Joyce's Ethnographic Adventure

A Pokémon Go Ethnography

While my original idea to do an ethnography on VRChat fell through, I'm glad it did. In my mad scramble to figure out a plan B after several technical and practical issues, my family reminded me of the community that was already waiting in my pocket. Pokémon Go, or more specifically the Glen Ellyn & Wheaton Raids community Discord that I had been invited to, but never really used.

So I sent a quick message to the admin asking permission to interview people and bada-bing bada-boom I'm blessed with a community happy to help me in my quest of knowledge. After I started down the Pokémon Go Discord path, the whole project became 100% more enjoyable and I learned a lot about the community I've been bumping into the past two years.

One user, Britt_, met her fiancé because of the discord. HER FIANCÉ! On a Pokémon discord!

I actually just met one of the members who helped me out in person last week. A user by the name of serena del cavallo, or Arwen in real life. She's actually a professor at another university/college who apparently knows who Professor Macek is. Small world.

I'm going to keep this as short as I can since all of my posts turn into monsters, but if you want to learn about a really interesting community, I encourage you to click on my ethnography. There's some pretty awesome people on there. If for nothing else, check out the pic of a snippet of the conversation between Bmoore04 (the admin) and JediSpiderMan, it's funny. :)