In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of huge mobile gaming phenomena come and go. Flappy Bird was everywhere. Angry Birds is still going, having been to space and back (and spawned a damn movie). The iOS and Android platforms lend themselves so well to this sort of thing, what with their free-to-play downloads and the fact that EVERYONE EVERYWHERE has a smartphone now.

It seems like babies are born with Samsung’s latest in their hands too. The player base for these mobile titles is immense, they’re easy to access, and are usually bite-size and easy to digest. Sure, console games and PC games can take the world by storm too, but when mobile titles get really, really big, they become pop culture events in their own right.

Depending on where you live, Pokémon Go has been available for just over a year now. It is, undoubtedly, among the biggest things to have ever hit mobile platforms (considering that it only has one game to its name), and its impact was nothing short of extraordinary. The pre-launch hype, the release fervor, the roving gangs of gym defenders; what a crazy, crazy time it was during the early days of Go. The hype may have died down somewhat now, but there’s still a dedicated player base out there. If you count yourself one of them, you’re sure to enjoy these 15 Hilarious Pokémon Go Memes That Are Funny AF.

15 Survival Of The Fittest

via twitter.com

At its heart, the entire Pokémon saga is based on a super cutesy-ass foundation of love and togetherness. A Pokémon trainer’s mission may be to whup the sorry butts of their foes and leave them bloodied and sobbing in a sad puddle of tears and crushed dreams on the floor, but that’s not the core message. Our goal is to bond with Pokémon. To develop friendships with them, co-operate with them, work in harmony. To help Pokémon to understand the power that’s inside. To teach them and they’ll teach you (or vice versa).

All of these noble ideas go to hell when we turn competitive though. You’ll catch your first Hypno or whatever, train it and love it, name it Nosey McNoseface, and then you’ll catch another one with marginally more CP. At which point, Nosey is dropped so fast it’ll make its head spin.

14 3000 Years Later

6- Magikarp to Gyarados
Via: picsonsizzle.com

With all of this candy business in mind, then, new Pokémon Go players all probably share the same thought: What in the name of Satan’s spangly sequined panties? I’ll never evolve a Magikarp.

One look at the infamously hopeless fish Pokémon will show you that its evolution requirement is 400 candies. Compared to most, this is around four times more, and is a tough prospect. Magikarp isn’t exactly rare, but it’s not as common as you’d expect something this useless to be. There are some dedicated OG players who have been playing since launch and still don’t have themselves a Gyarados.

All of this is in keeping with lore, of course, having to earn a powerhouse by developing something feeble, but Niantic may have gone a little too far with this one.

13 Let’s All Get Off Our Butts!

7- Let's All Get Off Our Butts!
Via: o.aol.cdn.com

Nintendo, as long-time fans will have noticed, are quite big on the whole 'gamers-need-to-get-out-of-the-ass-grooves-they’ve-made-in-their-couches-and-get-moving' thing. The Pokéwalker pedometer that was packaged with Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver was a step in this direction. The Wii was all about motion controls and getting us active (not to mention Wii Fit).

Alas, none of these efforts really reached their potential. Like a lot of Nintendo’s braver, bolder ideas, these things never quite reached beyond the interesting gimmick stage. Pokémon Go, however, most certainly did. Suddenly, people were up and out the door. Dogs that had become accustomed to a lazy-ass lifestyle were suddenly being dragged around block after block, by owners desperate to find that elusive Snorlax or hatch that egg.

12 The Servers Are Goin’ Down, I’m Yellin’ Timber

8- Pokémon Go Servers Are Down
Via: Twitter (@Castro1021)

As we’ve said, Pokémon Go is one of the biggest gaming success of our time. That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows, though. It’s all well and good to be humongous ravenous hype monster pre-release, but you can have too much of a good thing. That kind of popularity inspires attention bound to be far too much for the servers to cope with.

Much like Grand Theft Auto Online, the game had a bit of a… bumpy launch. To be frank, it was about as bumpy as the time Homer Simpson tried to jump Springfield Gorge on a skateboard, fell and repeatedly bashed his head on every tiny jutting rock on his way down. It was a glitchy, buggy crapstorm, and the backlash was real.

11 Gotta Catch My Baby

9- The Miracle of Life
Via: pics.onsizzle.com

The miracle of life? Nuts to it. "Ain’t nobody got time fo dat," as the famous sassy meme would say. It’s all about the miracle of goddamn freaking Pidgey.

As hilariously terrible as this sounds, it’s really nothing unusual in today’s society. We all have our smartphones permanently grafted to our hands, and in times of need, we’ll whip them out and record whatever disaster happens to be befalling everyone today rather than actually helping. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it does make for some funny headlines.

Besides, this just shows you the sheer power of Pokémon Go. I’m not saying the guy was playing at the very moment the baby was being delivered, but I’m not NOT saying that either. I wouldn’t be surprised.

10 Disappointing Eggs

1- Disappointing Eggs
Via: s3.amazonaws.com

This, right here, is far too relatable. When the game was first released (and even now, with recent updates adding second generation baby Pokémon to eggs), picking up an egg from a Pokéstop was quite a rush. Particularly one of the super rare and prized 10km ones. As your buddy just showed you on Reddit, those bad boys hold all the elusive Pokémon, like Snorlax, Hitmonlee, and Hitmonchan.

What did I get from my first 10km egg? Eevee, that’s what. At that point, Eevee was the only Pokémon that could possibly spawn from a 10km that I already had. So, naturally, it was the one that I got. I don’t care how freaking adorable you are, Eevee, I’m pissed and I want to throw you into the path of a speeding SUV.

9 Traveling Across The Land

2- Travelling Across The Land
Via: http://071bc3d04e2671665c74-5a267f839fbe60d0845a37698418bb02.r26.cf5.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/pokemon-pride-go.jpg

Pokémon Go marketed itself as the ultimate, most liberating Pokémon experience. Cruise around the real world in search of these bizarre mutated creatures, like Ash himself, visiting real world landmarks to spin the little thing and acquire items along the way.

The sad fact is, though, Niantic have slim to bupkis control over players’ actions. The Pokéstops themselves are based on landmarks that were previously used in another one of the dev’s games, without distinguishing whether it’s actually a smart place to go a-huntin’ or not. The game’s launch, as a result, was fraught with issues surrounding trespassing players. All kinds of situations arose, from players in hotel lobbies they shouldn’t be in, to them skipping on into Area 51 because a Lapras spawned just inside the fence (granted, that second one never actually happened).

8 Candy, Huh?

3- Eevee Candy
Via: cad-comic.com

To make the game work, Pokémon Go had to take a heaping helping of liberties with the Pokémon formula. Primarily, of course, there’s no ‘battling’ wild ‘mon in the traditional sense, which means we have to go with an alternative method of training and evolving. This is done by way of candies, an exclusive new consumable. Your candy collection is species specific, meaning that to get yourself a Charizard, you’ll have to earn lots of Charmander candies by catching Charmanders or Charmeleons. Unless you find a wild Charizard.

But you know all of that. You also know that you can make a few bonus candies (by which I mean a single one, unless there happens to be an in-game event going on) by surrendering a particular Pokémon of that species to the professor.

7 When The Pidgey's In The Lab, Yo (Drop it Like It’s Hot)

4- In Professor Willow's Lab
Via: img1.joyreactor.com

And that’s the rub. Every Pokémon Go player is familiar with the whole ‘swarm of utter, devastating craptacular everywhere’ thing that the game’s been plagued by since launch. This unwritten rule of Go states that it’ll always be quite difficult to find anything new and rare, with the deluge of Ratatta, Pidgey, and (with the advent of Gen 2) Sentret you’ll encounter whenever you boot up the app.

I don’t know about you guys, but I lie awake some nights, gripped with paralyzing fear, imagining the day that Generation 3 support will be added and we’ll be up to our ears in Bidoof. I don’t think my soul is prepared for that sight. I doubt it ever truly can be. Goddamn Bidoof, how I loathe you.

6 Damn, Which Diet Is This Guy On?

10- Super Light Gyarados
Via: pics.onsizzle.com

Oh, Pokémon Go. How you amuse us with your bizarre eccentricities.

As I say, Go handles certain popular mechanics in different ways to the core games. This was necessary because of the gameplay, which really bears little resemblance to the iconic RPGs. Niantic completely streamlined the training and leveling aspect with the candy system, and screwed with all kinds of other things while they were about it.

One thing that the main Pokémon series doesn’t really take into account is weight. The Pokédex assigns each species a uniform height and weight, and never errs from that. By contrast, Go gives each separate ‘mon caught or hatched its own weight, which often leads to… well, ridiculousness like this. Still, it does make things a little more varied and competitive, as you search for bigger or smaller ‘mon. Monster Hunter has the same feature, for the same reason.

5 Ditto Is Life, Ditto Is Love, Ditto Is EVERYTHING

11- Ditto Became Everything
Via: memecrunch.com

When the game first began, Ditto was one of few first generation Pokémon omitted from the roster. Sure, we can’t get our hands on Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo, or Mew yet, but that’s understandable. Then there are the region exclusives, such as Tauros and Kangaskhan. Ditto, though? What the hell’s so special about that guy?

Ditto was added to the app quite recently, and in a brilliantly fiendish way too. True to its nature, Ditto is prone to disguising itself, and so cannot be found in its regular form just out on the street. You’ll have to catch regular Pokémon and hope that one of them transforms back into its true Ditto form upon capture. What does this mean? It means that you’ll have to nab all of those legions of Ratatta and Pidgey, just in case.

4 Total Dedication To The PoGo Cause

12- Just Your Girl Sending Nudes
Via: img.memecdn.com

Pokémon Go is not just a game. This is no mere cell phone app. The first time I saw a huge, tattooed dude with a lumberjack beard howl with joy because he’d hatched an electabuzz, I knew Go was super serious business.

As with any game, a lot of casual fans will leap on the bandwagon upon launch. Sure, they might play for a good while, but sooner or later they’ll drift away to the next big thing. Many of them got incredibly frustrated at the game’s shoddy start and left prematurely.

If you’re still around for the game’s first anniversary, it’s safe to conclude that you’re one of the faithful. You are going to be the very best, like no one ever was, and you’re not letting any amount of nudes distract you from your goal.

3 Those Sweet, Sweet Minor Text Fixes

13- Minor Text Fixes
Via: i.0.kym-cdn.com

On my way down this list, I couldn’t help but address the big ol’ chunky-assed elephant in the room: how much Pokémon Go really sucks. We’re talking Dyson showroom levels of suck. It’s really not the fault of the game, the concept of which is rock solid. It’s more a matter of wasted potential.

Niantic have, many times, bungled things. It totally makes sense that they were unprepared for the sheer volume of players descending on them at once, but they took longer to get on their feet than a two-legged newborn donkey. A series of much-anticipated updates did finally do much for the game, in terms of stability and content, but man was it a long time coming. All those empty promises and screw-ups.

2 “How Cute, It’s A Sealion!”

14- What Kind of Pikachu Is This
Via: pics.onsizzle.com

No, no it’s not. It’s Seel.

For as much of a phenomenon as Pokémon might be, we still need to remember that many people have never played one. The Pokéholics among us may find it inconceivable, but Go was many people’s first Pokémon game ever.

With that in mind, try and put yourself in their shoes and imagine what a huge and terrifying new world they’ve plunged into. So many of these little things, so much to remember.

What type is that guy? What's the bug thing with the claws called? Which type of ball is the best? What the hell do you mean, this is only the first generation of Pokémon, and there are actually seven hundred more of the freaking things? I need to go and lay down for a while.

1 Pokémon Go Is The Way Forward

15- Pokémon Go Fit AF
Via: thefunnybeaver.com

As big as the app was, and continues to be, not everybody was on board. Universal popularity, after all, is completely impossible. The Go detractors were out there in droves, judging, snarking and posting passive-aggressive memes about Niantic’s super popular app.

Sure, you might think that millennials need to ‘grow up,’ ‘stop wasting their time’ and all the rest of it, but Go proved to be a real positive force for the industry. It represents social gaming in the most literal sense. People of all ages were out on the streets, talking, bonding, sharing tips, and competing over gyms. None of this is as popular as it once was, but at its height, it was beautiful to see. Here’s to hoping that the game doesn’t die out and continues to deliver that.