The Weekly WTF: Pokémon’s Creeptastic Secret

Nintendo look so sweet and innocent, don't they? With their family friendly reputation, cutesy-ass Mii characters out the wazzoo and childlike experimentation with this new 'online play' thing they've just discovered.

But that's the ruse. As we know, it's always the quiet ones. I had a neighbor once, a sweet old dude who was always polite and charming. The cops found a couple of human heads and a half-eaten asscheek in his refrigerator. (Note: anecdote may just be snarky BS.) That's Nintendo, right there. Nintendo are the serial killer cannibal next door of gaming.

Oh yes indeed. Beneath that toontastic surface, all manner of creepy shit is lurking. Earlier in this series, we heard the freaky story of BEN and the haunted Majora's Mask cartridge. It's a classic of gaming creepypasta. But even better known (and more scrote-shrivelingly terrifying) is the business with the Lavender Town Tone.

For this one, we're partying like it's 1998, and getting our Pokémon on. The original Game Boy installments, Red and Blue. You know the deal here: young dude with a shit hat is sent on a perilous journey around the world, beating peoples' pets to death in an attempt to become the ultimate cockfighting champion.

Each town in the region (give or take) has a Pokémon Gym. Your battles with the masters take place here, and besting each one will earn you a badge. With them all in hand, you can challenge the Elite 4 and that other dude, for the title of Champion.

That's the deal in a nutshell. After all, it's tough to be a studly Ego-dude and know your poké-shit. Unless you're the kind of double life leading renegade who brings a Pikachu-branded lunchbox to work at the steelmill/local lumberjack-ing and bear wrestling forest. But anywho, we've no time for this BS. To Lavender Town!

This place appears to be just another stop on your journey. A little darker than the others, what with the huge mothereffin' pokémon graveyard and all, but otherwise regular enough. But don't be fooled. There's some insidious evil lurking in that jangly background music.

It was this very music that caused Lavender Town Syndrome. Which is, reports the official wiki of creepypastas, ‘a peak in suicides and illness of children between the ages of 7-12 shortly after the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, back in February 27, 1996.'

It was the high frequency of the tone, supposedly. Too high for adults to hear, but screwing with the minds of kids in all kinds of ghastly-ass ways. The cheery story continues,
‘Due to the Lavender Tone, at least two-hundred children supposedly committed suicide, and many more developed illnesses and afflictions. The children who committed suicide usually did so by hanging or jumping from heights. Those who did not acted irrationally (or) complained of severe headaches after listening to Lavender Town's theme.'

The music has since been retooled, but this creepy legacy remains. In recent years, a band of Unown (those wierd alphabet pokémon) were found in the area with some tech or other, spelling out the words GET OUT. These ‘mon weren't even created at this point.

All the hairs on my scrote are standing on end, so that's probably enough of this.