Saturday November 26, 1999 4:30pm

It has recently come to my attention, that this whole Pokemon thing is beyound what I ever thought it would be. I assumed that it would die out quickly, like any other childhood fad that has come and gone. Like POGS, Furbys and Teletubbies. It turns out that Pokeman could be the end normal childhood trends as we know it.
In the beginning, I had total and complete respect for Pokemon. I mean, what can I say? Nintendo succeeded again in making a fun and addictive video game. That which they are good at doing. I just like to give credit where credit is due. So soon I hear, that this Pokemon thing is HUGE in Japan...so what. What good did the Hawiians(Hawii being practicly anothere nation) do for us when they brought POG over? And what about the English and their Teletubbies? Then there are Furbies...and I'll be damned if I know what country they were imported from...but thats besides the point. Sure they saw mediocre success on our shores, but soon they became fogotten. The huge trends they were, for the one Christmas season they were here. I believe I am straying from my story now, so I will try to get back on track.
Not long is it before I see everything Pokemon. Granted some of the merchandise is understandable, its all in the marketing and promotion fields. But then lately I have noticed something...it's not going away...I start to see Pokemon EVERYTHING! In the past year dozens of useless merchandising items have spawned. Like cardgames(something in the area of like 5ive different card games no less), books, watches, food, toothbrushes, toothpaste, keychains, magnets, talking stuffed animals, hats so you can look like the characters, blow-up chairs, records, and not to mention a load of crap that doesn't come to mind right now, but you all know that you've seen it. And the TV show, the movies and lets not forget the ever growing library of "Priced to Own" home videos.

So after having all this come to light, it hits me. And a berouge of questions come to mind. Who is it that markets these things? I mean, I know its Nintendo. But I want to know exactly who these people are. These corperate buisness men don't do this "for the children" or because they want to keep the children happy. They don't care at all. All they know is that this is making them more rich then any of you could imagine.  They know its all useless crap, so they take billions other recycled ideas, that we have all seen before, and have all had their run of popularity, and they slap a Pikachou or the Pokemon name on it. And you know what, we the Americans are dumb. All our mothers will go out and buy us these useless possestions that we don't own, they own us.  And soon enough the "man" will come accross some other oil well, just waiting to be sucked dry.