This resonates with me so strongly, and I love you tying this big idea into something small and silly like Pokémon so that you can trick my brain into paying attention. Now the thought of the simulacrum will live rent free in my head as well!
You nailed it - I remember discovering the Red Gyrados and not fully comprehending what I’d stumbled across. I was mystified. I don’t know how easy it is to recapture that authentic sense of ‘revelation’ in our modern world - if it can be recaptured at all.
The first time I went to Niagara Falls, I was amazed by its sheer scale and volume. But then one of my professors told us that the water flow has been artificially routed through control mechanisms. That way they can reduce the output at night when nobody is looking. So in a sense, even if the person who went to Niagara Falls with no information about it beforehand, they're not really experiencing something real.
This reminds me of an experience I had a while ago. I was having as close to a perfect day as I can imagine, and I decided to cap it off by walking up the hill to stargaze, something I'd not gone out of my way to do in some time.
As I was staring up admiring the clear sky, I saw a shooting star and thought to myself this really is the perfec... but my thought was interrupted as a recent conversation with my astrophotographer friend sprung into my mind, bemoaning LEO satellites for ruining their hobby, and then there I was bemoaning them for my almost perfect day.
I didn't let it sour my mood, but now when I recall that day the first thing that comes to mind is this reminder that the experience of spontaneously getting to enjoy seeing a shooting star is something I'd never experience again for the rest of my life.
You've reminded me of a passage in one of Umberto Eco's essays in Travels in Hyperreality -
"So Clark Kent would arrive on Earth to fulfill the hopes of a generation that enjoys Tolkien's Silmarillion and deciphers a theogony that obliges them to memorize the children of Iluvatar and the Quendi and the Atani and the flowery meadows of Valinor and the wounds of Melkor: all things that, if they had had to be studied in school, would have driven the same generation to occupy the university or high school in protest against notionism."
I think about this a lot when encountering theorists of FromSoft game lore or the like, and it made me chuckle to think of this generations jaded kids grimly enduring the grind of mechanically securing their own palette swap. Then I remembered how I felt when I was a kid playing the first gen games, how special and unique each new cartoon monster seemed, when now, if I played them, all I would see is a table of numerical values and categories. Maybe it's just harder to sense the magic when you're older. And when the games are worse.
In light of people revisiting Pokémon Scarlet & Violet on Switch 2 because the performance boost makes "shiny hunting" easier, the nature of the language being used seemed overly familiar, then it struck me why. When I re-read this post, when I saw that promotion offering players two shiny Pokémon for jumping through hoops, or the description of the ritualistic reactions to finding shinies, it all reaffirmed my feeling; shinies in modern Pokémon have become gacha mechanic.
In an effort to make obtaining a shiny less arduous, I suspect they've drastically increased the total amount of time people burn hunting them down by—knowingly or unknowingly—tuning the odds to the perfect level to keep people hooked.
I picked up Pokemon Alpha Sapphire when it released to relive some nostalgia. Booted it up the first time to a shiny Torchic. That's the only time I ever had a shiny Pokémon. And I gave that game to a friend because I realized I didn't like playing Pokémon anymore. Hope they're doing well — that Torchic and my childhood friend.
SIMULACRUM!!
This resonates with me so strongly, and I love you tying this big idea into something small and silly like Pokémon so that you can trick my brain into paying attention. Now the thought of the simulacrum will live rent free in my head as well!
My first shiny pokemon was a golden caterpie and I was too young to comprehend so I reset my game in fear that it would break my only copy of Silver.
Now, I farm guaranteed shiny pokemon in mass outbreaks.
Now think about the tomato in a Taco Bell taco. Is that really a tomato, or is it a Tomato™?
That's a bar
You nailed it - I remember discovering the Red Gyrados and not fully comprehending what I’d stumbled across. I was mystified. I don’t know how easy it is to recapture that authentic sense of ‘revelation’ in our modern world - if it can be recaptured at all.
The first time I went to Niagara Falls, I was amazed by its sheer scale and volume. But then one of my professors told us that the water flow has been artificially routed through control mechanisms. That way they can reduce the output at night when nobody is looking. So in a sense, even if the person who went to Niagara Falls with no information about it beforehand, they're not really experiencing something real.
This reminds me of an experience I had a while ago. I was having as close to a perfect day as I can imagine, and I decided to cap it off by walking up the hill to stargaze, something I'd not gone out of my way to do in some time.
As I was staring up admiring the clear sky, I saw a shooting star and thought to myself this really is the perfec... but my thought was interrupted as a recent conversation with my astrophotographer friend sprung into my mind, bemoaning LEO satellites for ruining their hobby, and then there I was bemoaning them for my almost perfect day.
I didn't let it sour my mood, but now when I recall that day the first thing that comes to mind is this reminder that the experience of spontaneously getting to enjoy seeing a shooting star is something I'd never experience again for the rest of my life.
You've reminded me of a passage in one of Umberto Eco's essays in Travels in Hyperreality -
"So Clark Kent would arrive on Earth to fulfill the hopes of a generation that enjoys Tolkien's Silmarillion and deciphers a theogony that obliges them to memorize the children of Iluvatar and the Quendi and the Atani and the flowery meadows of Valinor and the wounds of Melkor: all things that, if they had had to be studied in school, would have driven the same generation to occupy the university or high school in protest against notionism."
I think about this a lot when encountering theorists of FromSoft game lore or the like, and it made me chuckle to think of this generations jaded kids grimly enduring the grind of mechanically securing their own palette swap. Then I remembered how I felt when I was a kid playing the first gen games, how special and unique each new cartoon monster seemed, when now, if I played them, all I would see is a table of numerical values and categories. Maybe it's just harder to sense the magic when you're older. And when the games are worse.
In light of people revisiting Pokémon Scarlet & Violet on Switch 2 because the performance boost makes "shiny hunting" easier, the nature of the language being used seemed overly familiar, then it struck me why. When I re-read this post, when I saw that promotion offering players two shiny Pokémon for jumping through hoops, or the description of the ritualistic reactions to finding shinies, it all reaffirmed my feeling; shinies in modern Pokémon have become gacha mechanic.
In an effort to make obtaining a shiny less arduous, I suspect they've drastically increased the total amount of time people burn hunting them down by—knowingly or unknowingly—tuning the odds to the perfect level to keep people hooked.
Still remember the weird Girafarig I caught way back in Silver with the little stars. Haven’t seen any since and that is fine.
I picked up Pokemon Alpha Sapphire when it released to relive some nostalgia. Booted it up the first time to a shiny Torchic. That's the only time I ever had a shiny Pokémon. And I gave that game to a friend because I realized I didn't like playing Pokémon anymore. Hope they're doing well — that Torchic and my childhood friend.