Pokemon Go and Arlington National Cemetery
As if they need to be told, tourists at Arlington National Cemetery are being warned by the staff that it’s not appropriate for them to play their video games on hallowed ground, according to the Washington Post;
“We do not consider playing ‘Pokémon Go’ to be appropriate decorum on the grounds of [Arlington National Cemetery]. We ask all visitors to refrain from such activity,” the cemetery’s Twitter account said Tuesday afternoon.
The game, a mobile app called Pokémon Go, was released July 6 and, like a fictional zombie apocalypse, has spread at an unprecedented rate. The premise is simple: The player’s digital avatar has to collect Pokémon, but to do so, the play has to explore the actual world as the virtual Pokémon world has been overlaid atop it using Google Maps data.
The mixture of real world locales and fictional creatures has led people to collect Pokémon in places where playing a game might be inappropriate, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the former site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
Because America just can’t grow up and act it’s age.
Thanks to Doug and Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Arlington National Cemetary
The sad part is that this is probably the only time some kids would ever visit Arlington National Cemetery.
My kids will see it, just as my Mom & Dad took me and my sister to see it. The smartphone will be for pictures only. And anybody trying to pull the Lyndsey Stone bullshit will have their behavior corrected.
No interest in the app at all. If the company who is running this program does not have a means of a location owner opting out as a pokemon site. They’re doing it wrong.
They already are. Langley, Groom Lake, and some areas on military posts are already filing the necessary paperwork to get their locations blocked with the company for security reasons. Private residences are also having their locations blocked when it comes to being congregation areas and such.
If they think I need to submit a form to keep a bunch of Japanese-cartoon-watching fucktards out of my yard, there’s going to be a serious problem.
^^^ THIS ^^^
Agree with TOW.
Don’t need any stinking paperwork to keep dipshits of the lawn at stately Claw Manor.
Sic’em Scooby!!
We don’t need no steeeeenking paperwork!!!
And we don’t call 911!!
Proud Infidel Manor®™ JUST MIGHT have some 12 Gauge Rock Salt rounds in the armament inventory for such an occasion, something that the current management will neither confirm or deny…
No need for 911. We here at Casa Whitey will call the Sheriff’s nonemergency line so they can remove the remnants. Whether or not said remnants still have a pulse is entirely dependent on the extent of their stupidity.
These are adults playing this game?
Or, maybe I should add the scare quotes.
“Adults”?
I certainly don’t get it, but here are two Marines who were out playing Pokemon… and m unexpectedly helped catch a guy who was being weird with kids and had an outstanding warrant for attempted murder. It’s a crazy world.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pokemon-go-attempted-murder-fullerton-20160713-snap-story.html
Good for them! One less creepazoid loose in the area.
At Arlington? When did we start reproducing so many morons in this country?
They’ve always been here…
Look at who’s shacked up at 1600 Penn. Ave.
Oh, the pocket monsters are loose again, are they? Well, the news on that is that there are people using that ‘app’** to lure unsuspecting idiots somewhere to be robbed.
**Can they say ‘application’ as if they have brain cells working? I don’t think so!!!
The nonsensical idea that a game is more important than the real world, so important that the REAL world has to be incorporated into it to attract users, has made things go right off the cliff there. And that is exactly what I expect some of these 12-year-olds in adult bodies to do — go right off a cliff, because they’ll play it in a car and drive right off the road.
The only good thing is that this game has done more for fat kids in a couple of weeks than moochelle obama has in eight years?
LOL! You win the Internet today!
Good one, I give it five out of FIVE COCONUTS! ??
Talk about NO CLASS, putting their shit in places like Arlington and The Holocaust Museum? Fuck whoever thought of that to death up the ass sideways with rusty, tangled concertina wire wrapped in diarrhea-soaked asbestos while 70s disco music is being played to them, they have less class than the Dutch Rudder Gang.
The worst of the Holocaust Museum incident is that the character they were to collect is called “Coffin”, and it supposedly exudes poison gas.
You gotta be shittin’ me…
Please tell me you’re joking…..
Now, that is just plain sick. Whoever put that one there needs a beating.
I’m assuming that this is the Holocaust Museum you mentioned? http://www.ushmm.org
I’m so glad I have a job and a life and don’t have to worry about this bullshit.
And seriously, if you’re chasing little fictional creatures around to have something worthwhile to do, kill yourself. Doubly so if you do it in hallowed places like Arlington. You suck.
Aaaand your hobbies are what, exactly?
Horology? You’re gonna waste thousands of dollars on old, obsolete timepieces when you have a clock on your mobile phone?
Philately? Stamps are for mailing letters…and with the advent of email, who sends letters anymore?
Numismatics? Coins are for spending, not hoarding…and when the country that minted that coin no longer exists, all you have is a lump of metal.
Hobbies are, by their nature, an unproductive use of time. If hobbies were productive, we’d call them ‘professions’. But we don’t.
Besides, this is America. Land of the free, remember? If people want to spend their time on Pokemon Go, that’s their business. It sure beats sending cranky messages to people based purely on their choice of hobby.
I build scale models of historical ships and aircraft (currently working on USS Laffey DD-459, which took on a jap battleship and almost won), shoot holes in paper at varying distances, and frequently have sex with a gorgeous Asian chick. How’s that for hobbies?
Depends: does your house smell of leatherbound books and rich mahogany?
Probably not. Leatherbound books are expensive as hell and I’ve never smelled mahogany, rich or otherwise. If anything, it smells like my wife’s scented candles and Hoppe’s #9.
TOW. If you want your house to smell of mahogany, buy some–new or used– splinter it, dice it, and soak it in water for two weeks. When it’s nice and soft, take about 6 oz. of it and mix it with a like amount of shredded cabbage. Enjoy a carbonated beverage with this hearty, if woody, meal. Then wait. You will soon be announcing the scent of mahogany throughout your home. In fact, you’ll be able to take the scent with you, wherever you go, for the next two days!
Hey, don’t thank me. my mind is a terrible thing.
Continuing to allow, much less encourage, such behavior is a national disgrace. No excuse for it. No wonder the country is in trouble. The number of people who show respect for others seems to be shrinking.
Yes, fools, you have the right to act stupid in public. Just because you can doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Stop it, already.
Been on a road lately? Respect for each other went away about 15 years ago here, when they hung three traffic lights on a stretch of road about four blocks long, and put in bike lanes!
So the upside of the app is simple, some little fat turds who are used to being couch potato gamer nerds are finally getting their fat asses outdoors and moving around….
The downside of course is that the app has these idiots wandering all over areas that are perhaps not appropriate for such activities. I saw my local town green covered in teens and twentysomethings last night all looking at their phone screens…one of them wandered out in front of my SUV and fortunately for the pokemon playing dumbass I was actually watching where I was going….
Nothing wrong with an app that has people wandering around, it’s similar to geo-caching but for even bigger nerds…where the problem comes in of course is as you mention, where it’s not appropriate to the surroundings.
Hmm. Exercise and culling in an app.
The alien overlords are clever and ruthless.
Gonna be a lot of Darwin award winners.
There apparently have been a couple, already. I heard some kid walked off a bridge…
A car accident in Auburn, NY is being blamed on Pokemon Go. Two robberies of U of Maryland students were Pokemon Go-related.
I wonder how much longer it will be until we see something like “Moms Demand Action Against Pokemon Go” after one too many phone-vegetating spawn wander into streets, off bridges, into traffic, etc
I don’t see this as much of a variation from the old pursuit very popular in Japan and fairly popular here called Geo-Caching.
Any app that involves moving around in the real word is probably beneficial for those that would otherwise be sedentary.
However, I also agree that it is wholly inappropriate to pursue such things in places like Arlington National Cemetery.
Respect and common sense are lacking in many avenues of our society.
…or I could have just agreed with what VOV wrote.
Sorry about that completely redundant and unnecessary post.
A good thought and worth repeating…
For me, if these people need to be told that’s not right behavior for the cemetery, I’d rather they get out there and be told than sit at home and never learn.
Who knows? It might lead them to learn something else about their country and how they got it.
Yep I’m kind of with you on that sentiment.
Per the Facebook comment, TOG and ANC must have changed a lot since ’08. As an NCOIC, I’d drive my POV through the cemetery on occasion to get to a dependent inurnment, but my music would be respectfully turned down (a habit I still have when passing a cemetery). As for the cemetery itself, the guards wouldn’t let just anyone drive in. I’d be in dress blues with a funeral schedule in hand.
Regardless, to hell with today’s clueless phone-watchers. I don’t get it…
You know, I’d probably go to jail. Because I’d also probably beat hell out of some imbecile I caught playing this at Arlington while I was there to pay my respects. So let’s see that’s bail, court costs, fines and the price the imbecile’s new game device and any medical expenses. I guess I better start factoring these into vacations.
Another sign that the Zombie Apocalypse has begun:
phone-zombies in the cemeteries.
They are already in the schools and a voting booth near you.
Question is…when can we start shooting?
On the brighter side, one of the characters is “located” in none other than Inbred Central aka the Westboro Baptist “Church” and it’s a Pokemon “Gym” with a critter named “Clefairy”. They’ve been getting trolled right and left, I hope their heads explode.
Uh…what the fuck is a pokemon?
It’s something to do with gay Jamaicans. We’ll tell you when you’re old enough.
I don’t think I want to get that old.
That warrants a spew alert. Luckily I was chewing gum but not drinking anything!
I though it was gay Lithuanians on Thursdays and gay Estonians on days that don’t end in a “y”.
I wounder if Danni-boi’s home is home to a pokemon? I bet DuLlAsS’ dumpster isn’t…
The only reason I know is that I have a 11 year old son.
My oldest nephew is 12, and he doesn’t do this shit.
If these characters are placed by the game; wouldn’t it make sense to contact the vendor and suggest that there are a few places it isn’t appropriate to put the characters, like in cemeteries, places of worship etc? Os is that asking too much of them…
Yes.
I just downloaded Pokemon Go to my iPhone, and you know what…I rather like it. I see myself playing it a lot. Naturally, I won’t be playing it at any cemeteries, but in shopping malls and such, then sure why not.
It seems to me as though whoever makes Pokemon owes it to us to draw up a list of etiquette rules for the app, as I can see more of this happening.
Better still, find out where all the cemeteries and military bases are, then block any Pokemon from showing up in those areas.
Thoughts?
All participants can perhaps use whatever’s between their ears to figure out what’s obviously inappropriate. But then again, I think the whole thing is retarded, so what do I know?
Read somewhere earlier today that they are having the same problem at Auschwitz. Not very comforting, but at least ingrates reside somewhere other than here in the US.
Nothing proves how civilized you are more than disrespecting cemeteries, monuments, and other historic places.
[…] Laundering The Quinton Report: Wanted Teen Taunts Police On Facebook Live This Ain’t Hell: Pokemon Go And Arlington National Cemetery Weasel Zippers: Purdue Threatens To Expel Students For Criticizing #blacklivesmatter Megan McArdle: […]
There are worse things than video games. I’ve visited there about 3-4 within the last 20 years, and on each occasion I’ve seen both joggers and cyclists using Arlington like their personal gym.