OP here, I figured it out:
it’s not about building a team. It’s not about strategy. It’s not even about winning. It’s a social trap. The meme exists for one purpose: engagement.
When someone posts “Pick a $35 Pokémon team,” they’re not asking you to calculate stats or optimize coverage. They’re asking you to participate — to do exactly what they want, publicly, so your response becomes part of Facebook's content. The Pokémon themselves are just symbols; the “team” is meaningless outside of the social context. This is why people tell you to “just pick your favorites” or why overthinking it is punished. Stats, movesets, items — all that knowledge actually works against you, because it pulls you into analytical mode instead of the meme mode the post wants. It’s like a Rorschach test disguised as a game: your answer isn’t evaluated for correctness, it’s evaluated for engagement. You’re “winning” by participating, not by building the strongest team.
In short, you're being manipulated for someone else's attention by attempting to get attention for your answer to the meme.
