User:The Great Butler//vp/
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| /vp/ — Pokémon | |
|---|---|
| [[File:|]] | |
| Language | English |
| Status | Active |
| Run | 2010 - Present |
| Date opened | 2010 |
| Creator | moot |
| Website | Main page |
/vp/, for Video Pokémon, is a Pokémon-themed section of the popular imageboard 4chan. Early in its history, it was known by the alternative name /tr/ - Team Rocket.
History
Early History
/vp/ was created in early 2010 due to excessive and widespread discussion of the then-upcoming English release of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver and Japanese release of Pokémon Black and White on the site's general video games board. Both topics quickly grew to fill the new board with discussion, supplemented by topics ranging from discussion of past generations to roleplaying threads and debate threads on users' favorites in almost any conceivable subject.
Early on in the board's life, it was the center of a widespread controversy spanning both itself and several other fansites, including Serebii.net and Bulbagarden. This controversy, which came to be known as Wottergate (after a combination of the fan nickname for Oshawott - then known as Mijumaru - and the Watergate Scandal) began when Serebii.net posted what were purported to be photographs of art panels displaying the then-unknown Servine, Serperior, Pignite, Emboar, Dewott and Samurott. Because of the heavily negative reception to the designs - most notoriously Samurott's, giving rise to the Wottergate name - many believed that these were not actual Pokémon, but instead fan-created hoaxes that Serebii had fallen for. These beliefs were supported by some analyses of the images, which convinced many people that these were simply edited versions of existing Pokémon. Serperior was believed to be an edited Milotic, Emboar was believed to be a combination of Lickilicky and Rhyperior, and Samurott was thought to be an edited Dialga. Both Serebii himself and Bulbagarden webmaster Archaic soon appeared on /vp/ and entered the arguments themselves. Eventually, more scans came out and confirmed that all of the Pokémon were real, but by then the arguments had spread widely across the Pokémon fandom.
In addition, a second, lesser controversy occurred at roughly the same time as Wottergate, while Serebii and Archaic were both present on /vp/. This debate centered around whether Unova was based on New York City or Shanghai, China.
In the final weeks leading up to the release of Black and White in Japan, a user with the tripcode Hajime appeared and began posting what appeared to be text and code dumps from the programming of an early build of the games' English localizations. Among the claims purported by these dumps were the name Nathan for Cheren, new types of Poké Balls based on sports equipment including baseballs, basketballs and tennis balls, and perhaps most notoriously, the claim that N was actually a Pokémon, which the dumps identified as Seraphii. Despite little proof to back up his claims, the extent to which he went to make the dumped information look legitimate - including extensive programming language written into the text - many believed the hoax, which continued until enough official information was released to disprove it.
Recent History
After Black and White were released in English in 2011, activity on the board declined as news became more scarce. For much of the year, the board was consumed by trolling and dumping of not safe for work content, a problem that ran unchecked due to a lack of board moderators and janitors.
In early 2012, during a site-wide revamp to deal with a variety of issues such as controversy over the placement of threads regarding the fanmade visual novel Katawa Shoujo and widespread spamming of images from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, moot created a thread to address the problems gripping /vp/. The thread, which was stickied on the top of the board, quickly became swamped with complaints, eventually accumulating well over one thousand posts. After assessing the concerns raised in the thread, moot revamped the board's rules, banishing the not safe for work content and backing up the new rules with newly-appointed moderators and janitors. As a result, the problems that gripped the board for much of 2011 declined significantly.
Currently, with the new rules combined with the upcoming release of Black 2 and White 2, activity on the board has picked up again, with speculation threads, Pokémon Smash! streaming threads and other subjects lending themselves to a new period of interest in the board.
Notable Creations
Over the course of the board's history, /vp/ has given rise to a number of creations from its users. Among them:
- "Serebii Confirmed": Though originally seen from time to time on other forums, this meme rose to widespread use once it appeared on /vp/, becoming especially prominent during the Wottergate controversy. Originally conceived to mock Serebii for posting questionable news, it became a general term to mock any news with questionable legitimacy or sourcing. It received a boost in popularity when a subtitled version of Zoroark: Master of Illusions contained a scene featuring Rowena saying "Celebi confirmed" to Grings Kodai, which was later exploited by editing the Serebii.net homepage onto Kodai's computer screen.
- Tentaquil: A fake Pokémon created by a /vp/ user during a "Draw Your Favorite Pokémon" thread on July 22, 2010. The user created a strange creature reminiscent in appearance to a blue Politoed with bushy yellow eyebrows and yellow claws, and when asked what it was, simply replied "its a tentaquil." It has since become a sort of unofficial mascot for the board and has appeared in a few hack games. It is a Bug and Psychic type with the ability Immunity and a signature move called "Puke Blood."
- Poképarents: A variation of the "Advice Dog" meme featuring various Pokémon edited onto a starburst background. There are over a dozen versions of this meme, each depicting a different Pokémon as a different character.
- Gary Bomb: A method of derailing troll threads and driving them into "auto-sage" (in which they can no longer be bumped) by dumping images of Gary Oak until the thread reaches its limit.
- "The Amber Saga": An incident spanning multiple threads on /vp/, in which a completely unprecedented chain of "gets" (posts whose number has been called in advance by the poster) unfolded in a battle between users posting images of Gary Oak and Mewtwo. It began on August 26, 2010, with a post that called a particular number with the stake that if the call was successful, "Amber is revived." This set off a struggle between the Mewtwo poster trying to revive Amber and the Gary poster trying to kill her again by calling gets successfully that went on for the next month.
- "It Was Zoroark": A minor meme in which an increasingly bizarre, nonsensical story is told, ending with revealing that a key part of the story (or the entire story) was actually a Zoroark using its Illusion ability.
- Pokémon Macro Variations: Throughout the history of /vp/, Pokémon variants of countless other memes and macros have been produced.