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First coming to widespread attention through a mass epileptic seizure incident involving 700 children in Tokyo, Japan, but only now is the dark-side of 'Pokemania' becoming so clearly apparent.
The brand has spawned popular trading-cards, games, toys, an hypnotic TV series and a film amongst the young adolescence. But the underside have been incidents like school stabbings in New York's Long Island and Quebec's Laval over trading card disputes, incidents that recall media theorist Neil Postman's 'Disappearance of Childhood' thesis, as children become just another 'Values & Lifestyles' (VALS) demographic to be marketed to.
One obvious aspect of the 'Pokemania' phenomenon has been the application of memetics and marketing warfare. The phrase 'Gotta Catch 'Em ALL' entrains a child's attention and creates consumer-trance willingness to buy. Splitting Pokemon species between the games Red, Blue and Yellow creates artificial demand for more products. Tajiri's game created a panic craze worthy of Charles Mackay's tome 'Extraordianary Delusions & The Madness of Crowds' (1845) by hiding a secret 151st species within the games. Shortages in 'Burger King' stores advertising movie merchandise offer further confirmation. The marketing of Pokemon is reminiscent of Charles Ponzi's notorious 1920s 'wealth-generation' schemes, revenge by an isolationist and resurgently nationalist Japan against the West for past traumas.
This epidemic mass hysteria spreading onto a global communications network ('the Internet') separates Pokemon from previous crazes like the Cabbage Patch Kids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers toys of the late 1980s.
'Pokemania' is all the more disturbing because it appears to be so benign and cannot be traced to a single source. Its "media virus" psychological DNA differed from earlier species and case-studies. 'Pokemania' and its accompanying psychological condition (Addiction to Pokemon) may just be a sign of Conspiracies of the Future.
