Pokémon Go is the best mostly-broken game I’ve ever played. It crashes in the middle of battles. There are constant server issues. It’s a menace to my health and well-being that has burrowed itself into my heart like a blood clot. But as the game claws its way to usability, players are realizing that Niantic did a really half-assed job setting up the in-game locations, and Pokémon Go is sending people to some really strange places.
Aside from wandering around to catch monsters, the game involves walking to “gyms” and “PokéStops”, which are where Pokémon battle each other and where items are collected, respectively. Gyms and PokéStops are supposed to be linked to local landmarks. The trouble is that Niantic imported these “landmarks” from their earlier game, Ingress, where those locations were created and tagged by players, and seemingly never reviewed before becoming an integral element of a game for children.
Aside, of couse, from the incident in which a Wyoming teen found a dead body while playing the game, many of these locations are irrelevant, bizarre, or borderline offensive, and players are beginning to catalog them on Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit’s r/TheSilphRoad. Compiled below are the strangest PokéStop locations people are claiming to have come across. They’ve been verified against the Ingress game map wherever possible. Leave your own examples in the comments.
Strip Clubs and Sex Shops
Kafukaesque noticed that a strip club called Golddiggers was tagged as an in-game location, much like the Pokéstop that Redditor memefund saw at Kiss-N-Tell (Fair Oaks’ premier anal plug selection).
@iPokemonGO found a Pokéstop at Seattle’s Club Z, which, according to the Ingress description, is home to an all-hours mirrored gloryhole maze. While the business’s floor plan does show a glory hole room on the third floor, Gizmodo is unable to confirm how reflective it is or its hours of operation at this time.
A Gizmodo commenter also spotted a Pokéstop that is a gay bathhouse in LA. According to reviews on Google, the facilities are lovely, but the staff are rude.
An Alarming Number of Abortion Memorials
Maybe a lot of the Ingress players are pro-lifers? Because there. Are. So. Many.
Gravestones and Mausoleums
Tumblr user drawn4life also discovered a PokéStop at the gravesite of “a great guy” only identified as Nick at the Evergreen Funeral Home and Cemetery in Everett, WA. YouTuber Beware The Flood were directed to a graveyard in Columbia, SC beside a strip club. An unidentified mausoleum was also found by merrcilessly.
Two roadside memorials were also tagged and then discovered by Mike Drucker and Phil Cogar. A third was found by a Gizmodo commenter.
Dick’s Balls and This Gigantic Cock
Spotted by shadowkeese, possibly in New Jersey, and jasprosesprite-2 in Delaware, respectively. Just my speculative take but: this is what happens when you allow unmoderated user content.
Some Sort of Monument to Chiang Kai Shek???
Who, if memory serves, killed a whole lot of people.
A Church of Scientology building
It’s far from the first time Pokémon Go has sent someone to church, but it’s definitely the strangest. Jesus is found elsewhere, my children.
This Restaurant Called Poke Stop
The Smash Mouth fans among you might remember this place being featured in season 9, episode 2 of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
The 9/11 Memorial Pool
Just say it Niantic. Just come out and say, “we’re not even fucking trying.”
Honorable mentions:
- A “Fallopian tube shaped play area”
- This creepy shed
- A mural of Bob Ross or possibly Charles Manson
- An ugly, vacant-looking dog statue thing in Warsaw
- A gigantic clown sculpture
- Finland’s premier abandoned hot dog cart
- The Nutella tree
- Muffler Man
- Topiary of Sesame Street’s Elmo which appears to be screaming
- Croatia’s abandoned dreams
- A GameStop with artistic ambitions
- Sad Fountain
- This memorial to confederate soldiers at the University of North Carolina (via NY Mag)
- Our commenter Marrob found a child’s cemetery. Yikes!