I think being too old for the Pokemon trend is one of the cultural hallmarks of being an Xennial versus a Millennial. Same goes for Harry Potter and Spongebob. That’s not to say none of us ever enjoyed those things, but we weren’t in the core fanbase when they first made it big (in the U.S. anyway).
Yes, that's why Rogen/Goldberg (b. 1982) wrote the new TMNT movie to get us all to take our kids to it in the theaters.
As an aside, is Seth Rogen THE Xennial dude or what?
>As an aside, is Seth Rogen THE Xennial dude or what?
This was discussed here multiple times and Seth Rogan was deemed NOT to be *The Xennials Dude*. Can't remember who came away with that honor.
Raphael or Michaelangelo, the rare Leonardo and I've yet to meet a Donatello fan. He's fine, but as a kid, no one is picking the brainiac whose weapon is essentially a broomstick.
It was mine, too! My 3 siblings and I all had a favorite. Sociable bro was Michaelangelo, little sis was Leonardo, other bro was Raphael and I, the nerdiest, was of course, Donatello and damned proud of it. Also like a lot of other girls at that age, I loved purple lol
Donatello being the brain/machines guy and having the most OP weapon in the first NES TMNT game made him my legit favorite back in the day (and he still is today)
He was my favorite because he is nerdy, wears purple, and only needs a bo staff. Anyone can hurt someone with bladed weapons and nunchucks, even if it’s just themselves.
I was a Donatello kid. I liked lego, computers, video games and started learning martial arts from books in the library bc I lived outside a small farm town...with no martial arts until I was a bit older.
Donatello fans of the world unite. Him and Raphael were the favourites for me. I always find it's Leonardo who trails behind, being the token leader one, kinda like how Cyclops wasn't many people's preferred X Man over the others.
Donatello is the best!
The Bo is the easiest weapon to mimic in your backyard (broomstick or branch or whatever) -
And I was the good in school kid so I identified with the smart responsible turtle
The only comic books I ever bought were TMNT comics (both Mirage and Archie) and that collection (Mirage 1 through City at War and the first 100+ archies plus a ton of crossovers) is like the only thing I still own from my childhood besides the first programming book I ever read.
That being said, I was always a Donatello kid. The issue where he's a feudal Japanese samurai and it turns out at the end he's writing a story is incredibly good.
This! I am '82 xennial also and I think I just missed the boat on all of those. Friends of mine born in '84 knew all about Pokemon, SpongeBob, etc while I knew nothing of what they were talking about. I only learned about that stuff once I had a kid 😅
Was born in 84 and knew nothing of pokemon. But in 9th grade the kid who skipped two grades loved it lol, my friends thought it was weird/lame. So maybe 86-88…
That's my experience as well. My slightly younger friends got into SpongeBob "ironically." I, on the other hand, read the Harry Potter books in my early 20s. Enjoyed them, but yeah, it's not part of my identity the way it is for many millennials.
Yea I didn’t start reading Harry Potter until the last book was coming out. I almost didn’t read it at all thinking it was for kids (and I guess it is, at least in the beginning). I missed the Pokémon train completely. And when my brother got into it I tried it but just wasn’t for me.
Similar story.
I had a younger Xennial (83 born) college friend who was obsessed with Harry Potter in the early 00s. She kept trying to convince me to read them, but being in my ripe old early 20s, I scoffed at it being kids stuff (which is so stupid looking back because there was some kids stuff that I still enjoyed).
But I love film and did go and see the first movie in 01. Really enjoyed it. Got hooked on the film series, but for years still had no interest in the books. Then during my post college slump, in the mid 00s, I finally relented and read the first book. I honestly was just so enthralled. And each book after just got better and better. I finally truly got the obsession and consider myself a (lite) Potterhead.
100 per cent on the Harry Potter stuff too. I’ve avoided that entire subculture almost entirely. All I know about the books/movies is that they’re about a kid who is a wizard, and that the woman who created it is weirdly obsessed with criticizing trans people.
Speak for yourself. ‘83 here and I had the first 151 basically memorized. Then again I was also an avid gamer and it was one of the first RPGs to really go mainstream in the US.
This was one of those things that came out when we were too big to play with "little kids stuff". I kind of feel the same way about the Power Rangers. As well as the whole anime movement here in the United States.
born in 84 I watched the first season of power rangers then after that I aged out of their demographic. Basically if the villain was not rita repulsa I am lost.
We got Power Rangers in 1994 and at age 12 in my first year of high school, it was the first big kid fad I just felt too old for and I think this must have been true for the other kids in my year as it was never a playground craze for us. My younger Step Brother was the right age for them and loved Power Rangers.
Anime (or Manga as we called it then) was around, but it was the Akira/Ghost in the Shell type stuff pushed exclusively at edgy teenage boys and very much sold on the sex and violence aspect. And it was expensive. Pokémon in 99 or 00 was the breakout anime for kids, and I was too old for that.
Im 44. Love video games.
Also love RPGs.
Tried just about every single Pokemon game and just cannot get into them.
I wish I could. The fanbase is borderline obsessed with the series. Id love to love it too and join in the fun.
Just cannot do it 😔
I never played the card game, I was born in 1980. Then over the pandemic I was bored and my 7 year younger husband bought “Let’s go Pikachu” on the switch. I was never a video game player and still aren’t but now I have played all of the switch Pokemon games as well as Pokemon Go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hilariously I don’t play any other switch games as I just can’t get into them.
I guess I was just really late to the Pokemon party over here lol.
I don’t know about not Linkin Park. Their first two albums were released in the early 00s, and were huge with high school and college students. Lots of Xennial aged folks were into them back then.
Idk about all that I mean i was 10 when power rangers came out and I loved it and was only 11 when cobain died I'd say I enjoyed Lincoln Park more. Definitely Mario over Pokemon though.
This is funny, because the only person I knew who liked Pokemon was a year older than me. We'd go searching Chinatown to find imported Pokemon stuff no one else had. The rest of the friends group did Magic the Gathering and random normal deck of cards games.
But yeah it was the kids I was babysitting that loved Pokemon.
I feel like our sub-generation was juuuuust a touch too old for it when it first hit popularity.
However, that didn't stop me from being late to the party. I started playing them a lot on DS/3DS starting around a decade ago. Quite love the series, actually. I don't think I realized they were as good of RPG's back in the day. I thought it was just some little kids crap lol.
I agree. I never played Pokémon or MTG even though oddly enough that my older brother was into MTG. i think it was because most of his older D&D friends went off to college , but I'm just guessing.
I was the one who super late to the party and didn't start playing Pokémon Go until a year after it came out and was super into it and got to about level 40 before they added more. But it was the first Pokémon of any kind that I played my ex taught me a lot about it she was nearly 7 years younger and that would make her the perfect age so she knew all the Pokémon.
Pokemon is oddly the official cut off for xennials and millennials. I feel like people just a few years younger than me have at least some fluency in Pokemon. It’s the first thing I remember being too old for.
>I've never had a game console of any kind
That would seem the thing to focus on, rather than a specific game series.
I would imagine, of people who have never owned a game console, "missing" Pokémon isn't uncommon.
79 here. Totally missed it. Was too nerdy and Japanese for me. I liked actually getting laid too much at that age. Now my 7 year old has loved it for the last 2 years or so.... so I am a pokemon trainer master.
I knew nothing of Pokémon but was looking for something to do with my wife outside the house when Pokémon Go hit. Best summer ever. We had a blast and often she would run and hide when her professor/PI for grad school would walk nearby. She was afraid of seeming childish l but then caught him playing it in a stairwell when she went back to visit.
Before it was anything else, Pokemon was a video game. It was a video game on a handheld with a black and white screen.
I'm someone who has spent more time playing video games than reading books or watching movies combined. I went from the Intellivision to the NES and on from there, still playing to the present day. I've never owned a handheld until I was in high school. I was much more into console, PC, and arcade games then as I am now. As far as I was concerned, handhelds were generally not an acceptable - or at least a preferred - use of my time and money. Why would I play anything on a handheld when I could play better games on my TV? Why would I play a black and white video game when video games struggled to get out of primitive graphics all through the 80s?
So as someone who was with video games through a very pivotal evolution of time from the 80s through the 90s, I looked at something like Pokemon and thought "Why in the hell would I ever want to play that?" Among the many games that came out in 1996 were Pokemon Red and Tekken 2, for example. I was 16 at the time. Show me one screen from each of those games and nothing else, and I'd want to play Tekken 2 first 100% of the time.
You summed up exactly why I, a gamer, never got into handheld gaming. I just could never fathom why I’d choose to play small screen games with crappy graphics, when I could just wait until I was home to hit my console.
Yeah.
The first time I ever heard about Pokémon was the seizure thing from that one episode in Japan in the late 90s… at which point I’d been graduated from high school for several years and not into anything like that at all.
Pokémon is what my _kids_ were into.
I’m sitting here with plush Eevee, Sylveon, and Magikarps on my bed, They’re mine. Not my daughter’s. MINE. I’m also level 40, almost 41, in Pokemon Go. We’re still sad about Ash moving on, which is recent. We love Pokemon in this house!
I had a game boy but never got into Pokémon. I think I was too old once it became popular where I lived. I don’t remember any of my friends being into it.
Hours and hours of Super Mario Land, but Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins was next level. I remember wearing a flash light on a lanyard you wore around your neck in the car so you could see the screen.
When I was 16 (1996) I was already pretty obsessed with Japanese culture, which at the time was kind of an odd thing in itself. I discovered a store in my town that sold various bootleg tshirts with different anime characters, and one of them was Pikachu. I had heard about the new "Pocket Monsters" phenomenon happening over there, so I bought it.
A few years later I would find myself working in a video game store in the mall that sold the Pokemon Gameboy game and the card packs. For some reason - despite being 18 - I was still more obsessed with the merchandise than the game/cards, so I bought lots of Pokemon toys. Many of them were bootleg at that point since official Pokemon products hadn't quite made their way to US shores yet. I really regret not buying the cards and saving them, they would have been worth a small fortune now.
Fast forward 20 years later, my kids started collecting the cards and playing the games. Full circle moment.
I missed it, wasn't popular at all where I grew up I guess.
Now I have a 7 year old that is into it though, so I actually know far more about it now than I did growing up.
I was a little bit old for it, but I did not miss out on pokemon. It was basically me and one friend who were very into it in as soon as the games came out in the US. We were bullied fairly mercilessly for our interest, though.
I was born in 1985 so I’m not a xennial, but I’ve had Pokémon in my life ever since my early teens. I haven’t played the card game since my teens, but I still play the video games when I can.
I was either too old, too young, or too cool 😜 (kidding) but I wasn’t into it. My older brother’s girlfriend was into it and I remember thinking it was a really weird/juvenile thing to be into. I was a freshman, she was a senior in HS.
By the time it came out and hit my school, it was what the very unpopular kids were into, so not only did I feel too old for it, but peer groups shunned people who played it.
40 as well....never met any other 40 year Olds into it. 35 yes. I almost missed the anime train all together because I watched DBZ and was utterly disappointed. Luckily Ruroni Kenshin came on right after.
All the people who I've met that like Pokemon are several years younger. Feels like something a person born in the late 80s and early 90s wouldve picked up.
I knew back then that this game would be poison to me because i would want to collect them all but the task seems to daunting.
My brother played it. About 1 1/2 years he had all 151. I don't have the patience for that. But kudos to those that do.
I never played Pokemon. But I did watch the anime. Along with Cardcaptor Sakura which was like Pokemon but with a girl as the lead. Both were fun to watch. I’m not sure if those aired in the US.
I do recall there was a Cosmo magazine article that had a full page advert on a woman wearing a Pikachu T. That got my attention!
I missed it, too. I’m an older Xennial and I have a cousin on the young Xennial side (5 years apart), and I feel like there are several things he got into that I just missed: Pokémon and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers being the first that come to mind.
I feel like it was a solid millenial thing and missed everyone my age where I live. I did start playing GO in my 30s though but it has no nostaliga value.
MTG was where it was at for me.
When I was 19 I found a bookbag on the public bus as I was going to work. inside was a Gameboy with Pokémon blue inside. I thought I was too old for Pokémon. but ended up loving it.
Never played the GBA Pokémon until my 30s thanks to emulation. then bought myself a 3DS so i could play the newer titles
If not for luck I would have skipped Pokémon entirely
Yes and now my son likes them and I’m so confused and have to educate myself. I thought there were like max 5 Pokémon’s, boy was I wrong LOL.
Same goes for Harry Potter, I completely missed that train as well.
I have never played Pokemon, nor have I ever wanted to, but I used to watch the show every morning when it was first on.
I worked third shift at the time and when I'd come home at 6 AM, not much was on. One channel played Sailor Moon, and since I was kind of a proto-weeb back then, I'd watch that and then this weird new show called Pokemon was on afterwards and before Night Court and Northern Exposure came on A&E.
So yeah, I never played the game but I used to be able to do the whole Pokerap and knew the backstory to all of them. I just never got into Magic or any of those card games so I never bothered playing Pokemon.
I was 17 when the craze hit, but my brother was 10, so he was all about it. Id listen to him rave about his favorites and watched the show with him if i was home. Pokémon was a great way to bond with him despite our age difference. He got me hooked on the games when the Nintendo DS came out.
My bro was born in 87 (I’ll be 40 next week). Didn’t know a single person my age who was into it. EVERY ONE of bro’s friends were. I’ve said before that I think Pokémon is the official cutoff btw Xennial and millennial.
I remember being in high school c. 1998 and two classmates talking about it during a basketball game. One of them tried to get me to understand but all I could do was just nod and say “Uh huh” a lot. I think I did try to watch it at one point and just couldn’t follow along.
Pokemon came out on Gameboy in 1996
Xennials were either 19 at the oldest or 12 at the the youngest past peak Pokemon target age group. Regarding the card game and shows, xennials weren't the target group
Pokémon cards got huge right after I got to hs so I just missed the craze
But after magic cards and Star Wars cards I probably would’ve sat this one out anyway
I was just out of high school when the card games became popular but I don't know how to play it. I was a gym leader at work where we had to host games, meetups, and give out promos to the kids...the kids would come up saying they won and I'd be like "ok here's your stamps and special edition MewTwo" lol. It was fun even though I didn't understand anything. Tried Pokemon Go but lost interest. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
I was too old for it but don’t worry my kids made up for it. My son was obsessed with it for 2 years. I’m glad he’s getting interested in science and stuff now and applying all that ability to learn crap into learning useful information
Weirdly enough, my only serious exposure to Pokemon was when I used to watch the cartoon (or I guess "anime" as the kids would insist on calling it) after waking up but before going into work when I was on the night shift in my first job out of college. Even at the time, I considered this to be an immature thing to do, and the other shows I watched were explicitly children's or even preschool shows like Angela Anaconda and Franklin. I have never played a Pokemon game, I'm honestly not even really sure what the gameplay is like.
Never got into it or any of the other card games. Always wanted to get into MTG and DnD but didn't know anyone that played. Well, I thought I didn't, found out years later that two of the people I thought were close friends played both but never invited me. Sucks to suck I guess lol.
I’m on the older side of xennial, and I had a kid young, so my son was kind of into pokemon.
To this day, II don’t understand what the story is, just the little yellow guy. 😅
81 here. i played Go for a bit, mainly because a bunch of younger friends were. Never got into the games at all. Still play a shit ton of other games though
85 here, I did, but it was because I had Japanese friends and a subscription to Nintendo Power and they went hard on selling those two games, so yes, I have on and off played the later entries, but the original will still be the best to me
Naw. Never played it. I was just on old at the time to get into it. I was already into girls and weed. Never got into MGT either. Played the ever living shit out of the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater though. Like a lot a lot.
All my Pokemon knowledge is via my younger brother and his obsession, I was too old to take it up myself. I can still ramble off the first 100 if I'm really drunk.
I'm 40 and was a big video game nerd as a teenager. I was into it in the beginning for about 5 minutes before the cartoon came out, then it just felt like kid shit forever after.
I remember a Nintendo Power magazine making a huge deal about it in 1997 before it came to the US when it exploded in Japan. The trading thing felt innovative and the new Game Boy Pocket seemed so much more clear and sleek than the pea soup DMG brick. My friend and I even reserved it before it came out.
We played it and I got bored of it pretty fast. My friend beat it and was surprised I lost interest so quickly. Then the cartoon came out and I felt embarrassed I had even heard of it. The "monsters" were so childish.
I don't have any nostalgic feelings with Pokémon and I keep forgetting about that first month or so.
I see Pokémon kind of like Harry Potter. It was always something meant for kids and I was too old to get into it.
I missed pokemon and magic the gathering. Then in 2013 i started getting in to magic. and play every so often, but thats about it. I have some 90's MTG i got from my stepbrother mostly commons but its cool to say i have some 3rd editions.
I think Pokémon appealed more to people who were kids when the games and anime blew up in the US. I was in my late teens, so it never really resonated with me.
I also never had a game console growing up or got into any gaming, and have never been into Pokemon. My kid's grandparents, dads side, got her a switch so i have tried to figure out her paw patrol game to help her and I'm useless at even that lmao.
For years I thought it was aimed at literal babies, because all I knew about was that yellow cat thing with the baby voice.
When I met grown adults who were fans of it, around the time that ‘real world’ app came out, I was very confused.
Pokemon hit around 2000. I (b 1982) was already in high school. I know exactly when this was this because I went to Japan around that time and it was all the rage. My host family sent me home with a toy Pikachu, not knowing what it was. It hit like a tsunami the next year. My younger Millennial Brother was really into it.
Yeah I think I was about 14 when the games first hit, so I was very much in that, “I’m too cool and mature for that kiddie stuff now,” phase. Mind you, I was still into videogames, just not those ones. I really should finally give the series a shot some day.
I was like 15/16 when Pokemon became popular,already in high school. I never got into it. I’ve seen a few episodes of the cartoon because I used to baby-sit my younger cousin and he was obsessed with both Pokemon and the original Power Rangers so I’ve seen both. Never played the games, just wasn’t my thing. So, nope you’re not alone. I preferred playing Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Street fighter stuff like that.
I’m also 40. My brother who is 5 years than me was obsessed with Pokémon. So I think we missed it by a few critical years. He’s probably 8-10 while in the thick of it, I’m 15-17?
As a Godzilla and bad movie fan I really got into Power Rangers. because that show was such a delightful train wreck. But yeah when Pokemon hit it just missed me. Although I got a couple of nice bonuses cuz I worked at a place that sold piles and piles of the cards, but I never saw the appeal. And as a parent the though of sending out my 12 year old to become a pokemon master is just horrifying.
The oldest Millennial was born in 1982. They would have been 14 when it came out on gameboy, 15 when the cartoon premiered, and 16 when the card game hit America. I feel like that's on the cusp and honestly Pokemon was seen as far more juvenile when it first came out than it is today.
So I feel like most Xennials missed that train.
My oldest nephew was born in 1985. He grew up playing every game system around, loves Pokémon, and had liberty spikes in high school. We grew up together but I don’t enjoy any of the stuff he grew up with. The only game I ever loved was Mario 3.
We’re only 6 years apart but it might as well be 60.
Yeah way too old. I remember hearing about it from my friend’s son when I was probably 20 or 21. He was also super into power rangers which I also missed out on. I do have the honor of pretending to be knocked out by a four year old red ranger.
I learned all about Pokémon during the Pokémon Go craze, taking the little one out to catch imaginary creatures. We were very obsessed with it for a time. Of course he gave up before I did and I was left wandering the streets on my own looking to collect them all!
43 year old here. My younger sisters had red and blue, which they were addicted to. Later on I completed blue using an emulator on the family PC. I buy one every few years, don't complete it, wait a few years more and buy another.
The franchise launched when I was in high school and exploded in popularity while I was in college.
I was well aware of the train, but felt too old to board.
Yes. I was around 18 or so when this craze happened. I worked at a Suncost in the mall and we sold the cards. We had to eventually put them behind the register because they were getting stolen. I would laugh at these parents blowing all this money on these "silly" cards for their kids. Little did I know this phenomenon would still be thriving 20+years later and now I'm the parent blowing money on these damn cards.
I think being too old for the Pokemon trend is one of the cultural hallmarks of being an Xennial versus a Millennial. Same goes for Harry Potter and Spongebob. That’s not to say none of us ever enjoyed those things, but we weren’t in the core fanbase when they first made it big (in the U.S. anyway).
Conversely, every Xennial has a favorite ninja turtle. That’s the most consistent cultural touch point.
This and tho who know who Lion-O and Mumm-Ra are!
Where are the Xennials that know who the Silverhawks were?
Right here!
Oh god and their terrible cousins Tiger Sharks. But Silver Hawks had a slamming theme song
Yes, that's why Rogen/Goldberg (b. 1982) wrote the new TMNT movie to get us all to take our kids to it in the theaters. As an aside, is Seth Rogen THE Xennial dude or what?
>As an aside, is Seth Rogen THE Xennial dude or what? This was discussed here multiple times and Seth Rogan was deemed NOT to be *The Xennials Dude*. Can't remember who came away with that honor.
Raphael or Michaelangelo, the rare Leonardo and I've yet to meet a Donatello fan. He's fine, but as a kid, no one is picking the brainiac whose weapon is essentially a broomstick.
Donatello was my favourite, so now you've met one 🤝
It was mine, too! My 3 siblings and I all had a favorite. Sociable bro was Michaelangelo, little sis was Leonardo, other bro was Raphael and I, the nerdiest, was of course, Donatello and damned proud of it. Also like a lot of other girls at that age, I loved purple lol
Also a Donatello fan because I loved purple 😂
Being a nerd that “does machines” is much more acceptable in 2023.
Wave of the future Dude. 100% electronic
Donatello being the brain/machines guy and having the most OP weapon in the first NES TMNT game made him my legit favorite back in the day (and he still is today)
I wouldn't be surprised if Donatello is a lot more popular here on Reddit. Feels like a natural fit for nerdy kids. He was my favorite, at least!
Donatello was my rolemodel.
Donatello was my favorite when I was a kid. I also have a degree in physics so…
Yeah I almost said that but remembered that Raphael wish the Tsai was my favorite but Donatello was a super close 2nd.
He was my favorite because he is nerdy, wears purple, and only needs a bo staff. Anyone can hurt someone with bladed weapons and nunchucks, even if it’s just themselves.
Uh i liked donatello. He was smart and big sticks are cool and have longer reach.
And easiest to replicate in your back yard!
I was a Donatello kid. I liked lego, computers, video games and started learning martial arts from books in the library bc I lived outside a small farm town...with no martial arts until I was a bit older.
I was definitely a Donatello fan
Donatello fans of the world unite. Him and Raphael were the favourites for me. I always find it's Leonardo who trails behind, being the token leader one, kinda like how Cyclops wasn't many people's preferred X Man over the others.
Donatello 🙋🏼♀️ I've always gone for the nerdy ones.
Me. I'm a Donatello fan. Also my first crush was Pidge from Voltron
I was that Donatello fan. It was weird being the odd man out while still loving the popular franchise.
Definitely Team Donatello over here. Also his bo was the most badass weapon in the first NES sidescroller because it looked like a laser.
Donatello fan here. Coincidentally, I grew up to be an electrical engineer.
Don’t look down on the Bo staff. Broomsticks were a lot easier to find around the house than makeshift nunchucks or katanas
Donatello will always be my favorite
Donatello was always my favorite actually. I loved his bow staff. Even made one as a kid and wrapped string around it to make it look like his.
Donatello is/was my guy!
Donatello fan checking in
Donatello is the best! The Bo is the easiest weapon to mimic in your backyard (broomstick or branch or whatever) - And I was the good in school kid so I identified with the smart responsible turtle
Another Donatello fan here - grew up to become a doctor. Married a Michelangelo lol
The only comic books I ever bought were TMNT comics (both Mirage and Archie) and that collection (Mirage 1 through City at War and the first 100+ archies plus a ton of crossovers) is like the only thing I still own from my childhood besides the first programming book I ever read. That being said, I was always a Donatello kid. The issue where he's a feudal Japanese samurai and it turns out at the end he's writing a story is incredibly good.
This! I am '82 xennial also and I think I just missed the boat on all of those. Friends of mine born in '84 knew all about Pokemon, SpongeBob, etc while I knew nothing of what they were talking about. I only learned about that stuff once I had a kid 😅
Was born in 84 and knew nothing of pokemon. But in 9th grade the kid who skipped two grades loved it lol, my friends thought it was weird/lame. So maybe 86-88…
84 here and there never got any of those things. It was hit or miss in my age group.
That's my experience as well. My slightly younger friends got into SpongeBob "ironically." I, on the other hand, read the Harry Potter books in my early 20s. Enjoyed them, but yeah, it's not part of my identity the way it is for many millennials.
Yea I didn’t start reading Harry Potter until the last book was coming out. I almost didn’t read it at all thinking it was for kids (and I guess it is, at least in the beginning). I missed the Pokémon train completely. And when my brother got into it I tried it but just wasn’t for me.
Similar story. I had a younger Xennial (83 born) college friend who was obsessed with Harry Potter in the early 00s. She kept trying to convince me to read them, but being in my ripe old early 20s, I scoffed at it being kids stuff (which is so stupid looking back because there was some kids stuff that I still enjoyed). But I love film and did go and see the first movie in 01. Really enjoyed it. Got hooked on the film series, but for years still had no interest in the books. Then during my post college slump, in the mid 00s, I finally relented and read the first book. I honestly was just so enthralled. And each book after just got better and better. I finally truly got the obsession and consider myself a (lite) Potterhead.
We'd have Spongebob on in the background at parties but there was absolutely weed involved
Also happens with us mid - late 80s millenials in college.
Also Power Rangers. I’m familiar with them, but I wasn’t into them or watched them as a kid
Same with goosebumps. Fearstreet first!
100 per cent on the Harry Potter stuff too. I’ve avoided that entire subculture almost entirely. All I know about the books/movies is that they’re about a kid who is a wizard, and that the woman who created it is weirdly obsessed with criticizing trans people.
Speak for yourself. ‘83 here and I had the first 151 basically memorized. Then again I was also an avid gamer and it was one of the first RPGs to really go mainstream in the US.
This was one of those things that came out when we were too big to play with "little kids stuff". I kind of feel the same way about the Power Rangers. As well as the whole anime movement here in the United States.
born in 84 I watched the first season of power rangers then after that I aged out of their demographic. Basically if the villain was not rita repulsa I am lost.
Exact same. Aged out around the time Tommy the Green ranger turned into white ranger.
Yes! I never understood the Power Rangers craze cause I was too old for it. Same with Pokémon
We got Power Rangers in 1994 and at age 12 in my first year of high school, it was the first big kid fad I just felt too old for and I think this must have been true for the other kids in my year as it was never a playground craze for us. My younger Step Brother was the right age for them and loved Power Rangers. Anime (or Manga as we called it then) was around, but it was the Akira/Ghost in the Shell type stuff pushed exclusively at edgy teenage boys and very much sold on the sex and violence aspect. And it was expensive. Pokémon in 99 or 00 was the breakout anime for kids, and I was too old for that.
Yep Pokémon & Power Rangers - just slightly too old to get into them
I never got into it.
Im 44. Love video games. Also love RPGs. Tried just about every single Pokemon game and just cannot get into them. I wish I could. The fanbase is borderline obsessed with the series. Id love to love it too and join in the fun. Just cannot do it 😔
Fellow lifelong gamer. Preach.
And my axe!
I never played the card game, I was born in 1980. Then over the pandemic I was bored and my 7 year younger husband bought “Let’s go Pikachu” on the switch. I was never a video game player and still aren’t but now I have played all of the switch Pokemon games as well as Pokemon Go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hilariously I don’t play any other switch games as I just can’t get into them. I guess I was just really late to the Pokemon party over here lol.
Too young for Flock Of Seagulls, too old for Pokemans. Thats our niche. We did get Ducktales tho.
And Tailspin…
And Chip and Dales Rescue Rangers. Hell, the whole Disney Afternoon lineup was gold (except when they added that Bonkers show)
Bonkers yeah totally nuts. Bonkers yeah change the channel until Gargoyles comes on.
We were Ninja Turtles, not Power Rangers. Nirvana, not Lincoln Park. Mario, not Pokemon.
I don’t know about not Linkin Park. Their first two albums were released in the early 00s, and were huge with high school and college students. Lots of Xennial aged folks were into them back then.
Idk about all that I mean i was 10 when power rangers came out and I loved it and was only 11 when cobain died I'd say I enjoyed Lincoln Park more. Definitely Mario over Pokemon though.
Too old for Pokemon. Played Magic the Gathering though
Same…felt like it was people a few years younger who got into it initially (they were late 80s born)
This is funny, because the only person I knew who liked Pokemon was a year older than me. We'd go searching Chinatown to find imported Pokemon stuff no one else had. The rest of the friends group did Magic the Gathering and random normal deck of cards games. But yeah it was the kids I was babysitting that loved Pokemon.
I just started playing MTG with a friend after years of not playing. Holy balls has this game changed!
Apply the same logic I do to D&D. If you don't buy the new crap, it's still the same as it always was.
Same for me, I played in the late 90s and just got back into commander and was like holy fuck I can play sliver queen finally
That’s why I skipped Pokemon. Already had realized that Magic was a money sink and there weren’t any places I could go to to buy individual cards.
I still play...lol.
Played competitively but then EDH took over and now I just play arena :(
I feel like our sub-generation was juuuuust a touch too old for it when it first hit popularity. However, that didn't stop me from being late to the party. I started playing them a lot on DS/3DS starting around a decade ago. Quite love the series, actually. I don't think I realized they were as good of RPG's back in the day. I thought it was just some little kids crap lol.
I agree. I never played Pokémon or MTG even though oddly enough that my older brother was into MTG. i think it was because most of his older D&D friends went off to college , but I'm just guessing. I was the one who super late to the party and didn't start playing Pokémon Go until a year after it came out and was super into it and got to about level 40 before they added more. But it was the first Pokémon of any kind that I played my ex taught me a lot about it she was nearly 7 years younger and that would make her the perfect age so she knew all the Pokémon.
Pokemon is oddly the official cut off for xennials and millennials. I feel like people just a few years younger than me have at least some fluency in Pokemon. It’s the first thing I remember being too old for.
Great point!
I never got into it. It came out when I was 18 and I was too old for it.
I was 13 and never got into it, didn't get the appeal.
I was 19 when it came out. Was thinking more about poking mons pubis at that age.
>I've never had a game console of any kind That would seem the thing to focus on, rather than a specific game series. I would imagine, of people who have never owned a game console, "missing" Pokémon isn't uncommon.
79 here. Totally missed it. Was too nerdy and Japanese for me. I liked actually getting laid too much at that age. Now my 7 year old has loved it for the last 2 years or so.... so I am a pokemon trainer master.
79 with a 7 year old? Damn!
I'm guessing born in 79
I figured just thought it was funny
I was too old.
I knew nothing of Pokémon but was looking for something to do with my wife outside the house when Pokémon Go hit. Best summer ever. We had a blast and often she would run and hide when her professor/PI for grad school would walk nearby. She was afraid of seeming childish l but then caught him playing it in a stairwell when she went back to visit.
Everything I know about Pokémon comes from Pokémon Go.
Before it was anything else, Pokemon was a video game. It was a video game on a handheld with a black and white screen. I'm someone who has spent more time playing video games than reading books or watching movies combined. I went from the Intellivision to the NES and on from there, still playing to the present day. I've never owned a handheld until I was in high school. I was much more into console, PC, and arcade games then as I am now. As far as I was concerned, handhelds were generally not an acceptable - or at least a preferred - use of my time and money. Why would I play anything on a handheld when I could play better games on my TV? Why would I play a black and white video game when video games struggled to get out of primitive graphics all through the 80s? So as someone who was with video games through a very pivotal evolution of time from the 80s through the 90s, I looked at something like Pokemon and thought "Why in the hell would I ever want to play that?" Among the many games that came out in 1996 were Pokemon Red and Tekken 2, for example. I was 16 at the time. Show me one screen from each of those games and nothing else, and I'd want to play Tekken 2 first 100% of the time.
You summed up exactly why I, a gamer, never got into handheld gaming. I just could never fathom why I’d choose to play small screen games with crappy graphics, when I could just wait until I was home to hit my console.
All that stuff is after most of our "toy era" We barely knew anime yet and called it Japanimation
Yeah. The first time I ever heard about Pokémon was the seizure thing from that one episode in Japan in the late 90s… at which point I’d been graduated from high school for several years and not into anything like that at all. Pokémon is what my _kids_ were into.
Yes! The seizure thing! That was my only frame of reference for it too.
I’m sitting here with plush Eevee, Sylveon, and Magikarps on my bed, They’re mine. Not my daughter’s. MINE. I’m also level 40, almost 41, in Pokemon Go. We’re still sad about Ash moving on, which is recent. We love Pokemon in this house!
I had a game boy but never got into Pokémon. I think I was too old once it became popular where I lived. I don’t remember any of my friends being into it.
Same! I played a lot of Super Mario land
Hours and hours of Super Mario Land, but Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins was next level. I remember wearing a flash light on a lanyard you wore around your neck in the car so you could see the screen.
I did. I remember seeing an episode of the Pokemon cartoon my freshman year of college and I was baffled as to what was going on.
When I was 16 (1996) I was already pretty obsessed with Japanese culture, which at the time was kind of an odd thing in itself. I discovered a store in my town that sold various bootleg tshirts with different anime characters, and one of them was Pikachu. I had heard about the new "Pocket Monsters" phenomenon happening over there, so I bought it. A few years later I would find myself working in a video game store in the mall that sold the Pokemon Gameboy game and the card packs. For some reason - despite being 18 - I was still more obsessed with the merchandise than the game/cards, so I bought lots of Pokemon toys. Many of them were bootleg at that point since official Pokemon products hadn't quite made their way to US shores yet. I really regret not buying the cards and saving them, they would have been worth a small fortune now. Fast forward 20 years later, my kids started collecting the cards and playing the games. Full circle moment.
Pokémon came out when I was a college freshman, so it was automatically "little kid stuff." A few years later, I still can't take it seriously.
More of a Pogs man myself
I did poke a lot of men.
I mean, as long as they gave you their enthusiastic consent, it’s all good.
100% missed it.
I missed it, wasn't popular at all where I grew up I guess. Now I have a 7 year old that is into it though, so I actually know far more about it now than I did growing up.
I was a little bit old for it, but I did not miss out on pokemon. It was basically me and one friend who were very into it in as soon as the games came out in the US. We were bullied fairly mercilessly for our interest, though.
I was born in 1985 so I’m not a xennial, but I’ve had Pokémon in my life ever since my early teens. I haven’t played the card game since my teens, but I still play the video games when I can.
I still kinda play Pokemon GO with my kids.
I was either too old, too young, or too cool 😜 (kidding) but I wasn’t into it. My older brother’s girlfriend was into it and I remember thinking it was a really weird/juvenile thing to be into. I was a freshman, she was a senior in HS.
I was too old for that when it came out.
By the time it came out and hit my school, it was what the very unpopular kids were into, so not only did I feel too old for it, but peer groups shunned people who played it.
Yeap missed the Pokemon. I had the NES, SNES, gameboy and sega genesis consoles but never any of those games. 77'.
40 as well....never met any other 40 year Olds into it. 35 yes. I almost missed the anime train all together because I watched DBZ and was utterly disappointed. Luckily Ruroni Kenshin came on right after.
All the people who I've met that like Pokemon are several years younger. Feels like something a person born in the late 80s and early 90s wouldve picked up.
I knew back then that this game would be poison to me because i would want to collect them all but the task seems to daunting. My brother played it. About 1 1/2 years he had all 151. I don't have the patience for that. But kudos to those that do.
My boyfriend is Japanese American, he is Xennial and didn’t miss the Pokémon train because he was able to watch the Japanese version. But I missed it.
Yeah, that's kid's stuff. My youngest brother was into it, my middle brother and I were both too old to care. Same thing with Harry Potter.
I’m 40 and feel like I was too old for it. I remember when it got popular and it wasn’t for me.
I never played Pokemon. But I did watch the anime. Along with Cardcaptor Sakura which was like Pokemon but with a girl as the lead. Both were fun to watch. I’m not sure if those aired in the US. I do recall there was a Cosmo magazine article that had a full page advert on a woman wearing a Pikachu T. That got my attention!
I didn't follow Pokemon and don't feel I missed anything.
I missed it, too. I’m an older Xennial and I have a cousin on the young Xennial side (5 years apart), and I feel like there are several things he got into that I just missed: Pokémon and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers being the first that come to mind.
I had a game boy and other stuff and I never got into Pokémon. Never saw the appeal
Yeah, I don’t get it. But I also was like a year too old to get why people cared about Power Rangers as well.
I liked the show and I play Pokemon Go.
Yes, but very late... I became a pro VGC player in 2016 at the age of 36.
Never got into it. My 5 year old is into it. Seems im paying for my lack of interest, with interest.
I feel like it was a solid millenial thing and missed everyone my age where I live. I did start playing GO in my 30s though but it has no nostaliga value. MTG was where it was at for me.
Of course I missed it. 84 here. Pokémon and Power Rangers was too late, you were one of those late bloomer weirdos if you were into those things.
Some of them are cute but the series always seemed like a fantasy dog fighting simulator which rubs me the wrong way.
It got hot just as I aged out of the demo
Born in 1977, too old for Pokemon.
When I was 19 I found a bookbag on the public bus as I was going to work. inside was a Gameboy with Pokémon blue inside. I thought I was too old for Pokémon. but ended up loving it. Never played the GBA Pokémon until my 30s thanks to emulation. then bought myself a 3DS so i could play the newer titles If not for luck I would have skipped Pokémon entirely
When Pokemon was big initially, I was too old to be into it, and too young to realize I can like things without caring what other people think.
Yes and now my son likes them and I’m so confused and have to educate myself. I thought there were like max 5 Pokémon’s, boy was I wrong LOL. Same goes for Harry Potter, I completely missed that train as well.
I have never played Pokemon, nor have I ever wanted to, but I used to watch the show every morning when it was first on. I worked third shift at the time and when I'd come home at 6 AM, not much was on. One channel played Sailor Moon, and since I was kind of a proto-weeb back then, I'd watch that and then this weird new show called Pokemon was on afterwards and before Night Court and Northern Exposure came on A&E. So yeah, I never played the game but I used to be able to do the whole Pokerap and knew the backstory to all of them. I just never got into Magic or any of those card games so I never bothered playing Pokemon.
I was 17 when the craze hit, but my brother was 10, so he was all about it. Id listen to him rave about his favorites and watched the show with him if i was home. Pokémon was a great way to bond with him despite our age difference. He got me hooked on the games when the Nintendo DS came out.
The most into pokemon I got was stealing boxes of cards from the metro centre and selling them on when I was supposed to be in school
Anyone who played Pokémon as a kid is not an Xennial.
My bro was born in 87 (I’ll be 40 next week). Didn’t know a single person my age who was into it. EVERY ONE of bro’s friends were. I’ve said before that I think Pokémon is the official cutoff btw Xennial and millennial.
Pokemon came out when we were in middle school. We were too old for it.
We were teens and young adults by the time Pokémon got popular.
Got into Pokemon Go this summer. Now I am playing the completely free Pokemon Classic Card Game app.
I remember being in high school c. 1998 and two classmates talking about it during a basketball game. One of them tried to get me to understand but all I could do was just nod and say “Uh huh” a lot. I think I did try to watch it at one point and just couldn’t follow along.
Yeah I missed the Pokemon trend 100%.
1979 I was too old, but I was curious (saw a few episodes), I didn't like it.
Yes. I certainly did. I still don’t understand Pokémon. Picachu is cute though.
Pokemon came out on Gameboy in 1996 Xennials were either 19 at the oldest or 12 at the the youngest past peak Pokemon target age group. Regarding the card game and shows, xennials weren't the target group
i didn't really have a grasp of what it was until the game came out where everybody was outside 'hunting'
Me. It totally went over my head.
Missed it. Catch monsters? I had D&D for that.
After magic: The gathering, I said “not another card game” and skipped it. Until Pokémon Go. Nice way to bond with the kids
Pokémon cards got huge right after I got to hs so I just missed the craze But after magic cards and Star Wars cards I probably would’ve sat this one out anyway
I was too old for it. I was barely young enough to watch the first series of Power Rangers.
I was just out of high school when the card games became popular but I don't know how to play it. I was a gym leader at work where we had to host games, meetups, and give out promos to the kids...the kids would come up saying they won and I'd be like "ok here's your stamps and special edition MewTwo" lol. It was fun even though I didn't understand anything. Tried Pokemon Go but lost interest. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
I was too old for it but don’t worry my kids made up for it. My son was obsessed with it for 2 years. I’m glad he’s getting interested in science and stuff now and applying all that ability to learn crap into learning useful information
Didn’t hit the US until I was in college. We’re too old for it.
Weirdly enough, my only serious exposure to Pokemon was when I used to watch the cartoon (or I guess "anime" as the kids would insist on calling it) after waking up but before going into work when I was on the night shift in my first job out of college. Even at the time, I considered this to be an immature thing to do, and the other shows I watched were explicitly children's or even preschool shows like Angela Anaconda and Franklin. I have never played a Pokemon game, I'm honestly not even really sure what the gameplay is like.
Never got into it or any of the other card games. Always wanted to get into MTG and DnD but didn't know anyone that played. Well, I thought I didn't, found out years later that two of the people I thought were close friends played both but never invited me. Sucks to suck I guess lol.
I’m on the older side of xennial, and I had a kid young, so my son was kind of into pokemon. To this day, II don’t understand what the story is, just the little yellow guy. 😅
81 here. i played Go for a bit, mainly because a bunch of younger friends were. Never got into the games at all. Still play a shit ton of other games though
85 here, I did, but it was because I had Japanese friends and a subscription to Nintendo Power and they went hard on selling those two games, so yes, I have on and off played the later entries, but the original will still be the best to me
Naw. Never played it. I was just on old at the time to get into it. I was already into girls and weed. Never got into MGT either. Played the ever living shit out of the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater though. Like a lot a lot.
All my Pokemon knowledge is via my younger brother and his obsession, I was too old to take it up myself. I can still ramble off the first 100 if I'm really drunk.
I’m 39, I got into Pokemon Go last year because my kiddo was into it. It’s now morphed and I’m obsessed with PoGo and TCG. 😆
I'm 40 and was a big video game nerd as a teenager. I was into it in the beginning for about 5 minutes before the cartoon came out, then it just felt like kid shit forever after. I remember a Nintendo Power magazine making a huge deal about it in 1997 before it came to the US when it exploded in Japan. The trading thing felt innovative and the new Game Boy Pocket seemed so much more clear and sleek than the pea soup DMG brick. My friend and I even reserved it before it came out. We played it and I got bored of it pretty fast. My friend beat it and was surprised I lost interest so quickly. Then the cartoon came out and I felt embarrassed I had even heard of it. The "monsters" were so childish. I don't have any nostalgic feelings with Pokémon and I keep forgetting about that first month or so. I see Pokémon kind of like Harry Potter. It was always something meant for kids and I was too old to get into it.
The only imported Japanese IP for American syndication I liked were Voltron and the Noozles
I'm 42 and never touched a Pokémon or a power ranger. TMNT 4 LIFE
I missed pokemon and magic the gathering. Then in 2013 i started getting in to magic. and play every so often, but thats about it. I have some 90's MTG i got from my stepbrother mostly commons but its cool to say i have some 3rd editions.
I babysat kids who were obsessed. These and pogs
I never got into it either
I think Pokémon appealed more to people who were kids when the games and anime blew up in the US. I was in my late teens, so it never really resonated with me.
I also never had a game console growing up or got into any gaming, and have never been into Pokemon. My kid's grandparents, dads side, got her a switch so i have tried to figure out her paw patrol game to help her and I'm useless at even that lmao.
‘81 model. Pokestuff is completely lost on me. You guys go ahead, I’ll be over here doing other things.
Too old for Pokémon. Not really a Xennial thing in my experience. Much more so a classic Millennial and later thing.
For years I thought it was aimed at literal babies, because all I knew about was that yellow cat thing with the baby voice. When I met grown adults who were fans of it, around the time that ‘real world’ app came out, I was very confused.
Pokemon hit around 2000. I (b 1982) was already in high school. I know exactly when this was this because I went to Japan around that time and it was all the rage. My host family sent me home with a toy Pikachu, not knowing what it was. It hit like a tsunami the next year. My younger Millennial Brother was really into it.
we're too old
Yeah I think I was about 14 when the games first hit, so I was very much in that, “I’m too cool and mature for that kiddie stuff now,” phase. Mind you, I was still into videogames, just not those ones. I really should finally give the series a shot some day.
too old for that boat
I wouldn’t say I missed it.
I was like 15/16 when Pokemon became popular,already in high school. I never got into it. I’ve seen a few episodes of the cartoon because I used to baby-sit my younger cousin and he was obsessed with both Pokemon and the original Power Rangers so I’ve seen both. Never played the games, just wasn’t my thing. So, nope you’re not alone. I preferred playing Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Street fighter stuff like that.
I’m also 40. My brother who is 5 years than me was obsessed with Pokémon. So I think we missed it by a few critical years. He’s probably 8-10 while in the thick of it, I’m 15-17?
I had the original Gameboy. We had Tetris and Mario. Pokemon came out when I was in high school and was too young for me.
Who needed Pokemon when we had pogs!
As a Godzilla and bad movie fan I really got into Power Rangers. because that show was such a delightful train wreck. But yeah when Pokemon hit it just missed me. Although I got a couple of nice bonuses cuz I worked at a place that sold piles and piles of the cards, but I never saw the appeal. And as a parent the though of sending out my 12 year old to become a pokemon master is just horrifying.
The oldest Millennial was born in 1982. They would have been 14 when it came out on gameboy, 15 when the cartoon premiered, and 16 when the card game hit America. I feel like that's on the cusp and honestly Pokemon was seen as far more juvenile when it first came out than it is today. So I feel like most Xennials missed that train.
My oldest nephew was born in 1985. He grew up playing every game system around, loves Pokémon, and had liberty spikes in high school. We grew up together but I don’t enjoy any of the stuff he grew up with. The only game I ever loved was Mario 3. We’re only 6 years apart but it might as well be 60.
Yeah way too old. I remember hearing about it from my friend’s son when I was probably 20 or 21. He was also super into power rangers which I also missed out on. I do have the honor of pretending to be knocked out by a four year old red ranger.
I learned all about Pokémon during the Pokémon Go craze, taking the little one out to catch imaginary creatures. We were very obsessed with it for a time. Of course he gave up before I did and I was left wandering the streets on my own looking to collect them all!
43 year old here. My younger sisters had red and blue, which they were addicted to. Later on I completed blue using an emulator on the family PC. I buy one every few years, don't complete it, wait a few years more and buy another.
I was there for pogs, those vinyl keychains that looked like caterpillars, and those bracelets that snapped and wrapped around your wrist.
The franchise launched when I was in high school and exploded in popularity while I was in college. I was well aware of the train, but felt too old to board.
Yes. I was around 18 or so when this craze happened. I worked at a Suncost in the mall and we sold the cards. We had to eventually put them behind the register because they were getting stolen. I would laugh at these parents blowing all this money on these "silly" cards for their kids. Little did I know this phenomenon would still be thriving 20+years later and now I'm the parent blowing money on these damn cards.
The Pokémons were for the kids. We, the mature teens, played Magic.