# Pokémon Pokémon started as a Game Boy RPG designed by Satoshi Tajiri and released by Nintendo in Japan on February 27, 1996, and grew into one of the most productive meme sources on the early web. From 'I Herd U Liek Mudkips' to Slowpoke reaction images, Professor Oak macros, Dat Ash, and the MissingNo. glitch, the franchise fed 4chan's /vp/, deviantArt, and Tumblr with two decades of catchphrases, image macros, glitch lore, and fan-made creatures. ## Origin The source franchise began on February 27, 1996 with the Japanese Game Boy release of Pocket Monsters Red and Green, designed by Satoshi Tajiri at Game Freak and published by Nintendo. Blue Version followed on October 15, 1996 and was later repackaged for the US as Red and Blue on September 30, 1998 [4]. The Independent later ranked Pokémon second only to Mario among best-selling game series, a scale that helped push the games into wider pop culture [1]. The meme layer grew separately from the games. Nintendo developed the franchise; anonymous fans on 4chan's /vp/ board and artists on deviantArt built the earliest formats. 'I Herd U Liek Mudkips' first surfaced on deviantArt as early as February 2005 as a recruitment slogan for a fan art group called MudKipClub, before being rewritten as a 4chan copypasta [4]. Later formats such as 'Top Percentage' pulled dialogue directly from Youngster Joey in Pokémon Gold and Silver, released in North America in 2000, and turned it into a mock brag [4]. - **Platform:** Nintendo Game Boy (source) / 4chan and deviantArt (meme spread) - **Creator:** Unknown (various fan communities; franchise designed by Satoshi Tajiri) - **Date:** 1996 ## Overview Pokémon, also known online through spin-off meme tags like 'Dat Ash', is less a single meme than a decades-long meme category. Fans built dozens of separate formats around the games, the anime, the cards, and the glitches, and most of them still circulate today. The recurring formats include catchphrases like 'A Wild X Appears!' and 'It's Super Effective!', image macros of Professor Oak and Gary Oak, glitch lore around MissingNo., and fan-drawn creatures known as Fakémon [4]. The visual style leans on Game Boy sprites, the Ken Sugimori art, and screenshots of the anime with Ash Ketchum and his rivals. Community writing sites like Bulbapedia, Serebii, and Smogon feed a steady drip of trivia, competitive metagame data, and set leaks that meme accounts remix into jokes [2] [3]. Fanfiction.net, meanwhile, hosts thousands of stories in the Pokémon category, including the badfic classic 'Pokémon: Attack of Mewtwo' [5]. Tone across the memes swings wildly. Slowpoke sits at the sarcastic end, used to mock people posting old news. 'Hoenn Confirmed' plays the same role as 'Half Life 3 Confirmed', treating any scrap of concept art as proof of a Ruby and Sapphire remake [4]. Fakémon culture, by contrast, is earnest, with artists producing polished sprite sheets and full ROM hacks like 'Pokémon: Tentaquil Edition' [4]. ## How to Use There is no single template. Reaction image formats pair a Pokémon sprite with a caption: Slowpoke reacts to old news with 'Hey guys, did you hear...', Professor Oak macros point out world-building holes, and Gary Oak images taunt the reader. Catchphrase formats swap a name into a fixed phrase, as with 'A Wild [name] Appears!' or '[thing] is super effective'. Fakémon posts usually accept a base sprite, a name that puns on two real Pokémon, and a fake Pokédex entry. Ship names such as 'Rocketshipping' for Jessie and James and 'Pokéshipping' for Ash and Misty follow a standard '[X]shipping' convention listed by Bulbagarden and reused across the community. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Pokémon? Pokémon is a Nintendo media franchise built around collecting and battling creatures, and online it works as an umbrella for dozens of related memes and catchphrases [4]. ### Where did Pokémon come from? Game designer Satoshi Tajiri created it at Game Freak, and the first games shipped on the Japanese Game Boy on February 27, 1996 [4]. ### What does Pokémon mean? The name is a portmanteau of the Japanese 'Poketto Monsutā', meaning 'Pocket Monsters' [4]. ### How do you use Pokémon memes? Pick a specific format: Slowpoke for old news, Professor Oak for lore holes, 'A Wild X Appears!' for a surprise entrance, or a Fakémon sprite for fan creatures [4]. ### Is Pokémon still popular? Yes, fansites like Serebii and Marriland are still publishing set reveals and guides in 2026, and Serebii is even hosting exclusive Mega Evolution card reveals [2] [7]. ### What is 'Dat Ash'? 'Dat Ash', also called Ash Pedreiro, is an advice-animal macro featuring an alternate-universe Ash Ketchum paired with lewd Pokémon-name puns; it started on the Brazilian web [4]. ### What was Pokémon Uranium? A fan-made game by JV and Involuntary Twitch, released August 6, 2016 with 150 fan-designed creatures; Nintendo takedowns forced its download links offline a week later [6]. ### What is MissingNo.? MissingNo. is a glitch entry in Pokémon Red and Blue used by Game Freak as an error handler, only visible when the game tries to load a Pokémon species that does not exist [4]. ### What is 'Hoenn Confirmed'? A sarcastic catchphrase treating tiny in-game details as proof that the Hoenn-region games will be remade, styled after 'Half-Life 3 Confirmed' [4]. ### Where do Pokémon fans hang out online? Popular hubs include Serebii for news, Smogon for competitive play, Marriland for guides, Bulbapedia for wiki-style trivia, and 4chan's /vp/ board for shitposts and Fakémon [2] [3] [7]. ## References 1. [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-eidos-plans-to-stay-ahead-of-the-video-game-market-431541.html]() 2. [https://serebii.net/]() 3. [https://www.smogon.com/]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pokemon]() 5. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130907120910/https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5711311/1/Pokemon_attack_of_mewtwo]() 6. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160818205523/https://www.pokemonuranium.com/team/]() 7. [https://marriland.com/]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-WqRkiLe1A]() 9. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pokemon]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/pokemon Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library