Interview with The Pokémon Organization
An interview with Soaker from The Pokémon Organization fansite, created around the year 2000
The Pokémon Organization was a fansite created by a Pokémon fan called BWP (Soaker), and it was one of many smaller fansites which showcased the creativity and passion that fans in the late 90s and early 2000s had for Pokémon. I encountered Soaker by chance while researching some other Pokémon fansites. It was nice to exchange some emails, and I was delighted that she agreed to this interview! Soaker shares her memories of working on fansites back then and tells us what Pokémon means to her today.
Soaker, it’s great to be speaking with you! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Soaker:
Hey! I’m Soaker. Been a fan of Pokémon since I was in elementary school and it was very new in the States. I used to watch Beast Wars every morning before school until one day, WB bumped it a half-hour earlier without warning, and Pokémon was on in its place. One episode later and I was sold. These days, I work a boring office job by day and may be more known on the internet for fandoms such as Spider Riders, Battle Spirits, and Tomica.
I originally discovered you through researching some old fansites, noticing that you worked on one called The Pokémon Paradise. How did you first get involved with that website?
Soaker:
If my memory isn’t failing me, I ended up signing up for a Pokémon roleplay on that site. It basically required picking a starter Pokémon and emailing the site owner back and forth to do battles with them. In any case, I remember talking a little with the owner and when I saw they were looking for volunteers, I was excited to contribute. I’d been running my own mini Pokémon website and taught myself a bit of HTML, which I was very proud of at the time. Granted, I was like 10-11, and I didn’t really get that using it to hotlink a bunch of images wasn’t cool. That being said, I’d been collecting cool Pokémon pictures from around the web, so [I] decided that pictures were what I could help with best. So I volunteered to provide pictures to help one of my favorite sites at the time.
You also ran your own fansite back then called The Pokémon Organization. It was one of many thousands of websites created on free-hosting platforms that allowed fans to express their appreciation for Pokémon. What was your inspiration to create The Pokémon Organization?
Soaker:
I loved browsing different websites back in the day. The internet was honestly way more fun before the rise of wikis and everything being social media. Basically, if I got into a cartoon, I’d just do a search on one of the many different search engines and a ton of cool fansites would pop up. I wanted in on that, so I figured out how to make my own. The site started off as a single page where I posted character bios to a fanfic-of-sorts I was writing with my Pokémon toys, but after realizing that was something which would be meaningless to most people, I started to retool it into a more standard Pokémon site with a variety of topics.
One of the links on The Pokémon Organization was a Nidoran male shrine, where you listed facts about the Poison-type Pokémon. What was your fascination with this Pokémon in particular?
Soaker:
I have to say I didn’t have much interest in Nidoran at first. But when Burger King first started to release Pokémon toys, which were packaged in a blind-bag style, I ended up getting a Nidoran Male figure the first time I went. I was disappointed that I didn’t get Pikachu. But that fanfic I mentioned above? I ended up introducing the Nidoran Male into it as a character. It was the kind of wacky thing a grade-schooler would come up with, where the trainer was in fact a hyper-powerful Pikachu (who was actually supposed to be that Baby Wild Pikachu from the “Pikachu’s Goodbye” episode), and the Nidoran was her partner Pokémon. I wanted them to have a sort of bond like Ash and Pikachu in the anime. So Nidoran Male grew on me a lot.
Which other Pokémon fansites from back then do you remember visiting?
Soaker:
I’d check out so many. I can’t recall any particular sites by name off the top of my head, but one of my favorite things to do was look for sites with a section of “cheats” for the Game Boy games. I found them fascinating at the time, because every site would have varying methods to catch Mew, which was apparently hidden under a truck. And there were things like “the mountains,” which were just those trees to the side of Pallet Town, where allegedly you could catch any legendary and even Gen II Pokémon. And of course, I would try every one of these obviously fake cheats, because I thought it would be just so cool if one turned out to be real.
You were one of many fans who grew up with Pokémon during the height of Pokémon popularity, known as “Pokémania”. What are your memories and experiences from that time?
Soaker:
It was a great time to be a fan! I remember everyone bringing their Game Boys into school to play during lunch and getting in trouble for it. I didn’t have my own at the time but a friend would let me play. I recall how exciting it was learning about Gen II for the first time and navigating through all the crazy rumors, both online and in real life. The same friend who let me play Pokémon Blue on Game Boy insisted that there was a Mewthree and an evolution to Mr. Mime coming out. I firmly believed that Marill was actually called “Pikablu” and [was] really disappointed when I finally learned through a TV Guide magazine that it was indeed called Marill and had nothing to do with Pikachu.I also remember when the first movie came out. I wasn’t allowed to see it on opening day because my mom was worried about it giving [me] seizures. But a friend who saw it called me and [explained] the whole plot to me. (I went to see it the next day and loved it.) Another thing that stands out to me is how Pokémon merch wasn’t even really a thing when I first got into it. My first Pikachu toy was a bootleg plush I found in Chinatown that shook when you pulled a string on its back. Some of the first cards I ever had [were from] a Japanese Gym Leaders booster pack I found, well before that set was released in the States.
I love to see what kinds of Pokémon-related items and merchandise our guests have. What do you have, which means something to you?
Soaker:
Of all the merch I’ve collected over the years, the ones I’m most attached to are my old BWP and Nidoran toys, who were the characters in my fanfic. They’ve seen better days. Especially the poor light-up Pikachu that I threw down a staircase at one point and it lost an ear. I really like my retro figures in general, many of which were also characters in the stories I wrote. Also, I had a ton of the Burger King ones due to having an aunt who worked at Burger King. That was about the luckiest thing that could happen to a kid at the time.I have some newer plushies I love a lot too. My Venusaur I picked up on a Japan trip, because I find it adorable! The Captain Pikachu that I managed to win in a crane game on my most recent trip (I’ve been collecting Cap stuff in general. Absolutely love the character). And my Pokémon Fit plushies. I think it’s such a cool series, due to having Pokémon that don’t get a lot of merchandise in general. Where else am I going to find an Anorith?
Since you originally created your website in the early 2000s, Pokémon has grown significantly. At the time of interview, there are nine generations of Pokémon, and over 1000 Pokémon characters and forms. What are your feelings on how far Pokémon has come since the days of Pokémania?
Soaker:
I’m really impressed that it’s still alive. Most franchises go dormant after a while, maybe just getting a reboot out of nostalgia 20 years later if they’re lucky. Truthfully, I’ve fallen out of the games themselves, except for some mobile games like Go and Shuffle. I’m just not too big a gamer and don’t buy the latest systems. So sometimes I’ll see a more recent Pokémon and actually have no idea what its name is. I also found the Ash anime pretty stale after a while and gave up watching it. But I was pleasantly surprised with the Horizons anime and have been avidly keeping up with it. But generally, I’m glad the franchise is still going even if not all of it is to my personal tastes, and still getting so much cute merchandise. I love seeing the balloons every year in the Macy’s parade and would feel really sad if Pikachu didn’t fly one year. It’s truly a cultural icon.
What kind of an impact has Pokémon had on your life?
Soaker:
I’ve definitely learned a lot through Pokémon. It was the first thing that got me interested in learning some Japanese. I remember trying to teach myself a little kana to read the names of my Japanese Pokémon cards. I found an interest in web design through Pokémon too, and while I’m not doing it currently in a professional capacity, I have maintained a website in a past job. The knowledge I have also helped me design some templates for wikis I’ve worked on, and other fansites over the years that look a bit more professional than my Pokémon one did. And of course, that silly fanfic that I wrote (with assistance from my brother and IRL best friend), I’ve since re-written, and it still means the world to me.
Soaker, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions, and for giving us an insight into your memories and experiences of Pokémon. Do you have any closing comments you would like to make?
Soaker:
Thanks for reaching out to me! I really appreciate the work you’re doing with Johto Times. It’s really nostalgic to look through, and it’s great to see someone chronicling the old days of Pokémon’s online fandom, which has largely been lost.
Additional photographs
Thanks Soaker for answering all of my questions, and telling us about The Pokémon Organization fansite and your experiences with Pokémon! I hope that Pokémon continues to hold a special place in your heart in the years to come.
Interview conducted on: May 6th, 2025
Interview published on: June 26th, 2025