in circles, still dressed in his absurd Pikachu jim-jams, loudly rabbiting indecipherable claptrap about how Jigglytits evolves into Fabreez evolves into Fuckazoid.
And, by the way, I know none of those are proper Pokémon names so please don’t bother writing in if you’re one of those next-level weirdos who have sustained an interest in this sort of thing into adulthood.
