Quoted By:
Pokemania. Pokemon had the world's most insane marketing campaign for 3 years straight to the point it became a cultural marker for the late 90's and very early 2000's. It cemented itself as iconic and pervasive in every aspect of people's lives and it was impossible to escape.
Imagine, you're between 5 and 10 years old in 1999. You wake up, rolling out of your bed decorated with Pokemon sheets and pillow cases, your Pokemon plush safely tucked away. You change out of your Pokemon pajamas and eat your Pokemon cereal, or maybe a Pokemon pop-tart. You grab your Pokemon backpack full of Pokemon school supplies (pencils, erasers, folders, notebooks, etc) and head out to the bus stop, where you talk with other kids about Pokemon. The anime, the games, the movies, real or fake, it doesn't matter because it's Pokemon. After school you have a snack, Pokemon branded of course, before you go and play the games or trade cards. You beg your parents to go to Burger King to get the Pokemon toys with your disgusting kid's meal. You repeat most of this five days a week with weekends saved for watching the anime, the childhood culture was absolutely saturated with Pokemon at the time. The only thing that was remotely close was Shrek, and it didn't have nearly the same level of merchandise diversity or marketing of Pokemon.
