The mysterious Pokémon song that triggered suicides among children

In the 1990s, a mysterious Pokémon song caused a wave of suicides among children.

Over the last few years, it has been relatively common to attribute certain detriments to video games in children's education. Alienation, trivialization of violence, and even epileptic seizures.

Is there any truth to the legend that Pokémon caused suicides?

However, these epileptic seizures have existed only occasionally and no death has been documented as a result of them. The entertainment companies have tried to minimize the social alarm of these cases, since it is true, they argue, that television, midnight lights and other lighting circumstances can trigger such attacks.

While the general concern about video games was intense in the 1990s, there is one case that caused a huge stir.In 1995, Game Freak marketed its first Pokémon video gamethe famous Red and Green versions.

Reality beats fiction

At the start they had an acceptable sales reach, exceeding one million cartridges sold in a year, but far from the magnitude that in later years reached the phenomenon. The game was released in February, and that same summer there were already 107 cases of suicides among young people. 107 cases of suicides among young people between 6 and 12 years of age had already been recorded that summer..

Investigations into each of the deaths led to a common circumstance that pointed to the Pokémon video game as the culprit. In each and every one of the cases recorded, the parents of the deceased children stated that their children played Pokémon day and night.

Once the cartridges were analyzed, the police realized that the last town where the children played was Lavender Town, whose lands were enlivened by a very characteristic sound. The Lavender Village song contained moments of high intensity in the tones that could only be heard by the children. Strident and overwhelming sounds that caused headaches that led to severe migraines, followed by insomnia and insomnia.followed by insomnia and irritability. Despite the crude symptomatology, his addiction to video games did not cease. The inability to sleep led to nosebleeds, Nausea and vomiting, and finally depression.

The culprit, a dual tone that caused headaches and anxiety.

Alerted by these cases, Game Freak corrected the melody, preventing the following versions marketed in Europe and the United States from containing the dangerous song. Game Freak sources assured that the later song is almost identical to the original.

They simply removed some squeaking noises that double-pitched melodies in the original music were simply removed.sounds that could only be perceived by children due to their high spectrum.