Pokemon: A silly trend that will end
By: Klaus Withheld
  

 

Yesterday, I was walking through the mall, when I see a young child pulling his dad by his arm, apparently towards a store with stuffed Pikachu dolls prominently displayed. The parent was holding a large bag, through which you could see Pokemon products galore. T-shirts, cards, even underwear of all things. But the kid was not paying for this with his money, oh no. All the money for this merchandise was coming straight out of daddy's wallet.
 
Nintendo must laughing all the way to bank.
 
I'm sure if you caculated the amount of money spent on Pokemon merchandise, you would arrive at an enormous sum. With that much money, you could buy a Ferrari. Lots of Ferraris. More Ferrari's than they make every year. And a couple Porsches thrown in for good measure.
 
Where does all this money come from? Pokemon's target audience, of course. The Pokemon cards, which encourage kids to buy more to complete their "collection." The Pokemon Game Boy game is convieniently sold in two versions, thus increasing sales even more. Remember how the New Kids on the Block sold out like this? Remember what happened to them? How are kids supposed to learn smart spending when every dime they get goes into some additional cards or games? The whole collection theme of Pokemon is Nintendo's way of insuring that kids don't just buy Pokemon once. No, they keep buying and buying until they have every Pokemon card or every Pokemon doll.
 
Okay, so far I've proved that Pokemon encourages kids to spend prodigious amounts of money out merchandise, but it's insidiousness doesn't end there. I've seen fights break out at schools over Pokemon cards, kids getting beat up for their cards, and even kids gambling over Pokemon crap. Thankfully, many schools have instituted bans on Pokemon products. Thank God. Unfortunately, the true horror of Pokemon doesn't emerge until you realize what kind of message this show is sending children. Young children are by nature ver impressionable, and what they learn in their younger years will determine what kind of a person he is during adulthood.
 
There is a sport called Cockfighting, which I'm sure most of you have heard of, that involves two male roosters fighting it out until one of them dies. How does cockfighting relate to Pokemon? In Pokemon, the premise is simple: Catch Pokemon and make them fight. Whoever wins gets cash from the other "trainer." So what message does this deliver to children? That it's okay to capture wild animals and put them in fights? How long before "Little Johnny" tries to make his dog fight the dog next door, and bet money on the outcome?
 
Then there's the message that it's "okay" to capture wild animals and make them your pets. Such as it is today, this practice is illegal. In the Pokemon TV series, as soon as you capture a Pokemon, it somehow becomes loyal to you. Just try that with an timber wolf. It's a sad but true fact, that Pokemon teaches kids that animals are commodities to be traded and purchased.
 
I'm sure many of you will want to flame and blast me for this. I know many of you children out there will look back years from now and realize how stupid you were to have been sucked in by the Pokemon marketing machine. Now if you'll excuse, I have a Ferrari that needs waxing.

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