OPINION

Mullis: There's a Pikachu lurking in the dairy section

Nicole L.V. Mullis
For the Enquirer

The first morning I saw the word “Pokémon” in an NPR headline, I did a double-take.

What's a two-decade-old cartoon doing in my morning news?

I figured it was a nostalgia piece, but the story had nothing to do with the cartoon kid and his puffy pet, who was supposed to be a warrior, but looked like an overgrown marshmallow Peep. It was about “Pokémon Go,” an augmented reality game where players hunt Pokémon using their smartphones in the real world in real time.

Apparently, it was breaking news.

That afternoon, when I picked up my youngest from a friend's house, she begged for 10 more minutes.

“We're hunting Pokémon.”

I was surprised she knew what a Pokémon was. And I think she was surprised I knew what she was talking about.

Thanks, NPR.

I waited, watching them walk the neighborhood, heads down, phones out, ultra-focused. They returned victorious, some digital doodad trapped in another digital doodad.

The next evening, I saw people walking downtown at hours people don't usually walk downtown – heads down, phones out, ultra-focused. I knew they were hunting Pokémon because they weren't swiping their screens.

Also, they seemed to be talking to each other.

Very strange.

A couple days later, I was grocery shopping with my youngest. I had my phone out because I had clipped a digital coupon for dishwasher soap, but couldn't remember which brand. My youngest was slumped over the cart, bored with my incompetence. Finally, she stood up, tapped a few things, and pointed to the coupon. That's when a store employee stopped us.

“Are you hunting Pokémon?”

No, coupons.

“Well, there’s a Pikachu lurking in the dairy section.”

I smiled, thinking about an overgrown marshmallow Peep creeping around the half-and-half.

My daughter swapped hunting stories with him, while I commented on seeing downtown hunters. He told us business owners across the country are paying for lures, which attracted Pokémon, which attracted the Pokémon hunters, aka potential customers.

No kidding?

Wondering how much a lure cost, I opened up Google. The only word I typed into the search engine was "how", before it autosuggested “How to play Pokémon Go”.

That's scary popular.

“Pokémon Go” continues to dominate my morning news – hunters being hit by cars, robbed by pickpockets, data-mined by digital crooks, kicked out of historical landmarks. I have a sister in Colorado whose house was on the perimeter of the Cold Springs wildfire. Being concerned, I monitored the Colorado news websites. The fire was still raging when “Pokémon Go” supplanted it as the top headline.

No kidding.

Although I am not interested in hunting Pokémon, the hunters bring out the voyeur in me. There they are, literally walking the blurred line between reality and virtual reality. It's fascinating … and a little spooky.

Normally, I wouldn't condone voyeurism, but watching these folks is a good idea. They may be fast to spot a Pokémon, but they are slow to stop at an intersection.

“Pokémon Go” feels like a fad, but I'm not sure it will fade. It isn’t the first augmented reality game, but it is the first to tap a longstanding brand with a longstanding fan base. Two decades of cartoons, movies, video games, trading cards and nostalgia means the Pikachu in my dairy section will be there for a while.

Nicole L.V. Mullis is the author of the novel "A Teacher Named Faith." She can be reached at nlvm.columns@gmail.com or www.NicoleLVMullis.com.

PRINT DATE MOVING

Developing Laugh Lines is moving to the Friday newspaper. You'll be able to find Nicole L.V. Mullis on page 3A starting July 29.