Social Why did you join Smogon?

way back in elementary school i had always watched youtube vids of wifi battles in the plat / hgss days, i had no real idea what the tiers were or what they meant but i knew of smogon from reading one of their articles. a few years later i learned that po was a thing and i intended on posting an rmt for bw uu but i never got around to it cause i thought the rmt rules were p strict and i didnt wanna fuck anything up, prob wanted to lurk more. then i became relatively interested in competitve mons about 2 years later and started posting in xy uu forums, kinda went from there and started hanging in the uu room during the beta days. yea thats kinda it i guess
 

Taylor

i am alien
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I grew up playing Pokemon Red when it was released over 20-years ago. Years later, my Father bought me a laptop and I was introduced to online browsing and general internet-related past times. I was in my final year at high school and found myself playing Pokemon NetBattle after searching for Pokemon stuff. Clans, servers and Poke-wars came and went, I joined Smogon Community as it was known and is the best competitive Pokemon site in existence and was the most popular server on NetBattle.

The interest and love for the game I grew up with, as well as the cool users and great times I had playing this game has kept me here over the years.
 
i was never allowed to do anything pokemon related when i was younger, so naturally i became interested in it. a few friends i made from playing sm4sh introduced me to the site for random battles, and eventually monotype, so i clicked a link in the roomintro and now i'm here
 
back in maybe 06-07 I used go on Serebii and watch Youtubers who battled liked YukiJadenSurvives, mtgxerxes, Kawalski25, WillisTheUnbreakable, etc. These were the D/P days.

Serebii had a Pokemon of the Day which was for competitive purposes and they also had an IRC channel for battling but Serebii was a very casual website for younger people who like the in-game and anime stuff.

I never lost a battle on Serebii except for my very first one, in which the guy told me if I beat him I was the best. It was very close and to this day, after all these years, and after so many battles, I wish I could track him down and battle him again. He wasn't great and neither was I but it was a very special moment for me.

I'm not sure how I found out about Smogon, I was aware of it but never registered until I got tired of smashing 10 year olds using in-game teams. I started using Shoddy and facing good people. Never was anything but above average. That's basically it. I stopped using this site just before HG/SS came out (even though I was sooooo hyped) I was a teenager and moved on to other shit.

I continually return to this site because of my love for 4th gen battling and PokemonShowdown which makes it fun and easy to do. Also, I have very few hobbies, lol.
 
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Maybe I'm misremembering things, but back in 2004/2005 Smogon was pretty much THE forum for competitive 3rd gen, and Netbattle was THE way to play Pokemon online (previously people had used IRC bots).

Back then, the community for online battling wasn't nearly as big (perhaps in large part because the GBA had no online function, hence the requirement of using a simulator, and the internet as a whole had discoverability issues back then), so I guess you could say that Smogon was a big fish in a small pond, but if you were one of the few hundreds of people that played competitive Pokemon online, the discussion basically all took place on Smogon. There were some other Pokemon forums that had some competitive discussion purely by virtue of being big Pokemon forums to begin with (like Gamefaqs, Pojo, and Serebii), but those forums tended to have more discussion of in-game stuff and most people's version of "competitive" play just meant having a decent team for link cable battles (not breeding for good IVs or even having optimized EV spreads), so Smogon (as a forum that was dedicated purely to competitive Pokemon discussion) drew a lot of people from these forums that wanted a place to actually discuss competitive Pokemon. There was also the TVsIan forum where people discussed competitive battling just because it was the "official" Netbattle forum, but as I recall that community was kind of decaying and Smogon pretty quickly sucked up most of the people from there.

So like most people, I joined Smogon because it seemed to be the only place on the internet that was geared primarily toward people who wanted to discuss Pokemon as it was played competitively on simulators. That's what got me in the door, anyway.


There's also a cultural component that made Smogon a bit of a draw. For one thing, it was pretty elitist, which I liked at the time: I was tired of having discussions on general Pokemon forums where randoms would often interject to say that playing the game competitively meant we were playing it wrong ("obsessing over the details of EV spreads isn't fun, why don't you guys just have fun, it's a video game, why do you care so much about math, why take it so seriously), and Smogon's elitist attitude was sort of the perfect counter-weight to that (play to win, get good or get out).

That brand of elitism was just part of a culture that I recall as being very sophomoric. Early in the days of Smogon, when the site was still finding its identity, you had some teenage wannabe philosophers trying to have philosophical discussions on "serious topics" so that they could sound impressive and smart. In another category of discussion, I recall there also being quite a bit of personal storytelling, sometimes this took the form of thinly-veiled brags in the form of stories about how they got so drunk and had these crazy party experiences, or telling stories about their sexual escapades, but a lot of it was just telling stories about weird and crazy things that happened to them. I recall one of the more amusing threads in early Smogon history being from a guy (who, as I recall, didn't even really play Pokemon) talking about his experiences in India, and finding the most colorful metaphors to describe the various disgusting things he experienced there. There was also a lot of crude and mean humor, like people finding creative ways to insult each other. Though much of it seems very sophomoric looking back on it now, at the time it was kind of the perfect blend of ingredients to make a 14-year-old say wow, all these guys are so cool!

By the way, I hope the above paragraph doesn't sound like I'm trying to dunk on anyone; for all of the faux-sophistication of some users who tried way too hard to seem erudite, I did encounter some really intellectually stimulating material (if I recall correctly, it was through Smogon that I first discovered Paul Graham's essays), and the threads that were just people posting stories from their lives did make for a lot of interesting reading in an era before blogging and social media was really a thing. In a way, reading stories from various internet strangers was a basic exercise in empathy; it gave me the chance to see the world through other people's eyes in a time when I didn't spend a ton of time offline interacting with people who had different perspectives.

It could also very well be that I'm misremembering how big a deal all of that was in relation to what the forums as a whole were, but in an era when I was 14 years old and basically every major Pokemon forum was trying to be family-friendly, Smogon's edginess was an undeniable draw. Smogon was where all the "cool kids" were.
Excellent post, I came a couple of years after you but the culture was still like that (might still be) on here. I was the opposite though, I could see even then at 13-14 how cringeworthy some of the people on here were and tried to avoid being one of them. I feel like that type of behavior is less common these days though and miss it in a weird way. I feel like the internet as a whole is lacking in enlightened 14 year olds who have all the answers. Could just be that I'm not 14 anymore and I don't frequent areas where they hang out at.
 
I've been playing since I was a child. I deeply love these games, and I wanted to turn my passion into a skill. I wasn't on an actual computer much, so when I was first reading Smogon sets, tiers, and ideas I was just lurking on the sets pages. I went on to by 2007's Pokemon Battle Revolution. I LOVED that game, and what was satisfying was using the sets that I saw on Smogon to do the Single battles. I had to make up my own sets for Doubles, but that's easy to do. Protect on every Mon, EQ on Garchomp, etc.

Eventually I learned what EVs and IVs where. There was no point in trying for IVs in Gen 4, so I trained with EVs. First Pokemon that I trained was one of my female Gible named Jevah. I lost her when I lost my Platinum cartridge, but I have made another copy for battling. I eventually went on to start battling on both cartridge in XY and Showdown in ORAS. I really got into Double battles, ESPECIALLY Multi battles. I love playing 2v2 with a friend against some good opponents. I think that's one of the best parts about Pokemon.

I can talk to my friends about teams, designs, music, themes, characters, generations, games, spin-offs, memories, what teams we want to use together against our opponents, which gym leader is the cutest, how to get a Celebi in Gen 2, and so much more. Pokemon is an endearing series that has steadily gotten better and kept a level of quality as it's aged. There's people like Pokeaim and Blunder who like to showcase their competitive skills, Shofu who likes produce Pokemon music, theory and trivia channels, VGC dedicated channels like Aaron and Wolfe: there is an active community for damn near every aspect of the game. It's such an involved and animated franchise, you can really feel the life in it. I have been playing this game for the past twelve years of my life, and I've loved every minute of it. The first game that I owned was Pokemon Pearl version. Sinnoh was my childhood, and the one thing that will take me all the way back to my stomping grounds is a Sinnoh remake. That will be the day, I tell ya

I come back after a few years and see how shit SwSh is. I am now afraid of the DPPt remakes but I'll give it a chance. Pokemon has gone to hell
 
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I don't remember how I stumbled upon Smogon, but I do remember when. In very late DPP ("not seeing Latias's stint in OU" late), I came across this site trying to find ideas sets to take on Soul Silver's Battle Frontier (none of which I could really make because I was on an emulator and I did not really have the patience to breed for IVs or any idea on how to do proper EV training by then).

Some time later I discovered Pokemon Online and that Smogon had a server there, so I started lurking around more and more, until outright joining this forum almost 7 years ago, on the wake of BW being released.
 
Excellent post, I came a couple of years after you but the culture was still like that (might still be) on here. I was the opposite though, I could see even then at 13-14 how cringeworthy some of the people on here were and tried to avoid being one of them. I feel like that type of behavior is less common these days though and miss it in a weird way. I feel like the internet as a whole is lacking in enlightened 14 year olds who have all the answers. Could just be that I'm not 14 anymore and I don't frequent areas where they hang out at.
If you're looking for enlightened 14 year olds who have all the answers, good news: there's a subreddit for that! https://www.reddit.com/r/im14andthisisdeep/

That board is more dedicated to the mockery of enlightened 14-year-olds; if you want to see them in their native habitat, go on Tumblr and do a tag search for something like "Marxism." You'll also find some of it in Reddit; Reddit is less of a "teen" site than Tumblr is, but there are still plenty of teenagers there. I'm still getting used to it myself, as I was first "alerted" of Reddit through Paul Graham's website, and joined the site and started regularly using it in 2009, when the site was still mostly CS grad students and IT worker refugees from Slashdot. (I started college in 2009 and had a work study at the university IT department, which is where I got into the habit of browsing Reddit.) So it's been weird to have this experience of going from one of the youngest users on the site to feeling like I'm above the median age. I guess the same is true with Smogon, but my relative age increase on Smogon is mostly just due to the tenure of my membership, whereas with Reddit the demography did shift at some point when all of the teenagers showed up. (Though, I was part of the wave of undergrads who ruined the site for everyone who just wanted it to be a hangout for CS and physics grad students. There's probably an "Eternal September" joke in there somewhere.)
 

Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
Highschool, back in late 2012. I joined the site and have been lurking around ever since. Some people find it creepy, others find it cool. Why did I join though? I've been playing Pokemon since Gen 1, finding PS was such a blessing.

EDIT: I guess I should mention that I was on PS since 2012 and haven't touched the forum since last Monday, (July 2017)

I joined these forums after some friends suggested it.
 
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i have been on ps for almost 5 years now but never bothered to join smogon, but just recently i realised its importance, like voting for different things and arguing about something in a forum that is of my interest. This what got me here
 
Father brought me a Pokemon Blue from the US, was very good at catching the legendary trio and enjoyed the hell out of it, but I was limited to battling one or two people or my cousin and felt let down so I stopped playing after Gen 2...flash foward to GFaqs where I still kept tabs on pokemon reading news and hoping it would become more popular in my country (I think I got my own money by then) when smogon bashing caught my intrest. Dictators! Unofficial! Elitists! I came here to see what the fuss was about. This is Gen 5 now and it was amazing!

The weather wars, the experimentation and philosiphical debates and everyone supporting different ideas and me actually being a good ladder player, I was hooked. The community is the real gem here, and I did everything from trying my hand at tournaments and pokemon threads to Pokemon rap battles (we had some pro grade battles at the finals).

Unfortunately none of the above (except the community ofc) carried forward to Gen 6 and now SUMO where smogon turned into where a small group of people tell you what options you have to play pokemon and you can't play anything else even as an OM submission or unofficially, instead of being a pokemon's fan haven. So I quit politics (literally threw my access back at them) and just enjoying the quite life playing ladder games and having fun with friends.

Newest project is hoping to make Dragonite a great OU threat again, wish me luck!
 

Arcticblast

Trans rights are human rights
is a Forum Moderatoris a Tiering Contributoris a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
honestly, its so i can vote on 2v2 om...
This reminds me of a time when we had to throw out an OMOTM voting round because one person got like 10 people from a side server to join solely to vote on one meta and never use the site again, it swung the vote so hard that we had to actually deny it
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Originally joined for CAP, thought the Pokemon looked really great and wanted to make them. Got invested in competitive battling back in Gen 4 and took a huge break. Came back, PS was around and fell in love with trivia. Life story!
 

Cam

The Colby Covington Of Smogon
is a Tiering Contributoris a defending SCL Champion
Because Paynes/ Ninety Nine told me to a long time ago, back when I was a shitty player to join some random thing he was doing on here. Bless his heart and soul.
 

Don Honchkrorleone

Happy Qwilfish the nightmare
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
It was months before the release of Black/White and I was desperately seeking for new information. I was 16 at the time and didn't even know how to battle well, still thought Embargo was a good move and that Sableye was a good mon. Then I found the forums, the social groups, the competitive aspect; but mostly the two above aspects made me stick around for this long.
 

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