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Gold/Silver were released 21 years ago, in a time when the overwhelming majority of Pokemon players were in the game's intended age group: 7-14 years old. The majority of that were average-skilled video game players for the time, meaning they relied on their starter and did not diversify their team. If I'm not mistaken, all the starters in G/S were inclined to be male - it wasn't 50/50. Not that the players would know this. They were ANIME DINOSAURS and it was awesome. These players did not ever take moves that did not do damage: smokescreen and double team and all the rest were "wasted slots" because they were 10 and "what the fuck are statistics?" I can tell you something that statistics are not: AWESOME.
These players got to Whitney, watched their male starter gen enamored, and watched in horror as they could do nothing but get Rollout-ed to death. They did not have evasion moves to try and prevent the chain from starting. Once the starter was dead, the fight was over. GG, go next or go farm.
There's no shame in admitting that you were 10 and didn't know how to minmax Pokemon. There's no shame in losing repeatedly and embarrassingly to the first (and only?) Gym Leader in the first two series that would actually punish that.
