by JL Shioshita —
Picture this: You arrive home after a long day at school or work or running errands. You want to decompress, so you kick off your shoes and collapse onto the couch with a bag of off-brand potato chips and a bottle of your favorite beverage. You turn on the portable gaming device you received last Christmas and excitedly dive into the hot new game taking the world by storm. It’s a whimsical RPG that offers a fun escape from the doldrums of reality. The last time you played, it ended on a cliffhanger, so you’ve been itching to see what happens next. With greasy potato chip fingers, you eagerly pull the noise-canceling headphones down over your ears and hit the “start” button.
The current quest line has brought you to a haunted town full of ghosts and goblins. It’s a spooky location, and the unsettling music playing through your headphones adds to the creepy atmosphere. You chat with various NPCs, gather side quests, and discover engaging lore. All the while that creepy chiptune music continues to cycle in the background over and over again.
The headache starts mildly enough. Just a tingle at the temples and behind the eyes, but soon, that tingle turns into a tsunami. It comes in waves, as does the nausea. Your heart races, and electricity spiders across your skin.
You drop the gaming device and grab your beverage, downing it in one gulp. It doesn’t help. You stumble to your feet, propping yourself up against the wall. You can’t breathe. Everything’s spinning. It feels like you’re being watched.
You spin around. There’s nobody there, but the paranoia lingers. Something is out to get you. You glance nervously at the gaming device lying on the floor. The LCD is lit up, a strange, unearthly glow. The eerie music drifts out of the headphones, faint and ghostly. The screen flickers. Something moves across it.
You fling the front door open and rush out into the hallway of your apartment complex. A glance left then right reveals the coast is clear. You dash for the nearest stairwell and climb it two steps at a time. When you arrive on the roof, you stop to catch your breath. The break lasts only a short time. Something is banging up the stairs behind you. Something big and scary.
You run to the end of the building and glance down over the ledge, wondering if you can jump. If that’s survivable. Then, the door to the stairwell slams open behind you. You turn around to face it and are greeted by a dark, black maw. The music pours out of it like a hot breath. It rings in your head and eats at your mind. You step back and lose your footing, falling over the edge.
The glorious age of the internet spawned a wave of urban legends and online myths, but unlike the murky haze surrounding the origins of pre-internet stories, these modern myths are much easier to trace. The “Lavender Town Syndrome,” as it became known, is one such example. Based partially on fact but mostly on fiction (as most great urban legends are), this story weaves together popular media, 90s nostalgia, and actual events to create an online tale that spread like wildfire in the heyday of creepypastas and message boards.
The story emerged in 2010, claiming that the video games “Pokémon Red” and “Pokémon Green,” both released in Japan for the Game Boy in 1996, were responsible for a rash of suicides among Japanese children. These tragic deaths were tied to a location in-game called Lavender Town. The legend claimed that this town was haunted, and the music that accompanied it, cursed. Children who visited Lavender Town would experience paranoia, headaches, and an overwhelming sense of dread, ultimately resulting in them taking their own lives.
Now, Pokémon Red & Green are actual games, and they did come out in Japan for the Game Boy in 1996. Many of you may have even played them, either when released here in America or later via reissues. Lavender Town is also real. It’s a location in the game where dead Pokémon are laid to rest. It’s also the only spot where budding Pokémon hunters can catch the ghostly variety of pocket monsters. So far, so good. Everything matches up with the myth, but what about the music?
To match the town’s spooky atmosphere, the chiptune track accompanying it is fittingly eerie and unsettling. That makes sense. It’s a haunted location full of ghosts and spirits, home to a creepy graveyard where dead Pokémon are buried. Not exactly a cheery locale. But is it cursed? The urban legend says it is, but not necessarily in the sense you may think. The curse isn’t supernatural; it’s scientific.
According to the urban legend, Lavender Town’s music employs specific high-frequencies and binaural beats that adversely affect listeners’ brainwaves. This would lead to feelings of acute dread, paranoia, and eventually suicide. Once discovered, subsequent versions of the game reportedly altered the music so these tragic events would never be repeated.
As the urban legend gained popularity on the internet, it became more elaborate with each retelling. People claimed that the music in the game contained hidden, malevolent messages that could be uncovered by analyzing its waveform. Another strange theory suggested that the game developers collaborated with the Japanese government to create the cursed sound for purposes unknown. While some of these claims may seem plausible, at least in part, are any of them true?
No.
Yes, the game was real, and the music was admittedly a little creepy, but it did not trigger any child suicides in the 1990s. The urban legend didn’t even originate in Japan. It began in America on sites like Creepypasta and across 4chan message boards. It is likely the culmination of random (8)bits of reality that came together at the right time and place for just the right audience.
Lavender Town Syndrome has shades of cursed technology films such as “The Ring” and “Pulse,” which had invaded Western shores a few years prior (probably no coincidence that these were of Japanese origin). It also tapped into the genuine and tragic increase in suicide rates Japan experienced during the second half of the 1990s. This was primarily due to the ongoing economic downturn experienced after the 80s bubble burst and was a trend so alarming it made international news. But it was an actual event that appears to have influenced this urban legend the most. Like the “Lavender Town Syndrome” urban legend, this event occurred in Japan in the 90s. It affected numerous children nationwide and was tied to Pokémon, not the video game though, but the cartoon.
In 1997, the original Pokémon anime was broadcast on Japanese television. In an episode entitled “Denno Senshi Polygon,” there was a scene with strobing lights alternating quickly between red and blue. The specific rhythm and velocity of the strobing effect triggered epileptic seizures in an abnormally high percentage of the children watching it. Over 600 were rushed to hospitals with severe symptoms, while many more reported a milder reaction. It was such big news and caused such a panic that the cartoon went on hiatus while the TV network tried to find a way forward. Months later, the show eventually made it back on air, but the episode “Denno Senshi Polygon” was never broadcast again.
Though scary, no deaths were attributed to the event, and rules were implemented soon after regulating strobing effects in cartoons to ensure it never happened again. The news went global and delayed the eventual release of the Pokémon cartoon in America, though, in the end, nothing would stop the “gotta catch ’em all” storm that was about to hit.
It’s a captivating urban legend born of the internet and just realistic enough to possibly be believable. I love these cursed technology stories and how they taint our modern conveniences with a terrifying outcome lurking just behind the screen. Whether it’s a vengeful spirit, a cursed video game, or the malicious manipulation of sound waves, the result is always the same: a creepy story.
HWA Colorado 