I visited the house I grew up 
in over Spring Break. My fam-
ily moved a while back, but we 
haven’t been able to sell it yet, so 
it sits empty. The room that our 
Christmas tree would always 
light up was being painted, and 
I was taken back to when I was 
12 years old — just about to leave 
primary school — when I got 
“Pokémon Black 2” for Christ-
mas. I was about two years 
younger than its protagonist, 
but a year older than the origi-
nal protagonist of the series’s 
progenitor “Pokémon Red and 
Blue.” Now, I’m 21 years old 
and adults make up more and 
more of the franchise’s market 
demographic. Even with all the 
arguments that Pokémon will 
forever remain a franchise for 
children, the reception for the 
series is dying off. A once uni-
versally-adored series seemed to 
be running out of steam, reliant 

on formulas and gimmicks now 
decades old.
Here’s the thing, though. 
Through all the noise and the 
rightful frustration of the infa-
mously irritable Pokémon fan-
base, its creators did strike 
gold with the franchise’s origi-
nal core concepts. The biggest 
accomplishment of the Pokémon 
games is their ability to tie sto-
ries so closely to gameplay. Every 
encounter has the potential to 
give you a new battle partner for 
life in your quest to “catch ‘em 
all,” and every turn-based battle 
victory is another step on your 
journey (to be the very best, like 
no one ever was). It’s what made 
the series — largely relegated to 
2D top-down chibi sprites — so 
immersive. 
The core mechanics have 
never changed as the franchise 
evolved from Generations I to 
IX between six different hand-
held consoles; the formula just 
became more and more refined 
with each Gen, adding new 
Pokémon along the way. Fans 

were satisfied because it felt like 
each evolution was a new chap-
ter in the same story that pushed 
the limits of their handheld 
homes — but this seemed to peak 
around Gen V, with the “Poké-
mon Black and White” games 
for the Nintendo DS. From here 
onward, the series became reli-
ant on battle gimmicks that 
wouldn’t return in future games 
and balancing nostalgia manipu-
lation with proper tribute to the 
past: Gen VI’s Mega Evolutions, 

Gen VII’s Z-moves, Gen VIII’s 
Dynamaxing. 
These 
weren’t 
new chapters or refinement of a 
formula, but tired tropes being 
repeated. When new Gen VIII 
titles were announced for the 
Nintendo Switch — a truly inno-
vative next-gen console in and 
of itself, being a next-gen home 
console that was also this gen-
eration’s handheld — it felt like 
a new story needed to be writ-
ten, an expectation that was 
betrayed by the derivativeness 

of “Pokémon Sword and Shield.” 
However, is Pokémon ready to 
tell a new story?
Enter Ash Ketchum. Or rath-
er, exit Ash Ketchum, as the 
Pokémon 
anime 
protagonist 
wraps up his last episodes after 
25 years. During those two and 
a half decades, he’s remained 
just 10 years old, as everyone 
around him was also ageless. 
He’s received many a costume 
change and art-style innova-
tion, sure, but he’s never really 
changed or grown up as a pro-
tagonist. Of course, this leads 
to numerous fan theories on his 
supposed immortality, but it’s 
clear he just operates in a “float-
ing timeline” — one that keeps 
the show updated in the present 
without accounting for aging. 
But in many ways, Ash’s eternal 
youth and marginal maturing 
symbolize the state of his fran-
chise. That’s why it’s so interest-
ing that they’ve now chosen to 
finally let him move on, to intro-
duce new protagonists.
Enter “Pokémon Scarlet and 

Violet.” I’ve written on it at 
length, but there’s a variety of 
interesting innovations I didn’t 
mention: 
defying 
Pokémon 
starter patterns, breaking Poké-
mon Professor naming tradi-
tions, bucking the games’ story 
conventions entirely. Yes, the 
games operated poorly at launch 
and these issues aren’t quite yet 
resolved, but they’re still vastly 
interesting entries that aren’t 
getting enough credit for what 
they attempted to do — finally 
tell a different kind of story. 
Playing through these Gen IX 
games felt like they were trying 
their absolute hardest to give 
the series a new starting point 
— making “Scarlet and Violet” 
just a shade different from “Red 
and Blue.” But did we ever really 
want Pokémon to change? Are 
we wishing for what used to 
make the series so special to us? 
Or are we slowly realizing that 
maybe that spark is gone, that it 
left when we grew up?

When you open a “Calvin and 
Hobbes” comic collection, the air 
around you explodes with homi-
cidal stuffed tigers and death-
defying sled crashes. Spaceman 
Spiff soars through a black can-
vas cracked with stars, and Mom 
is always there to push you out 
the front door on a frigid Mon-
day morning. “G.R.O.S.S.” is the 
name of the game, and the great 
beloved outdoors is prettier and 
brighter than it’s ever been. To 
read “Calvin and Hobbes” is to be 
a kid again, to see the big world 
brimming with endless possibil-
ity and to know that as long as 
you and your tiger best friend 
make it home at the end of the 
day — where mandatory bathtime 
is your greatest nemesis — life is 
good and kind and full.
My big brother is and always 
will be five years older than me. 
The gap between a newborn and 
a five year old is virtually insur-
mountable. Even the difference 
between 19 and 24 is significant. 
But every year we get older, the 
gap shrinks a little. When we’re 
52 and 57, we’ll be just the same: 
old. 
Anyway, when I was little, I 
adored my older brother. I want-

ed to be just like him. I remember 
seeing him read all these differ-
ent chapter books and thinking, 
“I can’t wait to read.” When I saw 
him reading “Calvin and Hobbes” 
comic books, it was only natural 
that I ended up there too.
There were a lot of big words 
that I didn’t understand. Calvin 
gives quite a few philosophical 
soliloquies every now and then. 
But I got the gist of it — Calvin is 
a funny 5-year-old rascal that you 
can’t help but adore. Hobbes is his 
loyal, true best friend, Nevermind 
that he’s actually a stuffed tiger 
that only comes alive when other 
characters aren’t around, Hobbes 
is very much real. My brother 
named our cat Hobbes. He had 
the name picked out before they 
left for the Humane Society.
I think the magic of “Calvin 
and Hobbes” lies in its ability to 
marvelously capture the sacred 
essence of childhood. All Calvin 
cares about are those warm sum-
mer days where he and Hobbes 
tramp out to the middle of the 
woods and go soaring past the 
trees and rocks and brooks on 
their rickety old sled that has yet 
to get them killed, despite their 
best efforts. Calvin hates school, 
never does his homework, abhors 
baths and loves to hate his neigh-
bor Susie. He’s incredibly simple 
in his likes and dislikes, and he’s 

actually quite industrious in his 
play. He establishes his own club 
called G.R.O.S.S. — “Get Rid Of 
Slimy girlS” — and occasionally 
sets up his own booth to charge 
people money for his advice 
(shockingly, no one pays him). 
There are very few significant 
characters in Calvin’s world, and 
it seems to exemplify the way 
that, when you’re a kid, the world 
is simultaneously so big and so 
small. Calvin has the time and 
space to consider such big ques-
tions about life, but he also has 
a very clear sense of immediacy 
and has no anxiety or concerns 
about the future. He’s careless in 
all the perfect, childhood ways.
When I read “Calvin and 
Hobbes,” it takes me back to 
those warm summer days when I 
had nothing to do but everything 
in the world to gain. My brother 
and I would go out into the back-
yard and dig up earthworms to 
feed to our pet quails. We’d cap-
ture roly-polies and stash them 
in plastic bowls covered with 
Saran Wrap until they died. Dur-
ing those long adventure days, my 
friends and I would turn a giant 
green round loveseat on its side 
and cover it with a blanket. One of 
us would crawl into the loveseat 
while the rest of us would roll it 
back and forth across the living 
room, laughing hysterically as we 

flung our friend around the room. 
It was our very own homemade 
roller coaster. Those days were 
simple, beautiful and kind. Noth-
ing in the world mattered, and we 
were happy.
After I moved to Michigan for 
college, I started giving away 
my “Calvin and Hobbes” books 
to a few family friends in the 

area. They have little boys in 
elementary school who would 
probably get a kick out of all the 
rough-and-tumble craziness that 
Calvin gets into. I’m growing up 
now, and I’m a little too busy for 
comics these days. The pages are 
worn and wrinkled, with a few 
food stains here and there from 
when my brother and I would 

snack on ice cream and crackers 
while reading on the floor. But 
even as I gave away these relics of 
a time bathed in golden sunlight 
and happy laughter, I kept one for 
myself. It sits on the shelf right 
above my desk — and every couple 
of months, I pull it down from the 
shelf, snuggle in a blanket, find a 
good page and smile.

My toxic trait might just be 
thinking I could survive “Outer 
Banks.” For whatever reason, 
patterned swimsuits and beach-
y music are enough to convince 
me that I could totally handle 
the “Pogue Life,” even if that 
means spending my days run-

ning from the police or being 
hunted by bloodthirsty mil-
lionaires. But despite the life-
threatening danger the show’s 
characters always seem to be in, 
something about their lifestyle 
has always made me intensely 
jealous. In fact, I still remember 
the exact words I texted my best 
friend after I finished the first 
season three years ago: “I want 
to be a pogue so bad.” And if I’ve 

learned anything through the 
appalling amount of time I spend 
online, it’s that I’m not alone in 
that wish. 
Released in April 2020, “Outer 
Banks” gained a cult following 
during the early stages of the 
pandemic, specifically with the 
teen demographic. For those 
unfamiliar, the show tells the 
story of the “Pogues,” a group 
of friends from the Outer Banks 
of North Carolina who spend 
their days boating, fishing and 
searching for the lost treasure 
of a famed shipwreck. After 
a hurricane hits the Carolina 
coast, the teens are left without 
power or working cell phones 
for almost the entirety of the 
first season. And, in my opinion, 
it’s this aspect that has helped 
elevate the series and lead it to 
popularity amongst a younger 
demographic. 
It’s not that Gen Z is lacking 
in teenage content and media — 
we’re definitely not. But we are 
lacking in teenage content that 
isn’t 
completely 
intertwined 
with our generation’s affili-
ation with technology. With 
other Netflix shows directed 
at teen audiences (“Sex Educa-
tion” or “Ginny and Georgia,” 
for example), the internet and 
social media are integral to the 
plot of the show and regularly 
make their way into the charac-
ters’ everyday lives (if I had to 
watch this scene, so do you). And 
honestly, with the amount of 
time modern teens spend online, 
these may not be entirely inac-
curate depictions of the way we 
live. But “Outer Banks’ ” notice-
able lack of technology helps to 

show us a new perspective: not 
the life we do live, but the life we 
wish we could. 
Personally, I feel like I got 
through high school. But I didn’t 
really live it. I never snuck out 
or even attended a high school 
party until spring of my senior 
year. What was the point? Had 
I decided to leave, our high-
tech security system would have 
alerted my parents immediately, 
and even if it didn’t, Life360 
would have incriminated me 
by the next morning anyways. 
I’m not implying that my secret 
high school longing was to sneak 
out a window and go hang in 
some rando’s basement, or that 
I would have even made the 
choice to do these things in the 
first place. But, I am saying that 
it’s easy to feel trapped when 

you don’t have the opportu-
nity to make truly autonomous 
choices. Not without knowing 
that your technology will expose 
you for making the same deci-
sions teenagers have always had 
the freedom to make in previous 
generations. 
Before I became a teenager, I 
was told that it would bring me a 
newfound sense of freedom that 
I hadn’t felt as a child. But to be 
honest, I think the most inde-
pendent I’ve ever felt was dur-
ing my elementary school years 
— before I even thought about 
touching a cell phone. Before I 
could no longer go on a walk to 
clear my head without my loca-
tion being tracked, without con-
stant streams of text messages 
and follow-up question marks 
when my replies weren’t prompt 

enough. Before I lost the feeling 
of freedom previous generations 
of teens have always had, all in 
the name of — well, having tech-
nology.
This is obviously not all to 
say that I think that tech is a 
bad thing — I don’t. But I do 
think that it’s easy to feel over-
whelmed when every attempt 
you make to get away from it 
all is met with excessive infor-
mation from the internet or the 
perpetual obligation to reply to 
messages, all contributing to the 
mental white noise of constantly 
consuming media. It’s easy to 
feel a little like a lab rat: given 
an illusion of autonomy, but con-
stantly feeling as though you’re 
under surveillance. 

Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A college kid’s ode to ‘Calvin and Hobbes’

Design by Yuchen Wu

SAARTHAK JOHRI
 Digital Beat Editor 

Will the Pokémon franchise finally grow up with us?

 PAULINE KIM
Daily Arts Writer

Design by Avery Nelson

OLIVIA TARLING
 Daily Arts Writer 

The ‘Outer Banks’ effect: 
Why teenagers have fallen in love with the ‘Pogue Life’

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Portrait v. 
Landscape: 

A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually. For more information, 
including the Zoom link, visit events.umich.edu/event/103667 or call 734.615.6667.

Sources (top to bottom): Kodak Shirley Card, 1960. Collection of Herman Zschiegner; Robert Wallace and Gordon 
Parks, “The Restraints: Open and Hidden.” Life, September 24, 1956, p. 99; Found color transparency image, Photo 
Managers, “The Rare Format Slide Guide,” July 3, 2017.

SARA BLAIR

Patricia S. Yaeger Collegiate Professor of 
English Language & Literature, Vice Provost 
for Academic and Faculty Affairs

Visual genres, anti-racism, 
and the photograph

Tuesday, April 11, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10th Floor

Wednesday, March 29, 2023 — 5

Design by Tye Kalinovic

