>>57360360>>57360403Correct. Pokemon only got popular overseas thanks to its marketing and extreme focus on the anime, TCG and toys. The games were a purely secondary affair that only the would-be "nerds" of the school ecology would get into for a prolonged period.
Thus, once Pokemania ended due to a myriad of reasons (Nintendo/Sony Consolewars, natural fad decay, the rise of franchises like Yu-Gi-Oh, Harry Potter, the return of Star Wars, peer pressure and bullying culture from older kids, the anime's genuine sharp drop-off in quality in Johto, Crystal being an unfulfilling third version unlike Yellow before it, etc...), the kids who DID grow attached to the games had to hide their interests to avoid ostracization from their fellow kids, who were now raving over the PS2's library of games instead of Pokemon, assuming they were interested in video games at all.
They cling to a period in which they were socially accepted and yearn for it to come back, and even when the monkey's paw curled with GO restoring American popularity to Pokemon, now fans of Pokemon who indulge in the games, despite "nerd culture" being profitably vogue and EVERYONE being a "nerd" about something, Pokemon fans are compared to the onions guzzling beta males and obnoxious special snowflakes who change their pronouns every five minutes or whenever no one's paying enough attention to them.
