By now everyone is pretty familiar with or has played extensively, Pokemon Go. You walk around and catch Pokemon, battle rival gyms, and evolve your Pokemon. Now that there are so many people playing this game, the consensus seems to be that liking Pokemon is now acceptable.

When I was around ten or twelve years old, Pokemon was considered the nerdiest game ever.

Mario or Sonic was cool, but Pokemon equaled grade A nerd. I saw kids get made fun of for liking a game that required you to catch weird looking creatures. At the time, I only knew of Pokemon through Super Smash Bros.—Pikachu, Pichu, and Mewtwo.

So when people tried to convince me to play Pokemon Go, I was a little hesistant because I had seen what the kids who liked Pokemon went through and I thought the game was stupid. Why constantly have your face in your phone looking for Pokemon? When you should be aware of your surroundings as the game’s loading screen tells you to do. However, I ended up succumbing to the persuasion and made an account. Now I enjoy playing Pokemon Go and Pokemon as a series.

I started to like Pokemon Go the more I played it because it was an active game, it gave me motivation to exercise, and it gave me something to do on a boring night out. However, I heard a lot of backlash from people I knew, who were long-time Pokemon players. Long-time Pokemon players thought the game was not “real Pokemon” or people only liked it because it came on their iPhone. I even heard that those who played Pokemon Go were only playing it because it was trendy otherwise they would have never touched it.

These kinds of comments personally annoyed me. I will admit I did end up playing because other people were, but I played it because other people were having fun playing it. If I only wanted to play it because other people played it, I would not enjoy playing it as much as I do. Just because I haven’t played every Pokemon game under the sun, does not make unable to love the Pokemon franchise. In fact, because of Pokemon Go, I have started to watch some of the Pokemon TV Series, such as Pokemon: Indigo League.

Pokemon Go has made loving and playing Pokemon acceptable because it’s an iPhone app that almost anyone can access, and it can be played anytime because you bring your phone is everywhere. It is okay to love Pokemon Go and only Pokemon Go if you choose to, and it’s okay to branch out and discover other parts of the Pokemon franchise. I’m tired of people who have played Pokemon for a long time ragging on new Pokemon players as not being real Pokemon fans. Anyone should be allowed to like Pokemon at whatever point in the franchise, it does not make you any less of fan.