By Neil Hogan
Before joining the Exploring Asian Popular Culture course, I only had limited understanding of the transfer of culture around the world. I thought other countries were only influenced through media. The course has informed me about transnational cultural flow, and I’ve especially been informed by Appadurai (1990) who went into some detail about the five main ‘scapes’ where the cultural exchanges happen. I had had no idea that my interest in Pokémon Go was a result of that. In this essay I’ll explore some of the ideas that were compelling for me in the course, with reference to Pokémon Go, which I’ve been playing since mid-2016.
Firstly, I’d like to summarise what we can consider is meant by the concept of transnational cultural flow. Appadurai (1990) defined it as having five dimensions of imaginary worlds. In summary, these dimensions are ethnoscapes, which refers to people who move between countries, mediascapes, which focuses on the capabilities of countries to produce and distribute information such as newspapers, magazines, broadcasts etc, technoscapes which concerns global technology configuration and interaction, finanscapes which is about the transfer of global capital around the world, and ideoscapes, the label that applies to political ideologies and their influences and interactions.
Learning about transnational cultural flow and how my own interest in Japanese products has been influenced by that and soft nationalism, the wide dissemination by the Japanese public of Japanese popular culture, has alerted me to the effect of other related exports from Asia. For example, K-Pop. While K-Pop and Pokémon Go seem worlds apart, they are both a consumable created to spread the culture of their country of origin, and they do that through hybridity, the combination of cultures making a product more accessible. K-Pop is available with subtitles or even in English. It also contains westernised aspects and references to make it easier to assimilate. And it has legions of fans worldwide, much like Pokémon Go. While being quite different, the underlying acquisition is similar. “…fans relate the otherness implicated in transnational cultural products to their everyday contexts while creatively appropriating the otherness of Japanese pop culture.” (Yoon 2018)
The Hatsune Miku phenomenon explored in the course in week 7 was quite a surprise for me as I hadn’t heard of her before. Lam goes to great pains to explain that Miku is a digital construct and does not exist in reality, so she rejects the philosophical concept of the likelihood of her being real, deciding instead that the fans are suffering from delusions. “Hence, the more they immerse themselves in these activities, the more they believe in her authenticity.” Lam (2016). Phenomenalism says that the mind is merely a collection of perceptions and memories so the world is only as real as we can perceive and remember it. As we can perceive, remember and even write about Hatsune Miku, she can be considered real. Now, considering her as being alive is a whole other matter, but I thought I’d point this connection out as it is relevant to playing Pokémon Go. After all, the game features, at the time of writing, about 600 digital versions of anime characters along with almost as many alternative versions. In the game, they speak, they have unique movements, stats, powers, can have selfies taken with them, and could be considered as real as Hatsune Miku. I believe this aspect of realism enables players to feel protective of their collections and I’m sure, just like myself, they would have difficulty with the idea of deleting them.
In Hugh Davies’ lecture in Week 11, he explored the idea that insects are very large in Japan and insect collecting is quite popular. He then, to my surprise, informed us that this is the reason why Pokémon Go is so popular in Japan due to many of the characters being based on insects and the main point of the game is to collect them! I was surprised by this piece of information but knew that Davies had to be right as I used to collect many things when I was younger and even collected beetles and butterflies for a short time. Collecting new Pokémon Go characters is the main reason I play it, so the game appeals to my interest in completing something. As the game is based on an anime originally created in Asia, I’ve definitely been influenced by Asian popular culture. I expect I will continue to be influenced while the game still received updates, and I’ll have digital collection of Pokémon to remind me, forever.
Another aspect of Pokémon Go that is a little under the radar has to do with gamers not choosing avatars that physically represent themselves. When I play multiplayer games, I might be randomly assigned an avatar which could be an African female or Asian male or even an alien. When playing Pokémon Go, the avatars are more restrictive. A choice of a handsome male form or an attractive female form, but with hundreds of apparel choices, hairstyles, skin shades and more to choose from. In this sense I can create my own beautiful female avatar, much like Hatsune Miku. In fact, my avatar does look like a more mature, business version of Hatsune Miku and I know of many other male players using female avatars in Pokémon Go, just because they’re nicer to look at! As Lam (2016) says “The female Vocaloid avatars guarantee the most profitable market in gendered representations” and this is true across many gaming platforms, including Pokémon Go. So, even though the phone game was originally designed for a younger audience, elements have been included to attract more mature players—attractive adaptable avatars similar to Hatsune Miku being one of them.
In 1981 I was a fan of Monkey (a 1970s TV series from Japan dubbed in English with British voices). My friends and I at school used to dress up or pretend to be the main characters. I was the serious Sandy while Adam was crazy Monkey, and Craig was the annoying Pigsy. We even once brought home-made costumes to school to play out a scene from the show together. Years later I found a new word had been coined for this behaviour around 1984—cosplay. As I spent the next ten years at costume parties dressing up as characters from science fiction shows like Doctor Who and Star Trek, if I was attending primary school now I’d probably be dressing up as one of my favourite Pokémon Go characters! Making it myself, of course. “These character costumes are often localized through the process of do-it-yourself, seemingly a required feature of the practice.” Peirson-Smith (2013). Peirson-Smith explores the idea that cosplay is a rejection of conformity, a way to become part of a crowd, a way to express individuality and to fulfil a need of dressing up if it isn’t something that can usually be done. I’d like to add to that my reason for dressing up is to impress others in my group. I always went for the most creative and inventive costume possible, with tech added. Flashing lights, skin masks, and more. If I was doing cosplay today, I would create a Pokémon costume with drones hidden under it, then float it into the party. Not something most cosplayers would consider, and it would probably get me the coveted best costume prize—one of the main reasons cosplay players make them for events.
But, of course, my interest in the Pokémon Go mobile game didn’t stop with just the game. I read websites, joined Facebook groups, signed up for newsletters and checked out any future features coming soon through code mining sites. Though, surprisingly, the most fun I’ve had is with Pokémon Go memes. I use r/memes on Reddit and a few people post Pokémon related memes. “A meme essentially, is any idea or habit that is passed between people through imitation.” (Sharma 2018). Some of the memes relate to the anime series, but many focus on the Pokémon Go game itself. While I thought of an interest in memes as idle curiosity or something light and fun to read, until I did this course, I had no idea that memes were that influential. Certainly, even in the situation we are now in by being in lockdown due to a virus, the virality of a meme had passed me by. “The thought of memes being viral allows for other concepts to apply to a meme such as that of mutation.” (Sharma 2018). This is true in that on r/memes, readers will frequently see the same meme reposted, but updated. It has been either adapted or improved in some way, evolving as it were.
The other great thing about specific memes that refer to a well-known aspect of popular culture is that you suddenly become part of that community, if only for a moment. This recognition is uplifting as though to say, there are others that think like me. By recognising a meme, in this case one referring to Pokémon Go, anyone who gets the joke is immediately part of the ‘in’ crowd. With the game having had over a billion downloads since 2016 (Iqbal 2020) it’s not surprising that a Pokémon Go meme can be quickly understood and upvoted or downvoted by Pokémon Go fans around the world.
Overall, I’ve learnt a lot in the Exploring Asian Popular Culture course, and I can now see further into the myriad of disparate flows that make up our society. I now understand that Pokémon Go hasn’t just been an idle tool of relaxation for me, but something much more, a catalyst for absorbing me into the transnational cultural flows between Japan and the West.
References
Appadurai, A (1990). “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theory, Culture & Society, vol 7, no. 2-3, pp 295-310
Business of Apps. (2017). Pokémon GO Revenue and Usage Statistics (2020). [online] Available at: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/pokemon-go-statistics/#:~:text=Apptopia%20Pok%C3%A9mon%20GO%20stats%20showed. [Accessed 12 Oct. 2020]
Davies, H (2020). Gaming in China. [Video] Available at: https://rmit.instructure.com/courses/66484/pages/week-11-gaming-in-china?module_item_id=2618043 [Accessed 13 Oct. 2020].
Lam, K.Y. (2016). The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon: More Than a Virtual J-Pop Diva. The Journal of Popular Culture, 49(5), pp.1107–1124.
Peirson-Smith, A. (2013). Fashioning the Fantastical Self: An Examination of the Cosplay Dress-up Phenomenon in Southeast Asia. Fashion Theory, 17(1), pp.77–111.
Reddit.com. 2008. /R/Memes The Original Since 2008. [online] Available at: <https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/> [Accessed 13 October 2020].
Sharma, H. (2018). Memes in digital culture and their role in marketing and communication: A study in India. Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture, 9(3), pp.303–318.
Yoon, K. (2018). Transnational fandom in the making: K-pop fans in Vancouver. International Communication Gazette, 81(2), pp.176–192.