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A Pokemon Go Streamer Got Knocked Out And Mugged In Central Park While Playing On Twitch And The Video Is Pretty Funny

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Kotaku – At 12:30 a.m., [streamer Rickey] Yaneza, 43, was allegedly attacked while running to catch a Snorlax that spawned in Grand Army Plaza, a noted Pokémon hotspot located at the park’s southeast entrance. In video captured from the stream, Yaneza attempts to catch a Seaking when an unidentified assailant throws him to the ground. The assailant punches Yaneza, takes the 3 visible phones comprising his livestream setup and runs north.

“He literally just sucker punched me,” Yaneza said over the phone. “My right jaw is swollen. He clotheslined me with his fist. I hit the ground. I have a bump on my head and a scratch on my elbow.”

On Yaneza’s Twitch stream, viewers in his chat watched the whole thing in surprise and disbelief. Curiously, the assailant wore headgear resembling either a head-mounted camera or a headlight. Yaneza said he suspects that the attacker wore headgear so “he would look like he’s part of the geeks there. He was probably stalking the area knowing people were there playing Pokémon.”

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Poor Rickey. I won’t pretend that I didn’t laugh hysterically at the noise he made as he ate that Pokemon-blocking fist of crime or the dude frantically erasing the phone afterwards but no guy, no matter how absurd he is walking around with three phones to capture himself enslaving virtual monsters at midnight, deserves that. I mean he literally might be the most rob-able human being in an area of NYC that sees millions of rob-able people daily so in that respect, he does deserve it. But the indignity of getting punched in the face on camera, losing your phone, AND getting your Twitch account suspended in the process is about as cruel as it gets for this guy. The only way it could have been worse is if the thief went full Joker and ditched all of the guy’s Pokemon for the lulz too, then we might have gotten our first livestream/KO/robbery/suicide.

But since it was kept relatively peaceful, would it have taken much for the robber to catch a Snorlax or two along the way? That was about as kind of an exchange as a robbery involving one person getting their jaw smashed could be, at least snag some high quality ‘Mons for this dude before you factory reset his Samsung. Hell I bet if the Snorlax is juicy enough, he might not even press charges because three cell phones is a small price to pay for a bunch of pixels shaped like an animal that you can really believe in. We live in a Pokésociety dude, robbery is no reason to forget your pocket monster catching manners.