Pokemón is a

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...

among

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

's youth that surfaced in the mid-2000s and began to decline in late 2009. By 2012, it was considered extinct. They were readily identifiable by their angular and pressed hairstyles, reminiscent of characters from the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese media franchise

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of what each of thos ...

. It was one of the largest and better known urban tribes in the country. Pokemones dressed similarly to other urban tribes, such as

otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in '' Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejorat ...

and

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

; Pokemón is the fusion of otaku and flaite, but they were not actually followers of

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

like the former, and did not share the musical tastes of the latter. Apart from borrowing aspects from the emo, like the sideswept bangs, the Pokemones also shared some aspects typical to the

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

and the local "hardcore" subculture. Pokemones were livelier, more extroverted than the emo and otaku stereotypes. Most Pokemones were teens. During parties they danced to

reggaeton Reggaeton (, ), also known as reggaetón and reguetón (), is a music style that originated in Panama during the late 1980s. It was later popularized in Puerto Rico. It has evolved from dancehall and has been influenced by American hip hop, ...

music, while kissing and groping with as many people (male or female) as they could, which they called ''poncear''. They made extensive use of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

, trading photos of themselves on image-sharing site

Fotolog Fotolog.com (originally Fotolog.net) was a social network for sharing primarily photos. The site claimed that its vision was to build a "good" social network which prioritizes the well-being of users. The site only allowed all members of the commu ...

and communicating through

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

. Pokemones were usually from the Chilean middle and lower class. They were frequently juxtaposed against another group, the so-called ''peloláis'', well-to-do girls with long, straight, fairer hair from private, Catholic schools. In January 2008, Internet messages surfaced urging violence against Pokemones (mainly because of borrowing aspects from other subcultures, such as emo hair, hip-hop clothes, and for using the c-walk). People belonging to the subculture increasingly began to be attacked outside discos and pubs. In response, a joint anti-violence campaign called "Foundation for a Better Future" was organized by the Chilean government and

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

's main student leaders.

See also

References

Further reading