When you open the new augmented-reality app Pokémon Go, the first thing you’ll see is a loading message warning: “Remember to be alert at all times. Stay aware of your surroundings.” If you thought the message was slightly melodramatic, trust me, you’re wrong. Since its Wednesday release date, the Pokémon-catching app has already been linked to armed robberies and a newly discovered dead body. So before you start roaming the streets searching for hiding Pikachus or gyms to capture, review this list of some of the weirdly dangerous encounters Pokémon Go players have faced.

Dead Body

Beware any dead bodies while searching for Pokémon. A 19-year-old from Riverton, Wyoming discovered a dead person while playing the game Friday night. Shayla Wiggins told Buzzfeed that she discovered the corpse while taking an early morning walk by Big Wind River to find some Pokémon.

Wiggins was struggling to find any Pokémon, so she walked down to the rocky river bank. “As I looked one way, I noticed that there was something in the water in front of me,” she said. “And so I took a closer look and saw it was a body.” When she finally realized it was in fact a body, she immediately called the police.

#News #Worldnews #Reddit Pokemon Go player discovers dead body in river https://t.co/F1HrqLbXy7 morgaine17 July 08… pic.twitter.com/4NyXIpOs4l

— Loren Brite (@PhilcamLoren) July 8, 2016

The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the death–the corpse was an adult male–which appears to be accidental in nature and possibly caused by drowning. 

Armed Robbery

In Missouri, four suspects–who some have already likened to the villainous Team Rocket–used the app to target players in order to rob them. According to the Washington Post,

What Pokémon GO has to do with armed robbery and a dead body https://t.co/lTqyRw43vt #808news pic.twitter.com/DsvwdDoIH9

— khon2 News (@KHONnews) July 11, 2016

According to a Facebook post from the O’Fallon Missouri Police Department,

[Police] were able to locate four suspects occupying a black BMW a short time later and recover a handgun. These suspects are suspected of multiple Armed Robberies both in St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. It is believed these suspects targeted their victims through the Pokemon Go smart phone application.

The suspects were able to target players using the app’s pokestops–where players frequently gather–in remote areas, such as parking garages.

Injured Players

While the chances that you’ll be targeted by criminals while using the app are very slim, you should be extra cautious about causing accidental harm to yourself. From minor cuts and scrapes, to fractured bones, players are already reporting some serious Pokémon-related injures.

So I have had my first injury while playing #PokemonGO. pic.twitter.com/KKEfeQiHKH

— Ashten (@TheaAylaPokemon) July 11, 2016

One Redditor with the username Amalthea- claimed,

Not even 30 minutes after the release last night, I slipped and fell down a ditch. Fractured the fifth metatarsal bone in my foot, 6-8 weeks for recovery. I told all the doctors I was walking my dog lol… Watch where you’re going, folks!

Another player in New Zealand claimed to have face-planted while using his skateboard to search for Pokémon around his neighborhood.

Click here for a list of other injuries.

With users’ heads buried in their phones instead of observing their surroundings, injuries like these are bound to happen. However, they are entirely preventable.  In an effort to remind distracted Pokémon Go players not to use their cellphones while driving, the Ohio State Highway Patrol crafted a hashtag #DontCatchAndDrive.

Playing #PokemonGo? Please #DontCatchAndDrive! We know you want to catch ‘em all, but do so safely! pic.twitter.com/qaPoJ6fKgm

— Ohio State Patrol (@OSHP) July 11, 2016

For an explainer on what Pokémon Go is, check out the Washington Post’s rundown here. And while obviously most people playing the game have been fine, it’s always important to follow the game’s instruction and pay attention to your surroundings.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Pokémon Go Players are Getting Robbed and Finding Dead Bodies appeared first on Law Street.

On February 15, 2014, an Australian Programmer put a hacked version of a popular 90s video game–Pokemon Red/Blue–on a video streaming and sharing site called Twitch. Then, he let everyone join in on the fun. By visiting the site and creating a free login, you can control the game. Well, sort of. You can control the game along with thousands of other people by cooperating all together to type in the right commands.

Pokemon Red/Blue is a relatively simple game. It’s in black and white, has rudimentary graphics, and there’s really only a handful of controls.

There are two modes in which the users can play the game–Anarchy, or Democracy, and both are fascinating for their own reasons.

Anarchy is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Everyone’s inputs are immediately entered into the system, if applicable, meaning that the character is being controlled by thousands of separate people at once. It renders a sort of puppet like effect–the character has the potential to be dragged in many directions.

Democracy is much more difficult. If the players decide on Democracy, everyone has 20 seconds to input a command, and then the most popular command will be chosen.

But what I think is most interesting is what it takes to switch between the two modes. In order to get from Democracy to Anarchy, 50 percent of users need to vote for Anarchy. To get from Anarchy to Democracy, 80 percent of users need to vote for Democracy.

This sounds simple, but you have to realize that so far, an estimated 650,000 total users have participated, and up to 120,000, maybe more, at the same time. Meaning that at any given time, thousands of users need to think and do the same thing. Most of these users appear to be located in the United States and Australia, but this phenomenon has reached all over the globe. Obviously, no one has been awake for the entire time that TwitchPlaysPokemon has been alive, so users jump on and off when they want, and usually by country. When I checked out TwitchPlaysPokemon this morning, I saw multiple, presumably North American, users saying they needed to log off and head to work.

Based on the Reddit thread dedicated to TwitchPlaysPokemon, there’s been a battle between Democracy and Anarchy, with different users preferring one of the modes for whatever reason. Over the course of what appears to be 16 minutes early this morning, the game switched from Anarchy, to Democracy, to Anarchy again.

There’s also been a ton of memes born out of TwitchPlaysPokemon. There are, for lack of a better term, religious symbols that have developed and now exist as their own inside jokes. For example, there’s an item that can be obtained called the Helix Fossil. It’s pretty much utterly useless, but it was often accidentally selected by the players. So, they would say they “turned to the Helix Fossil for guidance,” creating a facetious Helix Fossil cult. There are many others, jokes created out of this shared experience that have taken on meanings for those who participate in the game, but mean very little to the outside observer.

So, is TwitchPlaysPokemon just a silly group game, or can we see some deeper significance? The players of the game have made progress. Slow, halting, messy progress, but progress all the same. As of Friday, they were roughly halfway through the game, and they certainly advanced further over the weekend. If nothing else, TwitchPlaysPokemon is proof that a group of completely unorganized people can work together, albeit in pursuit of a very narrow goal.

There’s something fascinating about watching it. While writing this article, I’ve had the site up on my computer, and what I find most interesting is that while many users are interested in controlling the game, more of the commands are either “Democracy” or “Anarchy.” It’s sort of beautifully discordant, because even though everyone has the same goal, they fight over how to do it.

TwitchPlaysPokemon is an excellent social experiment, despite the fact that was not its intended purpose. After all, where else can you actually see the fight between anarchy and democracy play out without consequences? Where else can you see groupthink mentality at both its finest and its most destructive? Where else can you see a new society, complete with religious symbols, born from scratch? If you have a few minutes, go watch TwitchPlaysPokemon. It’s worth a look.

Featured image courtesy of [Nicolas Fuentes via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post TwitchPlaysPokemon: The Ultimate Social Experiment appeared first on Law Street.