Catching cheating boyfriends, stumbling across dead bodies and advertising one's services as a professional Pokemon Go trainer – less than a week since the launch of the virtual-meets-real-world app Pokemon Go and the stories it has sparked are kookier than the names of the critters its fans are trying to catch.
Cheating boyfriend
Evan Scribner, a resident of Sunnyside, Queens, told the New York Post that his girlfriend spotted his infidelities after accessing his Pokemon Go app and noticing that he'd caught a Pokemon in the exact location of his ex-girlfriend's house in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
“She saw that I had caught a Pokemon while at my ex’s house,” Scribner told the Post . “She found out last night at my house and hasn’t contacted me since then.”
Professional Pokemon trainer
No time to spend your summer days walking the streets in search of Pokestops when you also have a real job? No problem. Craigslist ads are now popping up for Pokemon trainers, with prices in New York City ranging from $20-30 per hour.
Arthur, a 26-year-old lifelong Pokemon fan, is offering his services for $25 per hour: I can focus on catching a specific species of Pokemon to evolve for you. I can focus on training up your Pokemon to get your local gyms on lockdown. I can focus on catching Pokemon of a specific type. And of course, I will gladly walk out of my way to find new Pokemon to add to your Pokedex.
Journalist and Pokemon fan Ivy St Ive also offered her services for $20 an hour: I will walk around in 1-4 hour shifts signed in to your account capturing every single Pokemon I come into contact with, activating every Poke Stop I pass and walking nonstop to help hatch your eggs. I’ll even send you hourly updates while you’re at work/class/on a hot date informing you of any really exciting things I’ve come across for you.
Holocaust Museum; Auschwitz
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has told Pokemon Go fans not to play the popular the game in its premises, describing it as “extremely inappropriate” in a memorial dedicated to the victims of Nazism. The idea of players roaming its halls, eyes glued to phones in search of the computerised figures, shocked many after an image was posted online showing one of the characters located outside the doors to the museum’s Helena Rubinstein Auditorium.
“We are attempting to have the museum removed from the game,” the museum said in a statement.
The museum encourages visitors to use their mobile phones to share and engage with exhibits while visiting, he added.
“Technology can be an important learning tool, but this game falls far outside of our educational and memorial mission,” Hollinger said.
During a visit to the museum on Tuesday, a Reuters reporter saw various visitors using phones to take photos or send messages, but no one obviously playing games. That included the area outside the Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, which features recorded testimonies from Jews who survived the gas chambers.
The Memorial and Museum at Auschwitz also told the game's makers, Niantic Labs, to stop allowing Pokemon Go to use its site in the game. The museum said on Twitter that allowing users to play "Pokemon Go on the site of our Memorial and similar places... is disrespectful to the memory of victims!
Niantic Labs had previously used Nazi concentration camps as destinations inside its other augmented reality game, Ingress.
Dead bodies, funeral games
A 19-year-old girl in Wyoming claimed stumbled across a dead body in a river while playing Pokemon Go. "I was trying to get a Pokemon from a natural water resource," said Shayla Wiggins. "I was walking towards the bridge along the shore when I saw something in the water ... I had to take a second look and I realised it was a body," she added.
Even if people aren’t stumbling across dead bodies, they are finding plenty of Pokemon in completely inappropriate places, such as coffins at funerals or next to their wife in hospital giving birth.
Stylebook tick of approval
The harbingers of published grammar in the US, AP Stylebook, announced today the rules for writing about Pokemon Go. The official website of Pokemon Go spells the app’s name with an accent but AP Stylebook has decreed the accent over the “e” must disappear. It also deemed the term “Pokestop” OK (hence why we felt safe using it earlier).
Just to put this in perspective, AP Stylebook only permitted from June 1st of this year that internet could be written without a capital “i”.
– (Guardian service)
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