7 Days of Pokémon Go: Day Four – When Your Friends Ain’t Bout That Life, Upgrade Your Friends

Look fam, last week was rough. You watched Black people gunned down by police every day in different cities across the country, 5 police officers were killed after what had been a peaceful protest, and you probably found yourself in more than one unsolicited “All Lives Matter” conversation. We’re there with you. While digesting all of this pain, we have found moments to steal some joy back for ourselves, following the lead of our colleague Lauren Bullock’s column about the Blackest Joy in the form of Pokémon Go. We’re bringing you 7 days of Pokémon Go, our testimonies and our spontaneous moments of delight that have helped us get by. Catch our week-long series here. [dropcap1]L[/dropcap1]ast week was for the fucking birds, y’all. Like seriously. My sole bright spot was the US release of Pokemon Go. I’ve been on the Pokemon wagon since Pokemon Red back in 1998. Pokemon was the main reason I bought a Gameboy Color (in lime green) and Nintendo DSi (in pink). I bought my Gameboy Advance for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories but we can talk about that later. My brother and I had Pokemon cards, Pokemon Stadium (it’s shameful how hard I beat him down in this game, he’s my baby brother), I watched the TV show, movies, hell I can still name most of the original 151 and a few of the newer ones (that PokeRap was low key lit and the theme song was highkey a bop. Go debate your auntie). I say all this to show how deeply my Pokemon passion runs. As soon as Go went live here in the States I…