I have never really understood the craze of Pokemon Go. As my path has never crossed with a Pokemon-goer, it has never mattered to me that much.
Imagine my surprise whilst in the beautiful Frogner Park in Oslo. It happened whilst I was looking at the amazing but slightly strange sculptures in the park when our paths collided!
There were at least 50-60 people with their heads deep in their phone and standing within the frames of tourist’s photos. They were using their power packs to charge their phones for a game rather than to take photos of lasting memories.
It made me ponder for a moment. Why were they not enjoying this wonderful place? Why were they not enjoying the culture of the city? Why come here at all?
I felt it ruined the atmosphere of touristic places but could I be wrong? So, once leaving Norway I did a little online research on Pokemon Go. Was I missing something? Is there something about the Pokemon Go craze that I failed to get a good grasp of?
Interestingly, during my research, I discovered that places use Pokemon Go to bring people to their city. It attracts Pokemon tourists. Perhaps, Pokemon were helping tourist boards.
I thought further. Once I was a child uninterested in culture, as well. I had been dragged around, sulking, by my parents. I am pretty sure that I would have benefited from an incentive of cartoon characters.
So either love it or hate it. Pokemon Go is here to stay . . . until the next craze kicks in.
I haven’t seen too much people play Pokemon Go – but have heard and seen on Instagram crazy crowds! Indeed feel like you, please go and stop it! People sticking to their phones for this game is nuts!
I tried playing it once, but I never really enjoyed or understood why people were going crazy about it. I’m still amazed by people running to catch a pokemon or two across town 😀 I like your point of view though, maybe bringing people to unusual destinations and sights can actually be a positive aspect of this game!
Something similar happened with me while I was doing a trip on Golden Chariot Luxury train in the month of March.
There was a lady severely addicted to Pokemon and then I learnt that how it inspires travellers to visit new places and find new pokemon or earn points. (Just got a vague idea of it still)
Thank you for taking me back to Frogner Park. I had loved it during my visit to Oslo.
As I started reading your blog, I thought the same things which you wrote. That it’s sad that people don’t enjoy the places anymore. But when I read the entire blog, I was impressed with the idea of using Pokemon to attract kids.