Pokemon Forums Are an Unmitigated Disaster
The Pokemon Company recently launched an official forum where franchise fans could gather and discuss all things Pokemon. However, the company and the fandom clearly have very different definitions of “all things,” and the Pokemon forums quickly turned into an unmitigated disaster, with a large number of discussions pertaining to users expressing their desires to get physical with their favorite Pokemon—and we’re not talking about an octagon-kind of physical.
According to Kotaku, the Pokemon Company’s newly opened official Pokemon forums quickly became an unmitigated disaster as fans posted some pretty questionable and borderline disturbing discussion topics that one could imagine. The range of topics covered just about everything wrong with humanity, besides discussing which Pokemon they would try to “woo,” which girl from the franchise they’d tickle torture, to various discussions on how nearly every character from the Pokemon franchise is LGBTQA+.
Are the Pokemon Forums Monitored?
Admittedly, the Pokemon forums’ discussion moderators act quickly at removing inappropriate topics, which are mostly NSFW and not family-friendly, but the amount of work they have is overwhelming.
It seems like for every post they delete for breaking the guidelines of the forum; two more take its place. This is concerning, especially considering that a discussion about Pokemon is naturally going to draw in younger members of the Pokemon community.
The range of topics covered just about everything wrong with humanity, besides discussing which Pokemon they would try to “woo,” which girl from the franchise they’d tickle torture, to various discussions on how nearly every character from the Pokemon franchise is LGBTQA+.
And while the rest of us can laugh and wonder at the weirdness of the online world and its many inhabitants whose sanity should be questioned, parents of young gamers that are into Pokemon games should take heed and steer their children away from the Pokemon forums for the time being.
Things will eventually settle down once the community has had its fill of internet trolls and the Pokemon Company introduces IP bans for repeat offenders breaking their community rules and guidelines.
Speaking of which, Pokemon forums’ guidelines advise people not to share personal information, refrain from using foul language, and discussions of non-official Pokemon products. The latter is likely introduced to avoid discussions of fan-made Pokemon games.
However, the guidelines also state that the listed rules aren’t all-encompassing and that particular posts can be removed at the moderators’ discretion. This means that all discussions that would be inappropriate for children may, and most likely will, be deleted.
This is concerning, especially considering that a discussion about Pokemon is naturally going to draw in younger members of the Pokemon community.
The Pokemon Company is partially owned by Nintendo, which jumps through fiery loops just to keep its content family-friendly.
Just recently, the company updated its “bad-word” list on Nintendo Switch, so it’s not excluded that at least some company staff is upset at the fandom for giving the mods more work than they can handle since the mods clearly aren’t fast enough to stop the onslaught of inappropriate posts made on the Pokemon forums.
Apart from thirst posts, which aren’t really a novelty when it comes to Pokemon or any other content—read Internet Rule 34—there are also disturbing discussions about which Pokemon would make the best meal or which would be best at operating a Hyundai 25L-7 forklift. Admittedly, the latter isn’t as disturbing, but it’s likely making the mods question their decisions when it comes to their professional choices.
