More Pokemon: Generational Difference

Via The Speed Demon

I promise that this is not a Pokemon-only blog. I actually write about things as diverse as games, movies, education policy, and literary theory (to mention a few topics). But because of Twitch Plays Pokemon and a few TPP inspired projects I'm working on (an academic analysis, a novella, a game inspired by the Helix saga), I've been pretty much invested in all things Pokemon. Today I want to do a post where I talk about Pokemon generational divide and how to address it.


I quit playing Pokemon games after Generation I. I played Pokemon Red and caught as many Pokemon as I could. My neighbor had Pokemon Blue and he did likewise. Then, we traded starter Pokemon via link-cables. After finishing the game, however, we both quit Pokemon. It was likewise with the anime - we watched about 30 episodes, got tired of Ash's poor training skills. By the time Generation II came around, we didn't care about it too much. Although we had fond memories of Generation I, we didn't hate the new generation on principle, we just didn't care. It was then with some surprise that, while reading about the Pokemon fan community in various forums, I found that there seems to be a lot of hate emanating from people who quit Pokemon after the first two or three generations and those who are new to Pokemon. The amount of hate has reached a level where the Pokemon community has adopted the term Genwunner from the Transformers community to demean those who only like Generations I and II, and in retaliation the fans of the first generations call the newer fans Newgenners.