The Actual News:
You know me, Pokémon Hoax Master, and today I reveal something I’ve kept a secret for a while now… *I’M* the one who made all those asshole Professor Oak “Poké Tips” you might have seen on the internet. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here, let me refresh your memory:
(A few more can be read here.)
Yep, that was all me. And I can prove it too… just as soon as I can find the original files for them. Don’t believe me? Well, I’ll share a quick story.
A couple years back I read a bunch of poorly written “Professor Oak Tips” that someone shared on /vp/… y’know, this was back before the internet really took a hold on the collective conscience of Pokémon players, combined with “playground-tier rumors”, coupled with the fact that Pokémon was “just another game” for a lot of these video game player’s guide book writers, so there was a lot of misinformation in them. Here, check out some actual authentic “Poké Tips”:
Ah, the ignorance of the early days of Pokémon.
Anyways, after reading them, I thought to myself: I remember those old days and how much misinformation existed back then… so why not make a series of fake Professor Oak “Tips” which are full of bullshit “Tips” but sound just authentic enough for people to believe in them. It took me a few days to make the templates and find the proper fonts, etc, but once I got it together, I dug deep into my memory and tried to find some of the best bullshit “Tips” I could think of. I made maybe 10-15 of them and posted them on /vp/, but what you see shared most often were the cream of the crop. See, you can’t keep a good hoaxer down.
I loved how the tips spread across the internet, and I especially love how the “Tips” have entered into Pokémon meme lore. In fact, maybe the moment that made me realize how much fun people have had with the “Tips” AND how recognizable it has become was this post I found on /vp/ in a thread about interesting Wonder Trades:
AHAHAHA OMG my sides are in orbit! You guys kill me sometimes with how sharp you are. And I’m totally going to rip this idea off.
So… in trying to get this site back up in some kind of working order, I thought I’d maybe make a section of more “Tips”… like, obviously have the classic ones there, but also include some of the ones people might not have seen much of, and maybe some new ones. I kinda DON’T want to make it a part of this site just cuz I want to keep the mystique of the “Tips” going (and publicly posting about how I made it all up might destroy it), but… whatever. I’ve had my fun with it over the past four or five years; seeing everyone getting a kick out of it all in that time gives me such a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
Nothing like a good hoax!
1 Comment
So someone else read Nintendo Official Magazine’s Pokemon Red and Blue strategy guide then? Hah, I remember that. Think they also mentioned the safari zone glitch there too.
Either way, still better than the other guide I used to own which called Missingno the ‘super secret 152nd Pokemon’ or something, and said it was rarer than Mew.