Pokémon Go Sydney

The launch of Niantic’s location-based mobile application Pokémon Go in July of 2016
catalysed the immediate creation of multiple online groups worldwide based on curating and
discussing content related to the game. This research elects Sydney, Australia’s online
Pokémon Go community for close analysis. This community has existed for three years, and
frequent posting by both users and moderators, particularly on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit
reveals that the community is still as active as when it was first conceived, despite the game’s
decline in players since its release (Humphrey-Jenner 2016).

We adopt Walker’s (2010) approach of ‘multi-sited ethnography’, tracing the flow of content
produced and shared by the community by focusing our research on five groups, mediated
by social media: Facebook’s Pokémon Go Sydney (private group); the Twitter keyword search
“Pokémon Go Sydney”; user ZoëTwoDots’ YouTube content; the Discord server Pokémon GO
Sydney; and the subreddit r/PokemonGoSyd.

We also consider the non-digital events through which the community organises,
unsubscribing to what Walker (2010) refers to as the ‘theoretically problematic dualism
between the neat separation of online and offline’ (p. 38).

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Ali Baker
Sabrina Coutu
Anna Masi
Gaëlle Paquet