Catch 'Em All and Let Man Sort 'Em Out: Animals and Extinction in the World of Pokemon GO
As we enter what scientists are referring to as the 6th mass extinction of life on this planet, we increasingly find ourselves in a world without animals. Despite the disappearance of animals in the wake of such ecotastrophe, however, animals proliferate in the popular imaginary of the Anthropocene. This chapter argues that such proliferation conspires in another mode of disappearance through which animality is purged of monstrosity and habituated according to the ambit of human desire. In an attempt to articulate the double disappearance of animality, this essay attempts to engage with the worldwide phenomenon of Pokemon GO as it seemingly constitutes both an index of our contemporary relationship with nonhumans and a mode of responding to the threat of extinction in the Anthropocene era.