Interview with aim

I'm just a city boy born and raised in South Detroit... nah jk I'm a 21 year old college student who lives in THE BRONX yah feel me my guy? I am working on getting my MBA in Marketing, hopefully lol, and I have been a "professional" YouTuber since 2010 back when I started my channel cause we dream big. I love to play sports; basketball, football, and track are my favorite, and I'm currently working on starting up a band with my buddy Adam. :D Oh, and I have this wonderful amazing girlfriend who supports me even though I play Pokémon lol.

lmao. I met her in high school 6 years ago. I always had a crush on her but never wanted to ask her out cause I was scared of getting rejected by the girl I liked most lol. We became really good friends and I got brotherzoned lmao. Fast forward to out of high school, I called her randomly to hang out and we did a lot. Ending up coming out and next thing I know she kisses me. We dated for a bit after and she said yes to being my girl hehe. She's been my girl for over 2 years since! She does not play mons yet! She loves the original TV show. I'm scared to teach her mons cause she is very competitive and this game is not good for your health.

Thanks, I'm very blessed! My YouTube channel, pokeaimMD, is a highly competitive Pokémon channel where I post high-level matches during Smogon tournaments, random ladder videos where I ladder to the top, and Wi-Fi Battles. I recently got a new computer, so I intend to branch out. Nuzlockes are also what I do~

Early on, I got pretty lucky. I met a bunch of "famous" PokeTubers like NBZ, shofu, Kwandaoren66, Dangerous36m, and the list goes on and on. Through them I got more known basically before Pokémon got completely sucked dry on YouTube. Ever since then I've just been remaining relevant lol, trying my best to do so. I always tried to bring the best battles to my channel and it somehow attracted a following and I've grown to about 80k subs since then. I aim to teach people, no pun intended, and hopefully leave behind a generation of intelligent YouTubers/viewers/Smogonites/whatever.

ALSO I HAVE SHIRTS AND ITS PRETTY COOL WHEN I GET TWEETS ON TWITTER WITH PEOPLE WEARING THEM

I guess people like my competitiveness but also my personality and how I explain my thought process. I try and be very clear when I am battling as to why I picked a certain move or how this mon is gonna help me. I also tend to joke around a bunch when playing with friends or even by myself as, even though I take mons seriously, it's a game that I feel you have to enjoy to, well, enjoy it lol.

I guess the thing I do differently is that I've always striven to be good at this game and upload better and better content. Like, I even joined Smogon so I could join tournaments and challenge myself and get better. People love to see that stuff. They also love when I have friends on my videos as well as they are a lot less "professional" and more about just enjoying a funny video. I'm also pretty friendly I suppose lol. I try my best to reply to people and to be active with my subs whether through YouTube, IRC, Twitter or Twitch and people respect me for that lol. Kinda puts a lot of pressure on me, but it's cool to be looked up to. I just don't wanna be looked up to as the "best PokéTuber" though, I wanna be strong everywhere, like Smogon. :D

Ah, you must have been a YouTuber back during early DPP, I assume?

When I first started I tended to hang out with the people who were considered good Pokémon battlers on YouTube, such as shofu and wilechase, and they were never against Smogon haha, so neither was I. I of course wanted to have a mind of my own though so I made an account and started to lurk around the forums. A lot of people who played during BW usually were for Smogon like nbz, elo, shofu, tonyflygon, etc, so it had changed I guess. We all played all the tiers and didn't have a problem. Some of us even joined suspects back then. I think that with the new generation of PokeTubers a lot of them are actually "lets players" who shifted to Pokémon Wi-Fi battling with the release of XY and are still trying to get used to Smogon, but accept what they do. I do my best to explain to my friends why certain mons were banned/suspected.

Then you have people like verlisify who I cannot convince of anything and has a following that is the same haha. It's like 50% for Smogon, 25% against, 25% don't care and just play. If I had to give them numbers/percentages, the people who are anti-Smogon are generally the ones who don't have very much experience in competitive battling, or rather high-level competitive battling.

Haha yeah, I guess SPL 5 was when I got more known as I actually didn't do bad in Ubers, which I ended up playing cause Donkey quit. My first tournament was SPL 4 though, where I went 0-2 cause I am unlucky :[[[ but I hate BW so who cares!

I love Smogon tournaments, specifically the team tournaments as I've had the pleasure of being on two wonderful teams: Team East and the Wolfpack, latter of which didn't do so great this year. I love the people, and the help, and the testing, the laughs. Team tournaments are definitely my favorite as the interactions I feel are what make it so great. I mean winning is nice too lol, but I've yet to do that on a team. :[[[

I think that Smogon does have the best competition, especially when you compare it to YouTube or something. I can play at a high level and actually be entertained during these matches and maybe sometimes even nervous, whereas for YouTube I don't really care if I win or lose a Wi-Fi battle, and typically the battles are vs inexperienced trainers anyway so yeh. Love the competition on Smogon haha, love the people I've met because of it as well. I also enjoy Grand Slam as well since lower tiers are something I've always enjoyed and being able to play them and actually do well means something to me. I'm excited for the Smogon Classic and even though I don't have very many points in Smogon Tour itself, I want to try and make it to playoffs. If not this season maybe next!

All in all I like the tournament format a lot. ORAS just has too many Pokémon though, so it's impossible to be super consistent I feel, but hey that's not the tournament's fault lol.

I mean I still very much enjoy ORAS. I love Pokémon and that won't go away haha, but I do feel that team matchup is a huge issue. I find it crazy that some people don't think it exists or is that big of a factor. There are just waaaay too many threats to cover all on one team. As for fixing it, I've discussed several ways with members of the OU council but I really can't think of a practical way; we either ban too much or release more power to "balance" it out. It is very funny though when you are 6-0ed by a Pokémon haha. I laughed when I got wrecked in OST round 1 by a Mega Charizard Y. Just goes to show that there are a lot of factors in mons and that go into winning, or attribute to winning rather. I think fixing it would be kinda impossible, but I'd love to discuss that sometime with the council haha.

Haha indeed. Yeah, I love to meet new people and I love to help, and definitely meeting new people/involving myself in different parts of the site has really helped my circle of friends on Smogon expand. Wouldn't have met you if I didn't join QC or contribute! hehe Or many of the wonderful people that I call my frens.

As of right now I think that CAP is where I can help people most on Smogon. CAP seems extremely interesting but lacks an OU-experienced playerbase and because of that, discussion is rather, off, I guess you could say. From lurking I can tell that some of these players just don't play the game enough. That's why recently I've decided to contribute there a ton and get into CAP 20.

As for new users, I'd advise to just lurk for a while, read up on mons, get to know people as well, but don't be annoying about it haha. Casual chat is fine. It really depends on what people like. Look around Smogon; it has a whole lot more to offer than just battling. Find what you like and stick to it and branch out if you really want to. If you are trying to get involved in tournaments and want to get noticed, the best way to do so is to do well in Smogon tournaments. That's how people get known and get more involved in other tours around Smogon. Don't be afraid to ask questions as well. One thing I dislike about the community is that we are quick to flame new users or inexperienced users. Find someone who is genuinely nice and hit them up haha. Getting involved is a great way to make frens.

Hit up Aldaron as well. Just go to the search bar and type Aldaron and he will be the first pick. Send him PMs and wall messages asking him to tutor you in any tier; he's a master. And constantly PM him on IRC while flashing his name, great guy right there.

But yeah, in all seriousness, lurk, make frens, and don't trash talk please. Maybe with your group of frens you can, but you need to understand that if you do that to a respected battler you're gonna get roasted lol. Just enjoy what you do :]

Honestly, I like badges because they are pretty lol, and I do feel that they are a good way of showing that someone has contributed to a particular part of the site. I think that if someone has been contributing, just give them the badge lol. I've seen a lot of people rejected for the badge because maybe their attitude isn't something wanted in InsideScoop. Thing is though, a badge isn't awarded for attitude, it's awarded for hard work. Maybe just cut off the IS access if there really is a problem or be specific in the badge standards thread!

It has several meanings, like sometimes it stands for the medical doctor of Pokémon or also repping my old clan. But pokeaimMD was my name when I joined my first clan, which was MD. I loved Pokémon and I also loved AOL instant messenger, which I was on at the time, so I came up with the name pokeaim and the clan was on an IRC channel, but for some reason I couldn't put the tag {MD} in the front of my name so I put it in the back like so: pokeaim{MD}, and it stuck. And I'll forever be the only person to tag in the back :]. And I used that name on YouTube when I created it since I was still in the clan actually—I became one of the owners back in DPP and was taking souls lol—but yeah that's the origin. aim is simply an abbreviation of it, and that's what I went by when I came to IRC. Plus, aim just looks cool haha. Totally copied that from my ask.fm btw LOL.

LMAO, it stood for Mass Destruction. Keep in mind I was barely 15 when I first joined it and purplesurge, which was the old IRC network I was on. Actually, a few of my friends from back then still hop on IRC regularly, such as DittoCrow and Shake. Honestly, I liked the clan cause we would stay up late, laugh, and battle. It was kinda like IDM except no Skype calls. Again, I love Pokémon and these people did too. Plus, we had these things called wars, which are like tournaments where one clan goes against the other, really fun haha. Everyone used to get upset though, which is why I don't miss it.

lmao, my favorite Pokémon is Suicune. I loved CroCune back in DP, fell in love with it. Suicune used to win me a lot of games back then and it's been my favorite mon ever since. S RANK IN UU THATS MY BOY

Haha thanks man, was fun. Just nominate me for more badges and it will be!