Checking In On Your Pokemon Go Privilege

What was life like before this summer of Pokemon GO? It's hard to remember; but I'm pretty sure it involved being shit-terrified over the state of both the world and pop culture simultaneously, like a Mr. Robot episode that you try to turn off, only to realize that Fsociety has taken over your dystopian SmartHome and your remote controls are remote meaningless. Pokemon, before this summer, was something I thought of--if at all-- as something for nerds much younger than myself. Though I might have been young enough to fit into the Game Boy demo when Nintendo released its first iteration of the adorable monster franchise in 1996, I remember thinking that the trading cards were for the dorks who played Magic: The Gathering during recess (a full social caste lower than me!) and cartoons were for babies.