Everytime I watched the news this past week, it felt like the entire country was falling apart. With all the unspeakable violence and the unwillingness of some to change, it’s easy to fall into the pits of despair and fear that many experience in their daily lives.
“So what should I do?” I asked myself. “How can we overcome being continuously depressed by the nightly news?”
Then it dawned on me: just ignore it.
“How can I do that?” I asked myself again. So I set out to find out exactly how.
I delved deep into the Internet. I figured I could ignore by visiting social media sights. No such luck though, as everyone was eager to put in their opinions.
Then, on Wednesday evening, an answer came to me as big as the Pikachu balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Who has time to care about the racially charged fighting and the terror that one must feel as we watch helplessly every time there is a new tragedy in our nation every other week when we can download Pokèmon Go and run around catching little creatures from our phone screens?
I realized that maybe this is the best way to ignore all the senseless violence that has become our cultural norm. How ingenious of the makers to release it this past week, when it seemed like every day there was an unarmed black person shot by a police officer, someone who swore to protect them, while we all watched in horror. Then, as it culminated with the violence in Dallas, we felt the pain and the anger that adds names to the list of the dead who didn’t need to die.
It seems as the people who create our country’s laws choose to ignore these things, why can’t we? Why can’t I go out and try to catch a Pikachu in my yard for hours without feeling that I should be doing something, anything, to make it clear that this isn’t the way I thought things would be when I was young and learned about the history of our country? It feels like we’re going backwards, and it simply doesn’t seem like anyone in charge has any intention of changing anything, so why should we try fight it?
Our Tweets and Facebook posts don’t do anything. Our “thoughts and prayers” won’t accomplish much. Even if we go and hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and then engage in a civilized Internet debate with someone who hashtags #AllLivesMatter and try to explain to them that, by their incessant ignorance of their privilege, they are in fact proving that they don’t think that all lives matter, it makes no change. So why even try? Especially when there are Pokémon out there to catch.
Who knows, maybe the answer to all of our problems actually lie in the Pokémon Go app. If enough people download it, they won’t ride in cars and then be killed at a routine traffic stop or because they have a burnt out taillight, because you actually have to walk to get your Pokémon. And they say videogames make us lazy.
Perhaps it will usher in a new era of acceptance. Sure, I may have chosen team yellow, while you probably chose team red, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get along and enjoy the game, right? Who lets colors divide us anyway?
I hope to see a future when we can all walk around, catch a few Legendary Pokémon, then meet up and fight our Pokémon, but not with each other.
Granted, though, nothing can happen without criticism. I’ve already heard reports about kids ignoring their surroundings while playing the game, leading them to the middle of a busy road.
I myself am writing this after falling in to a well while trying to catch a Meowth. But don’t send help, I finally found the place where I can peacefully ignore the troubles our world faces and not be saddened just by watching the news or enraged by ignorance by those on the Internet.
