>>52447670It was genuinely great. You could just connect with practically any other kid over it. Go to a random playground and talk about who your favorites are. Bring the cards to daycare and start trading. I probably initiated more social contact with strangers during pokemania than the rest of my life combined.
There was a certain organicness to the explosion of the popularity that I doubt I'll ever see again. Marketing and merchandise was completely outpaced by the popularity, so every one was frantic to capitalize on it. Local businesses were painting pokemon on the windows and brands were just shitting out random products with pokemon slapped on. I especially remember how desperate I was for toys. The excitement of KFC having some of the first merch and then the following hype about the electronic talking toys and then the little Tomy figures. One of the best days was when I get a silly little bootleg Charmander from the local shop (this was before there was even a Pikachu plushie)
There was also just a certain rush of excitement that came with an era of less developed internet. Obviously there were playground rumors like Missingno. I vividly recall a friend showing my exactly how to do it but warning me that it could mess my game up if I did it. There wasn't as much of a market in importing Japanese media at the time, so it was pretty wild scouring through magazines for any info about what was coming out in Japan. Information regarding the upcoming gen 2 pokemon was especially mindblowing. I think what made the playground rumors so crazy at the time was that such a significant portion of them turned out to be true. Things like Missingno, Mew, and Pikablu all turned out to be real.
