TRAINER'S EYE #29 - "A Good Day to Have A Good Day" ft. MJGettit

In this Pokemon interview, we are joined by MJGettit, a prominent member of the Pokemon GO community and a writer for FSPN.

MJGettit shares his passion for Pokemon GO and how it led him to become involved in the competitive scene, particularly in PVP and Factions through the Silph Arena. He discusses his experiences as a writer for FSPN, sharing his knowledge and love for the game with others.

As an African-American content creator, MJGettit offers his perspective on diversity and representation within the Pokemon GO community. He talks about the challenges African-American content creators face within the Pokemon Go community.

Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!

Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay

Connect with MJGettit: Twitter | Articles

Transcript

David Hernandez: 0:00

My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As The Pokeball Turns. Welcome to As the Pokeball Turns, where we interview people around the community on how their Pokemon Go journey started, where it has been and where it is currently going. Let's turn the clocks back. You're sitting down in front of the TV inserting your cartridges into a Game Boy, Nintendo PlayStation, whatever game system was popular back in the nineties. Right next to you is a giant bag of cheese puffs and a bowl of M&Ms with a few cans of Barq's red cream soda because, god damn, how much you wish you still had that metabolism. You turn on the game to load up your favorite Pokemon game with your favorite six Pokemon each knowing attack moves because screw non attacking moves, right? And these are not only your six favorites, but they're also your best six with your Ace, your starter Pokemon, the one you send in when things go bad. It may know four moves of the same type, but nobody in the game has ever been able to take it down despite all the odds against it. After catching the legendary Mewtwo, you are now a legendary trainer In this eight megabyte plastic frame. You exchange stories of your triumphs with your friend at school who has the exact same story. Well, they chose the inferior starter, but you aren't judging. But wait, if your friend has the same story, then who is really the Pokemon champion? Who is the better player between you two? What about other people who have completed the game? Welcome to the beginning of eSports. Well, not necessarily eSports. Well, not necessarily. ESports date back to 1958 with the game called Tennis for Two that allowed two people to play against each other. It is considered by many to be the birth of eSports. However, the first tournament wouldn't happen until 1972 at Stanford University at an event called Intergalactic Space War Olympics, where 24 players competed in a tournament to be crowned Champion. Nowadays, many people, both young and old, chase the dream to become professional eSport athletes. Just like any major event, there are also writers and journalists observing, analyzing, documenting, and providing their opinion on the landscape or quote unquote meta of the game in a form of sports writing. Sports writing is of course, a form of creative, non-fiction or journalism that covers sports athletes or any other sport related issues. Sports writers are caught between two worlds. One where they have a pulse on the sports league they cover, and the other with the general public and fans. Because of this paradox, sports writers can range from at best analytical individuals providing information to at worst, passionate fans using broad strokes for providing entertainment. It's no different when it comes to Pokemon Go, especially in factions, where there are teams, free agents, and even different leagues competing to rise to the top as the PVP community continues to try to establish itself as an eSport on the Pokemon circuit. My guest shares insight into factions and what it's like to cover it, as well as his journey into becoming a writer for FSPN all started. From Dayton, Ohio, he is a member of the Dubs for Cheap Faction. Here's his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is MJGettit! Today I'm joined by a fellow sports guru who also agrees that Popovich is the best NBA coach of all time MJGettit. MJ, welcome to the show.

MJGettit: 4:03

Ah, thanks for having me and yep, Popovich is the greatest coach of all time, I don't care what people are saying about him right now, I don't care what people think about the Spurs right now, cuz I don't even know if they're tanking. And if we happen to get the first round pick again and we, Tim Duncan, this whole thing all over again, I'm perfectly fine with that.

David Hernandez: 4:18

I'd love to talk more NBA with you, but unfortunately I'm a Pokemon Go podcast, so we'll say that for another podcast for another day. Obviously you're an FSPN writer and you've covered factions, but before that you had to start in Pokemon Go somewhere, so I gotta ask, when did you first start playing Pokemon GO?

MJGettit: 4:32

Ooh. I'd say the first day, June, what was it? June 5th, June 6th, 2016. That was the very first time I picked up Pokemon Go. I played it for like two and a half, three weeks, put it down for two months and then came back to it because I got bored and then just kind of stuck with it ever since then. I remember when raids first came out, that's what really brought back into my interest to Pokemon Go to play, that then that got stale; then PVP came around and I was like, oh, this is just nothing but tap, tap, tap. I don't need to like really worry about it." And then here in Dayton, Ohio, we had a community that did Pokemon GO PVP Battles with Silph. I remember seeing the Champion won the tournament 4-0. I was like,"oh, all I gotta do is just win four battles. I can do that." So hopped in, got destroyed by the Champion, my first tournament, and then came back the next month like,"no, I gotta beat you just to make sure I'm actually good enough for it." Ended up playing him twice that month and beat him both times, so it was like, ah, okay, well I'll stick with this, it's pretty fun.

David Hernandez: 5:31

Was the PVP more because you were just competitive and you wanted beat him or did you actually start getting more interested in PVP by playing it?

MJGettit: 5:38

It was both a competitive thing and also just kind of me hoping I didn't miss out on the next big Pokemon thing cuz growing up, I loved Pokemon, but my, parents, they were kind of, not kind of, they were against it. So it was like, I will miss out on VGC back when it first started and like Nugget Bridge. I think it was about round gen six, so 20 14, 20 15, I started like really trying to get into it, but I was so far behind. I was like, you know what? Let me just stick to Smogon ladder. Then saw PVP popped up, I was like, look, I'm not gonna miss this train again. I didn't really take Poken seriously and I really didn't feel like doing trading card game. So like, all right, let me just try this PVP thing out, see how good I actually am. But yeah, so I just stuck with PVP since then, and that's one of the main reasons why I still play Pokemon GO.

David Hernandez: 6:27

What about VGC do you feel like it's too late? is it just too much of a start learning curve for you to get to or?

MJGettit: 6:33

Not so much a learning curve, just kind of time and effort. I know now gen nine, they've made it so much easier to just hop into VGC like the mints that you gotta get to change the Pokemons natures all the items you get, there're like readily accessible at the start of the game now. But like back then, gen four was a slog, I remember just trying to EV train Palkia and going face off like against 60 different Golducks to get the special tech ev yields with the power lens on and that took forever and it didn't help that Gen four games were notoriously slow. Just never really got around to VGC, didn't really have time to travel, didn't have the money to travel, and I also felt like I didn't have my parents support if I wanted to travel to some of these Pokemon tournaments.

David Hernandez: 7:17

What is it about Pokemon that your parents were against?

MJGettit: 7:19

Oh, you know how it was when it first came out, Christians were like,"it's the devil." And I was like,"it's not the devil." And then I take my mom to the first Pokemon movie and Mewtwo goes and creates all these clones and kills Ash, so it's like,"oh yeah, this kind of hurts my argument" as a seven, eight year old boy trying to convince my parents like, Hey, it's not all that bad. And they're like,"well, it has a control on you. You never wanna put it down." I'm like, but this is how I'm learning how to read and do my math properly, like, you know, like, what, second grader, can actually effectively tell you the synonym for enemy is foe? Pokemon is doing some good here! They weren't having it. It was like,"okay, so I can't convince you about this." Now that I've grown up, my mom, she does try to ask about it, but I do get asked like by my friends, like, if I ever had to go to a world championship for anything Pokemon related, would I take my parents? And the the good son in me wants to say,"yeah." The person that grew up with them was like, no, because they're not gonna understand anything, they're gonna have a little bit of a funk, maybe. Like my dad, I might take just because if I get into some stuff, I know he got my back a little bit and we'll know the laws just enough to stay outta jail. But like, nah, growing up just deep into the Christian part and then as they got older and realized, like I was actually still playing it, I think they kind of softened their stance, but every now and then I can just see it as like, eh, they ain't, they're not too happy about that.

David Hernandez: 8:47

With your experience with Pokemon, do you have a favorite Pokemon at all?

MJGettit: 8:49

Swampert!

David Hernandez: 8:51

Oh wow, you answered that pretty quick.

MJGettit: 8:52

Oh yeah! Swampert, like, Gen One's was Red, Blue, and Yellow. I liked Graveler and Golem, I liked Zapdos, and then I wanna say Articuno at one point was one of my favorites, but like those Pokemon, I didn't have that much of attachment to. Then Gen two came along and I was like, I really love Ampharos because it made the game so much easier, that I was so upset that when I got Pokemon Crystal Ampharos couldn't be in the game. So I was like, Nope, let me go find one of my friends, I need a Mareep so I can have Ampharos in this game, I'm not playing a Gen two game without Ampharos. So then Gen three came along and Ruby and Sapphire to me, they're one of my least favorite games in the series. But I love it so much just because of how well Swampert runs through everything. Roxanne, Brawly, Flannery, and Watson. Kind of struggle with Norman, but two Slaking, of course you're gonna struggle. Winona puts up a little bit of a fight and then after that Swamperts just off to the races running through everything like by the time I get done with the game, my Swampert is the highest level Pokemon, and I'm kind of having to catch myself like,"oh, Swampert is at level 70" and my next highest Pokemon is Swellow at 62. I'm not used to doing that, which must mean I really love this Pokemon and then I went on in the post games for both Ruby and Emerald, running up some battle tower streaks and doing well on the battle frontier with it and Skarmory. Yeah, the Swampert-Skaromy core was popular before PVP. Look, it just happened to translate well into PVP. So since then Swampert has been like my favorite, although Tinkaton is really making a run for that spot right now.

David Hernandez: 10:26

Oh my God. Yeah. That's such a good Pokemon.

MJGettit: 10:28

In this house we stand Tinkaton! On Twitter, we stand Tinkaton. I don't care what the VGC players say about how it can't really beat Corviknight. We love the fact that Tinkatink just has little mallet and looks cute, we love the fact that Tinkatuff makes its mallet out of Bisharp and Pawniard shards, and then Tinkaton just goes and hunts Corviknight like a Steel-Fairy type that's not Mawile, that hunts all the big bad steel types. What's not to like?

David Hernandez: 10:54

Exactly! And has a big giant hammer to boot.

MJGettit: 10:56

Right? Fuck it. We gigaton hammer over here.

David Hernandez: 11:00

I have that on my team and when I first saw it, I didn't think too much of it, cause I caught the Middle Evolution, I didn't see Tinkatink at first, but I caught the Middle Evolution and I love that one, then it evolved like,"oh my gosh, this is such the best Pokemon ever!"

MJGettit: 11:13

I feel like with Tinkaton, it's like I can get where some people might bulk against this, but I feel like it's one of the best Pokemon Pokemon to come out since probably Volcorona.

David Hernandez: 11:23

Well, so obviously you said you're from Dayton, Ohio, right? What was it like to play Pokemon Go over there like where do people go over Community Day or for raids?

MJGettit: 11:31

Riverscape, so like downtown, we have like a river that flows through downtown in, I wanna say 1913, there was this great flood that happened in Dayton, Ohio to the point where like the entire city was underwater. So like they built a dam and I wanna say around, 2000, 2003, one of those two years, they made this park downtown, where you can just walk and ride your bike and also be by the water. And it's high enough to where even if the water was to rise up again, it would never like flood the park. There's a park behind the library that you can play in. Nobody really does, unless it's a good community day. For me personally, I do downtown just because there's a lot of stops, rare spawns seem to always pop up in two specific locations and there are two spots downtown where if I just stand still, I can get like six kilometers without doing anything. So, if I'm like, four kilometers short of my adventure sync, just go to this one spot, stay there five or six minutes, and let the GPS take me everywhere and I'll get it that easily. For raid hour, we just like go to either Riverscape Deeds Park, start there and do all those as quickly as we possibly can. And then like there's another part of town like in Kettering, this place called Delco Park that everybody also likes to go to cause it's a big enough park to where you can hit all the stops and catch all Pokemon while you're doing the raids. Prior to Covid, we did have like a raid train going in 2017 and the guy who used to run it, he would start off at like, I wanna say seven o'clock in the morning. He would just go until one or 2:00 PM and was like,"Hey, we're starting here at Delco Park, we're gonna be traveling on this side of town, this side of town, if a bunch happening downtown, we'll go there, but we're mostly staying on the east side of town of like Kettering, Oakwood, maybe a little bit of the edge of Beaver Creek, which thankfully we didn't do too much of. And he'd be like, if you see something, call it out. If you miss a raid, just meet us at the next one. And he would have like a guy who had a map that would let you know where all the raids are. So like for two and a half years, he was the leader of it, we had some people take over for him when he couldn't do it, but then he had to move to like take care of his mom and kind of died off because nobody else could like keep up the pace that he did and then we'd have newer players come in and try to dictate how things were supposed to be as to where it was like, oh, okay, so you can do it how you wanna do it, we're gonna keep doing it this way. So it died off for a time being there, it is starting to come back now, but it's not like anything, what it used to be back in 2017, 2018, at its peak, especially since some of the legendaries aren't really worth going after for a PVP or PVE type of thing.

David Hernandez: 14:13

Especially for y'all. I'd imagine wintertime gets kind of cold up there.

MJGettit: 14:16

Woo! Okay, so let me tell you about the weather we're about to have.

David Hernandez: 14:20

Please tell me, cause I'm from Texas, so I really am foreign to this idea.

MJGettit: 14:23

Oh, I'm gonna say this with a lot of disdain towards you now. I think the high is going to be all of two degrees with a wind chill of negative 12. So I'm prepping I'll go to work but we're not doing anything, I'm not moving, I'm staying still, I'm trying to conserve all the heat I possibly have in my body.

David Hernandez: 14:43

Well, I was actually gonna be surprised cause I was gonna expect you to tell me like you're gonna go out and play Pokemon, go in shorts and a shirt.

MJGettit: 14:48

Look, teenage me, when I was actually really active in sports and was like young and dumb, yeah I'd have did that. Even early twenties me when I was at the height of like peak anger, MJ and defiant MJ might have did that. 30 year old with like swollen ankles still recovering from like sinus infections and intestine infections from the past couple of weeks? Nah, I'm gonna stay in my house, probably go out and spin one Pokestop, if the roads are slick enough, might go for a little bit of a joy ride, see if I can still make a ice donut and then come back home.

David Hernandez: 15:23

So if it makes you feel better, the one time we actually got negatives here we got negative zero.

MJGettit: 15:26

That doesn't make me feel better.

David Hernandez: 15:28

It does cause our thermostats were so confused on how cold it got over here in Texas.

MJGettit: 15:32

Oh, hope. Oh, wow. Negative zero. We get zero at least seven times during the winter. The cold is actually better if there's snow. If there's no snow and it's just cold and the wind's blowing, and then of course downtown next to that river, that makes it even worse.

David Hernandez: 15:49

So let's keep a moving before we become the Weather Channel. Obviously you've got interested in PVP. So tell me about how you first got involved. I know you were trying to beat the Champion, but was it like through the self road or was it through GBL?

MJGettit: 16:01

It was through Silph. My first full season of Silph the only cup I missed was Boulder. I hopped in during Twilight. I ran Toxicroak, Azumarill, and I wanna say Venomoth was on my team before Venomoth got good. But then I came in with Clefable and if you don't know Clefable in February of 2019 did not have charm, so it had Zen Headbutt and Charge Beam. And me thinking not Pokemon Go PVP ideas, I'm thinking like regular Pokemon type matchups, I'm thinking,"oh, okay, Zen Headbutt in a meta full of poisons, that should do well against like the Toxicroak that should do well against Venusaur." Nope! It got destroyed. I went two and two, Every time I brought, I was like, you know what, lemme just stick to Toxicroak, Venomoth, the Azumarill, and Skuntank over here. They'll carry me throughout the rest of this tournament." At the end of the tournament, I looked at the Champion cuz he really destroyed me and I was like, all right, I'm going to get better and then the next month I'm going to beat you. And he was like, okay, I, I look forward to it cuz at that point he was 8-0.

David Hernandez: 17:04

Oh wow. He's undefeated.

MJGettit: 17:05

Yeah, he's running through everybody like it's, nobody's really putting up a challenge. I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm going to change that. The competitive fire in me just kind of lit right there. It was like, yeah, okay, so I can do this. Tempest comes around and I kind of have an affinity for Steelix. So like I came with Steelix, Tropius, I found somebody with a Tropius, traded for that. It's not a good Tropius, so glad that Go Fest gave me some good ones now. Anyway, it was, the third round in Fairborne and I got matched up with him again, now at this point I'm 2-0 in the Fairborne tournament he's 2-0, we get matched up and the Fairborne people know how good he is too. So I win the first game and I'm feeling real good. He comes back the second game and just takes all the confidence out of me. And I'm like, Ugh, okay. So I did well enough to win game one. I gotta do well enough to win game three. And I'm looking at his team and I'm like, he done revealed on his Lanturn that he had spark at the time. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to go with Steelix and if I call the Hydro Pump before he hits it, I win this battle. I think I still have the battle on my phone too. I held onto that just kind of remind me like how good I can be so that like later on down the road when other things happen, I was like, yeah, no, I've been knew I could do this. So like my Steelix catches everything his Lanturn throws, it farms down his own Altaria and then I think my Altaria comes in and finish off his Skarmory. So I win that and then beat the next guy and I'm like, okay, cool. I'm won a tournament, so like Dayton's was the next week and I was like, okay, well why not go for a perfect month? Swept that. Was like, yay, I'm good. Found out Cincinnati was starting to have some tournaments too, so I was like, okay, kingdom, I'll go down there and try to do well. Again got tore up down there, so like, okay, I gotta keep going to Cincinnati until I actually win a tournament. I think the first tournament I won in Cincinnati was Jungle, yeah, jungle was the first one I won in Cincinnati. So then at that point I was like, okay, you know what, I've won in Fairborne, I've won in Dayton, I've won in Cincinnati, let's try to go around the state if I can to see where all I can win. So my next goal was Columbus and I knew right there, like, okay, this is gonna take a long time before I win anything in Columbus.

David Hernandez: 19:13

They were just on a different level?

MJGettit: 19:15

Oh my God. Were they ever. I was used to battling like some tough competition, but like Columbus had their own people, had the Fitzy family getting into it. So it's like we kind of all started getting good together at the same time. Speedy actually started the whole all Ohio servers so that like everybody who was good in PVP and loved PVP in Ohio we all would get together and do tournaments. But yeah, I would say like that's when I started PVP. I've won a Silph regional championship in 2020, and I actually, to this day, I still can't believe that I won any Pokemon tournament, any like, high level Pokemon tournament with...

David Hernandez: 19:52

why is that?

MJGettit: 19:52

Meganium. No, no, no. I can believe that I won. It's just I can't believe that I won with Meganium. In Pokemon Go PVP specifically, it's the only area in all the Pokemon franchise where Meganium is somewhat good. Everywhere else it sucks.

David Hernandez: 20:07

Unfortunately.

MJGettit: 20:07

So this happens and it just so happens at the last game of the 2020 Southwest Ohio Regional Championships. I led Alolan Marowak into Hypno, got both the shields, called the bait wrong, so I had to switch out into my Meganium onto that Hypno to catch Shadow Ball and as it's happening, I'm just sitting here watching Meganium take out the Registeel, take out Hypno and then the last Pokemon my opponent had was Azumarill and almost take that thing out. And I'm just sitting here the entire way, like I am winning a championship in Pokemon with Meganium. Nobody who grew up with me in Pokemon, nobody who I know growing up in Pokemon, will believe that Meganium is the reason why I won a championship. So I posted on Facebook, I'm like, Hey, I'm regional champion, it's 2020, like everybody's locked in, so everybody's seen it. A couple of my friends watched the video that also played Pokemon, they're looking at me like, wait a minute, you won with Meganium? Like, yeah, it worked like, okay, I can understand you winning with Lapras, Lapras was good, I can understand Alolan Marowak, even though it doesn't have Thick Club in Pokemon Go. Everybody was fine with Azumarill and Toxicroak. It was just Meganium was the joke. We're laughing I won with it like it dominated game three and it's like the only time wherever put on my cape for Meganium.

David Hernandez: 21:28

Well, it's also like the forgotten stepchild from the Johto starters, cuz everybody loves Typhlosion, everybody loves Feraligatr because of Totodile from the anime series, and Meganium hardly anybody liked.

MJGettit: 21:38

That's cause mcg sucked.

David Hernandez: 21:39

Oh, you're hurting my heart. But yes, you're right. Unfortunately.

MJGettit: 21:42

Oh my God. Please tell me I'm not on another podcast where somebody likes Meganium as a starter.

David Hernandez: 21:48

Do you want the honest truth or creative lie?

MJGettit: 21:50

Uh, gimme the honest truth.

David Hernandez: 21:52

Yes, Meganium is actually my favorite from Johto. From the Johto for the Starters, it's not my favorite starter of all time. Out of the three, that was my favorite, that's the one I always chose whenever I played Pokemon Gold.

MJGettit: 22:01

Okay, so let's, let's break this down here now. So we got... before we even get Faulkner, we got the Sprout towel with the poison types running around

David Hernandez: 22:09

Bellsprouts, yep and Gastly.

MJGettit: 22:10

We got Falkner with Pidgey and Pidgeotto. We got Bugsy with Scyther and the Poison Sting Kakuna. We got Whitney, who's a problem for everybody, so I don't,

David Hernandez: 22:19

No, Whitney is actually easier if you started with Chikorita, could actually take the hits.

MJGettit: 22:22

Yeah, that's true.

David Hernandez: 22:23

Now I did a struggle with Morty though.

MJGettit: 22:25

Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. We we're going to hop back on this. Morty, gets run through. Chuck, it can serve some purpose there just because Poliwrath is part water. Then you have Jasmine with steel types, which kind of offset because the electric in grounds don't really do too well against the grasses, but Meganium's attacks are so piss poor that it makes Magnemite's defenses look good. Okay, you get Pryce, at that point in time, he's not even the real gym leader. Then you got the whole middle game of Johto where you're facing nothing but Houndours and Golbats and Weezing and Arbok. All the team rocket stuff. Then to cap all that off, you got Claire and her Dragonairs and Kingdra like just Meganium, no! Like J look gold, silver, crystal, I was Typhlosion but I could also play with Feraligatr just because I want to use Dragon dance on a water type that wasn't Gyarados. But to this day, just not Meganium, competitively, no. Play through Wise, no. Chikorita, Bayleef, Meganium, nope, not until Pokemon GO PVP, just never looked their way.

David Hernandez: 23:31

It just took you a while to be able to understand its prowess, so it took you a while but you finally got there.

MJGettit: 23:36

Yeah, it took what? Half second turns and a hundred energy and even then, it's a good grass type, but there's still grass types that you could use that are better, that serve a better purpose than it.

David Hernandez: 23:48

But none of those helped you win a regional! So obviously you're familiar with the Pokemon franchise, so what stuff would you like to see taken from Pokemon Battle scene and put into P V P?

MJGettit: 23:58

One of my favorite types, like ground types are my favorite types of Pokemon, but I also really love electric types and I think for like the electric type Pokemon in PVP, most of them getting Wild Charge or Thunderbolt is like a nice trade off, but they're like the type that always gets forgotten because most of the electric types are really fast in the main series game. So it's like you're trying to translate that over into P V P and it's like, okay, well in order to do that, they either have to have Thundershock or Volt Switch as a fast move and then Wild Charge or Thunderbolt as like their charge move. Yeah, Zap Cannon's good, but the best Zap Cannon user is a steel type in PVP. But like Electric types, I think in PVP could use, I wouldn't say a buff, but just there has to be something that can be done to make them a little bit more prevalent. So I think like electric types and to a lesser extent probably fire and bug types get like the short end of the stick for PVP. I think because some of their charge moves activate so quickly, that's like Niantic and Pokemon Go trying to say, okay, but we're giving them quicker access to all the charge moves. It's like, all right, that's cool, but they kinda need something a little extra. I like how with Ampharos, they did give it another quick charge move in Brutal Swing, which kind of helps against some of the grasses in particular Trevenant, but at the same time it's like Thunder Punch, I guess that's like a good move for it cuz it is the quickest charge move of the Electric type moves that can learn, but just, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, and Ice Punch to me have always looked like moves that could be buffed. And I get why you can't really buff Ice punch because then Medicham's going to abuse it and then everybody's going to get outraged and be like,"oh no, we gotta stop Medicham!" It's like,"well you know, in order to stop that they're probably gotta do something that's gonna make one of the other big five like crazy strong for no real reason," so...

David Hernandez: 25:47

mm-hmm.

MJGettit: 25:47

let's just kinda roll with this, I feel like we can all live with Medicham having a powered up ice punch, if that means, for example, Primeape, who has a sky high attack but also has access to ice Punch, can do something with it or Galarian Mr. Mime can do something with Ice Punch or Jynx, who rarely sees any love anywhere in Pokemon, gets some type of buff to it.

David Hernandez: 26:08

So since we're on the topic of diversifying the meta, we've been going through the regionals that have been taking place and usually it's been around a lot of the same Pokemon we've been seeing. In your opinion, do you feel a meta is better when it's the same Pokemon or when there's more Pokemon to choose from?

MJGettit: 26:24

Okay, so I wanna start by saying to everybody that thinks that this meta for the Pokemon regionals is stale and needs more diversity, I do agree with you, but I also just wanna point out: Gen six, Big six. If you don't know about that, go talk to a VGC player and they'll tell you about it. And it's like, hey, our meta is not really that diverse, but it's so much more fluid than that meta. If Pokemon Go PVP ever gets to a meta where it's just the same six Pokemon over and over again and even if you bring something to counter that, no, it's not going to work, then we got a problem. I can understand the frustration between seeing Medicham, Galarian Stunfisk, Trevenant, I can understand the frustration be between seeing all that, but like you can still play around that. But like in PVP, there's always gonna be like some loophole you can exploit like the cores are there to be broken and I think as a PVP community, you gotta like try to find it

David Hernandez: 27:22

So you are part of a Dubz 4 Cheap factions and I wanna know, how did that first start?

MJGettit: 27:28

So when factions were, brought up, C-Dub reached out to me. He was trying to start up this server called The Underground, and he reached out to me and said,"Hey, you were pretty cool to battle. Seem to have like some good conversations while we were battling. I want you to be like a part of this server and also be an admin." Now I'm a lurker in Discord servers, like you don't see me talk much. I'll pop up every once in a while to be like, Hey, I'm alive," and then go right back to hiding.

David Hernandez: 27:55

I was gonna say, are you like Randy Ordon with the RKO?

MJGettit: 27:56

Pretty much, yeah, with hints of the undertaker just lurking in the shadows. So it's like he hit me up about that. We brought up the underground server to what it is now, and that's really more so him than it is me, I'm just there to be the dark eye watching everything. And if I see something pop off that really needs an attention, I'll say something. But we start up the underground server, then factions starts happening and starts becoming a thing. At first I thought I was going to be a part of Ohio Nation because like all Ohio team. And I'm like, okay, well it'd be cool but then I'm also thinking to myself I'm in the Ohio Nation server, some of our best battlers don't want to return, and I'm thinking to myself like, as much as I would like to be on this team, I also kind of want to compete and beat you guys as well. Faction start up and C Dub reaches out to me and says,"Hey, I wanna start a faction for the underground called Dubs for Cheap." and I'm like, okay, well I'm on board, you're the first person to reach out to me, you get my services. As we're building up the team, we're like, okay, well who else do we wanna put on a team? And we're thinking we want some like really strong trainers. And I'm like, well, if we're gonna be an underground server, like we could probably pick up some people that we know that we battled against in the underground and make that work as long as we possibly can. So it's like we built up this whole team for people in the underground that we battled with each other and it was like, all right, well this is what we're gonna work with We're gonna go out here and try to make a name for ourself. First pre-season cycle, we go three and two, we win our first three and then lose our next two. Second pre-season cycle, we win our first two, lose our next three. So now we're like, okay, we're five and five and we're thinking when tiers announced like,"oh, okay, five and five we're good enough to start off in bronze." Nope, we starting to open and we were kind of irked about that because we saw, at the start of it, Team Flareon, started in bronze and we remember playing them and we remember beating them down. So it was kind of like, wait, they shouldn't be in bronze, we should be in bronze.

David Hernandez: 29:48

You felt like you were forgotten about basically, or looked over?

MJGettit: 29:51

I don't think it was looked over. It was this is the part where you realize just exactly how much scoring in factions mattered and that's when we were like, okay, we can't play around with some of our opponents anymore, if we're better than them, we gotta stomp them out. So now we're carrying that burden along that we feel like we're being disrespected by like some of the teams in bronze that got there that aren't doing well. So they're like, okay, now we're just gonna win out and get to bronze and once we get to bronze, we're gonna win bronze, and then everything that happens after that is gravy. So we went out in open, we go six and one. We get to bronze and we start off two and two, we develop some more rivalries, but we're all huddled together, still thinking we can still get outta bronze, but most importantly we can still beat TexasPVP. So then about six comes along, we are in fifth place at the time and TexasPVP is second. if we win, we're swapping places with them. If we lose, we're probably getting relegated. So again, comes down nine, nine. DJ's last one the battle, and he gets his revenge this time around, he gets the three zero and it helps us get promoted to silver. And since then we've been, well in silver, we won that tier. We got to platinum, did okay, had a little bit of a struggle mid-cycle, so it's like, all right, well now we're down in gold. Some members have moved on to start up a new faction called Subzero. C dub is now with wing attack, but he still sticks around to help us out. We still have some of the core members from that original duff sheep on the squad, but we're looking to still improve and add more players that want to hop on if they feel like it.

David Hernandez: 31:20

What is it about factions that's enhanced your experience for PVP?

MJGettit: 31:23

The team setting. In some cases, when it comes to like the PVP side of things, in a regular setting, in a regular tournament setting, you're just thinking by yourself, you're probably thinking, okay, well I got this, this, this, this. I know how I wanna play with this Pokemon, I know how I wanna play with this Pokemon, I'll play it this way. In factions, you got like six to nine other different people commenting, scrimming with you, being like, oh, hey, I know you like to use this Pokemon, but how about you sub it out for this Pokemon, it'll do you a lot better? Or in most cases, I'm the person on the team where I come up with crazy move sets and I know like, on my team, I'm the one that does it and like, it's a joke every once in a while where it's like, yeah, if you got a problem with moves, just go talk to MJ, he'll he'll come up with something crazy that sounds stupid, but then ends up working. But like in factions, you just have this team building exercise to where if you think a Pokemon's not gonna work, you take it to the team and be like,"Hey, I know this Pokemon is meta, but I don't think it's gonna work for my team, or I don't think it's gonna work for my play style." And it's like, okay, I can see why you think it wouldn't work, but like if you've been losing without using this Pokemon, let's go ahead and try to learn how to use this Pokemon. So like for factions, having the different brain power and like ideas floating around that helps in it makes it different from regular PVP tournament style setting where where's just yourself and you're stuck on a move set.

David Hernandez: 32:44

So obviously you write for factions, you write the weekly analysis of how the matches went. How did that first start for you?

MJGettit: 32:51

So when factions first started, it was a fun experience and then like, I wanna say around week two of the pre-season, seeing all the big names get attention, you know, you got Stadium Elite, you got some great battlers on Chicago, Marylanders were starting to get like worldwide known, and SoCal Swablu, it was like, okay, they're cool, I like them. They've like destroyed me on occasion, some of'em I've destroyed back. Alright, I like seeing how you guys play when you play each other, but there's also some other teams and there's also some players on some other teams where they could probably use some love too. And on top of that, it was during the time when I'm like, everybody seems to want to be treated like a sports star, everybody wants to be treated like a celebrity, everybody wants to be like these athletes, it's like,"okay, well since people think that, let me see how this goes in Pokemon where now I can highlight you and give you some love, so like I think the match that made me think about this was Stadium Elite versus Hoosier Daddies. And I remember seeing that and I was like, huh, you know, everybody on Stadium Elite's good. So I was like, okay, well I know how some of these guys are. It'll be a good test for Stadium Elite to see, like if they can stomp out some, above average to really good talent and it'd be good for Hoosier Daddies if like they can at least dent the aura of Stadium Elite, so like, okay, that would be a good match to talk about. So then I like go through the list. I remember making a tweet about it and I was just passive. I was like being, the one thing. I absolutely hate being passive aggressive. I was like, you know what? Somebody should write about or make this into a sports thing, it's like we already got the team aspect of it, somebody should do this, that's just me trying to put the idea out there, pass off the buck and be like, Hey you, somebody do this. That tweet gained so much traction to where people were like, Hey, well that sounds like a good idea. That sounded like something you should, that sounded something you should do. And I'm sitting here like, somebody can take this and run with it, somebody, not me, somebody, not me, somebody, not me. Nobody was taking the bait, so I was like, you know what? Growing up in school, I hated writing. Not so much that I wasn't good at it, it is just, I was a math person. I didn't want to explain myself. I hated the detail and explaining, I'd always get good grades in writing, it'd just be like last minute stuff. So like the first article, not even the first article, the first like writeup I ever did, I posted on Silph A rena page. It was like, okay, well here's the battles I think will be cool to watch. Here's some upsets that are worth going at and, I, early on, I'd always pick on like the big name teams or like the higher up undefeated teams and be like, Hey, you're on upset alert. This will be fun to watch, let's see how you do if somebody would say like,"oh I think you could be upset." And that then led to a little rivalry with me and SoCal Swablu Gold cause they were usually the ones I always said, got the upset alerts. Then like Silph reached out to me and was like,"Hey, we want to add this to our website, we can do something with this." I'm like,"okay, cool. I can do something for you guys like every week on this." And then that just ballooned into like the EMEA, APAC, and Latin America all wanting to be like,"Hey, North America got this. Why can't we have this?" So like, okay, so now they have their thing and it is just grown as something a lot bigger there to where I'm still kind of stunned that it got that big. But then I'm cocky and arrogant as all get out. I say this to people and people don't think I'm serious when I say this. I take insults and criticism a lot better than I take compliments. You insult me, I got jokes or I might have like something to come off the top rope with you. You wanna criticize me? All right, cool. I'll look at it objectively and be like, all right, maybe I need to do this, or maybe I need to do this and then if I feel like the criticism is bullshit, I'll say it's bullshit and keep pushing with it. Compliments be like, oh man, I love your writing so much, it just, we look forward to seeing it. I'm like, oh, thank you. Uh, uh.

David Hernandez: 36:33

It's like, can you hate me? I'm trying to make you hate me.

MJGettit: 36:35

Like, I don't mind you liking me, but just know me personally, compliments have never worked out for me, it's like, people will compliment like if I wear something nice, they'd be like, oh, you look nice. First words out my mouth, like, have you seen me? I know I look good. This is me stepping out. Then I gotta remind myself like, most people don't know me. I'm like, oh, wait. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. But yeah, it started with just me trying to make it like more sportsy, put a little more sports spin on to it, highlights some lesser known battlers who probably won't get the attention that like the bigger ups will, the ones that are doing well like I remember all throughout season one of North America factions, Al Murphy, who was Space Coast battlers and then ended up being on the Orlando faction he had an astounding winning record. Like it was so good that I didn't notice it until cycle two and I was like, okay, let me keep an eye on this. I'm not gonna say anything about it because like that's happening in qualifiers and open, so like, okay, it's not as impressive as say, JaysFan winning 85% of his battles in platinum tier. But at the same time, I'm pretty sure there's a faction higher up than Space Coast battles that would love to have a guy who's batting 90% winning average on their team. I kind of want to highlight some of the lesson knowns or some of the, people who are really good, just haven't gotten that notice to the point where now I think some of the lower factions are having a problem, like, oh, all the big name factions are stealing our players, they're poaching our players." I'm like, ah, that's kind the price of success sometimes if you're not doing well and that person wants another challenge, I can kind of understand them wanting to go to a higher tier to see how good they are.

David Hernandez: 38:10

Oh yeah. I mean, you see it all the time in, sports leagues. You saw it all the time like when LeBron left for Miami Heat and he got all the criticism. You saw it when Kevin Garnet left the T Wolves cause they couldn't get a championship around him like that's pretty common in sports.

MJGettit: 38:22

Yeah and then sometimes it's also like just you can plateau and you have to know when you plateaued on a team. It's all kind of starting to become more sports like to where some of the best battlers on bad teams are moving up to like some good to very good teams to test their mettle, probably just use for cycling and go back or become like a hired gun like Trent is for everybody.

David Hernandez: 38:42

Do you take any inspiration like from sports writers at all? Because when I read your stuff it does sounds like I'm reading something from like ESPN almost.

MJGettit: 38:49

Most of that is me like it's just me putting some personality into it. But however I do, Bomani Jones is one of the people like I started listening to him around 20 11, 2012, cuz since I was 14, I've been the on again off again janitor. But between the years of 2010 and 20 18, I was full-time janitor, start at probably four o'clock in the afternoon, be done at seven o'clock in the morning. I'd always try to have some sports radio on listening to it. So like Bamani Jones was one that I really gravitated to, black guy talking on TV and talking on radio that's not Stephen A. Smith, so it's like, okay, I can deal with this and then on top of that, he throws some of his personality into it. He kind of lets you feel like you know him if you get to listen to him some more, while also like using his smarts to like navigate some of the tricky stuff in sports to where he can talk about it and like if you get offended by it, you're probably not listening right or you're probably listening with your own biases. So like I took some of what he does and I wanna say a little bit of Shannon Sharpe as well, throw that in there like that's more so when it comes time to make predictions or if I gotta talk about a team and put some like personality behind it to keep people invested. It's like, all right, cool. Then just amplify my personality on top of that like, I'm relatively quietish, but if you get me talking, you can't get me to shut up at times. It's like I'm trying to add all that while making it my own. But those two in particular, like two people I take like some inspiration from and then Ta-Nehisi Coates, every once in a while I'll dip a little bit of that in there. I take all like the knowledge and the verbiage that I've learned and try to like make it to where you can understand it, you can feel me while I'm writing about this, but you also know exactly what I'm doing.

David Hernandez: 40:36

You've been following factions for so long and a lot of people hope that factions becomes an eSports someday. From your standpoint with you covering factions for so long, what are some barriers do you see that factions has to overcome to get to that point?

MJGettit: 40:49

So I went on another podcast we had this conversation about open tier and like how usually around week five or six, somebody from the North American Open Tier, always complaining about how oh is there some way we can fix the system? Is there some way where we could like make the matchups easier to digest cuz this isn't working, this isn't fair that like an undefeated team doesn't have to play all the top rank teams Every time I see that, I kind of look who says it and it's like, if this is one of the factions who's like currently sitting at number three or four, I brush it off like, okay, like all y'all gotta do is keep winning and this means nothing to you in the future. If it's one of the factions that's like usually two and seven or three and six, I look at that and I go Shut up. You don't know anything about what's happening and all credit to everybody on the Silph referee staff, Silph management staff, that handles all those questions and complaints. I just look at them and I go, because you're so deep into North America stuff, like you don't realize that this is a global thing. You're complaining about matchups and like North America's Open EMEAs Open Apex Open, put all those teams together and that still doesn't equal the amount of open teams that are in Latin America. You're complaining about something that you don't like in this system for this conference like maybe the system's not made for this particular conference, maybe this system is made so that Latin America has it easier for them cuz if it's easier for the largest conference, than all the other smaller conferences, like it should fall in line, real simple, it's not that hard to digest. On the flip side of that, I think that is where if we wanna make it an eSport, like a true eSport to where sponsors are getting involved cause I know Latin America has like 7-Eleven sometimes backing them and they have different tourneys happening outside of Silph factions, so it's like they got their own thing happening, but at the same time, so many different teams over there to the point where it's like they have to do that. Latin America, they're cannibalizing each other. I think the number one seed was an APAC team. Number two was E M E A. I think number 3, 5, 6, and seven we're all Latin American teams. And it's not that like, oh, they're topheavy, no, they're all cannibalizing each other. So like the eSports thing on the faction side of it, yeah, it's feasible, but at the same time, each region has its own issues. I feel like if you wanna make it an eSport, you gotta like figure out how you wanna do it with first Latin America, then apac and then however you figure it out with those two make North America and E M E A, the Guinea pigs,

David Hernandez: 43:20

Hey, that'd be a fresher for once, Australia is always the one who gets to be guinea pig in Pokemon Go

MJGettit: 43:24

Yeah. Like, look, get, give Australia, Japan, give all them a break for being the Guinea pigs. like, make North America an e a, the Guinea pigs because they're gonna complain regardless.

David Hernandez: 43:33

So one thing that you've mentioned is that the PokemonGo community can't really handle a black content creator

MJGettit: 43:39

Uhhuh

David Hernandez: 43:40

Do you feel that you have to kind of come across a certain way to the Pokemon GO audience?

MJGettit: 43:44

Yes. So when I say that the Pokemon Go community can't handle a black content creator, it all stems back to... I'll go with my experience first and then I'll tap into something that happened earlier this year that really agitated the ever-loving fuck outta me. So like with me and how I come in and write about different, people, different factions, I'll put my spin on it, I'll put a sports take on it and sometimes it's like, okay, I know this might ruffle some feathers and it's like, all right, cool. You're ruffled. You wanna prove me wrong? You want to put me up as bulletin board material? I'm perfectly fine with that. This is something that you can't do and be like, oh, please love what I write, please love me, like, no, I'm going to ruffle some feathers. So like, if I'm saying something like, okay, SoCalSwablu Gold on upset alert, like earlier when this all started. R six race and R six, he would go back and forth with me and I loved it. People would see that and be like, Hey, you need to calm down R six like, he's just doing what his job. I'm like, hold on. Whoa, whoa. I'm fine with this. I grew up trash talking, this is in my element. I'm with this. I can do this. Like that's all in good fun. I can understand. I can see like where the goodness of all that's happening is fine. And this is kind of noticeable with the Pokemon Go community, which is why I say I don't think they can handle a black content creator is in Pokemon in general. We'll stick with America for example, just America for right now. A lot of white people play it and video games you usually see like a lot of Asian, Hispanic, not Hispanic, Asian, like Pacific Islander. You turn on Twitch and you see it's like basically a lot of white, a lot of beige and then like outside of that content you'll see different tier lists pop up or people making jokes and then like all this other insider speak that like gets out. And it's like, okay, that's cool. I'm down with that too. But I'm also just looking around like if we're talking about OG Twitch, Pokemon GO players, she might not be doing it anymore, but why is yoitsmemofo not getting mentioned at all? Like her Sunday brunches every week during Covid was actually one of the few things they got me through like The covid week, sometimes it'll be like, Hey, I'm stuck in the house. Don't really feel like watching tv. Don't wanna turn on YouTube again and rewatch the same old Dragon Ball D B Z A stuff cause I'm starting to learn all that word for word at this point in time. Lemme turn on Twitch. Everybody's on there battling, talking, oh, okay, cool. There's yoitsmemofo making brunch, talking it up, chatting it up. Later on at night you'll have DJ Enterprise on air. He'll have his setup going where he has some music playing in the background, the setup's all nice. But it be like, and this is going back something happened earlier this year. TrainerRem made a tier list and me personally, I'm like, okay, all the tier lists that have been done, all like the stuff that's gets taken outta context, that's been done before, like he made a tear list and you're looking at it and it's like, okay, he has some trainers in dog water, he has some trainers up here, he has this, this, this, that. okay, cool. if you know him, he's been around long enough that everybody knows who he is as a streamer. You should know that he's not saying this like from a hateful place, you should know he's not saying this from a personal attack place. He's trying to have fun because he saw that other streamers, other like more so white streamers were able to do this. But like everybody was able to laugh. Haha, yuck, yuck up, yuck it up. So then he does it and all of a sudden it's like, Oh no, that was rude, that was wrong, it looked bad, it looked bad, it looked the optic, the optics are bad on it. And I'm like, but this is Rem. He's one of the nicest ones in the entire community. And it was like so much backlash that I'm like, alright, all of you who have a problem with it. And it's like, okay, if you were one of the ones who were offended by it, I can understand. At the same time, he's going along with the trend. So like everybody was mad at him. It like got him to stop streaming for a while. He has released some like apology video and not even a week after that happened. Twitch Tearless, Twitch Tearless. Twitch Tearless. This is darn water. This is this, this is like, oh wait, hold on, but you guys just got on him about this. Now all of a sudden we wanna make jokes about this. Seems like there's a little bit of a disconnect there and like from a black side of things, Pokemon Go can be an escape, but like, as a black person in general, nothing is really an escape in America. We can try to make it be an escape as much as we can, but we can't run from that fact like, nope nothing is ever truly an escape. When it comes to criticizing, and I'll, take all the heat on this one. You can criticize like what it is that I say, you can criticize what it is that I talk about. But like, the whole reason why I started the whole anonymous question asking was because in some of the questions that I get asked or some of the comments that I get asked in that stuff, oh dear God, I can see why anonymous question asking this thing because like you think people don't know who it is. So it's like, I've gotten things in the inbox where it's like, Hey nigger, you can't say all this. Or like, what do you know? Like this is why there's not that many black people in it, because you guys aren't smart enough to do this. I put the anonymous things out there, and this is where you find out, this is how some of these people really feel. And again, if some other black content creators wanna come out here and say this, that's cool, but like even behind closed doors, we have conversations where it's like it feels like everybody partners up with other content creators, but I'm always like, well, hey, why ain't nobody re reaching out to REM to do this? Or why isn't nobody reaching out to Rizi? Anybody who got a problem with what it is that I'm saying right now, come find me. We can talk this out and then if we ever meet in person, we can sit down and talk about this cause I always keep in mind like anybody who ever had a problem with me or anybody who has something that they really want to say negative to me, if we meet in person, I'm gonna be around you and I'm gonna keep looking at you. It's, it's, it's, it's just like a little bit of a bubbling frustration. It's like, hey... Wanna reopen this can of worms, but something else that happened for Roe versus Wade, when that got overturned, there was this Twitch stream that happened where it was like Rezi was one of the featured battlers. I know he has a wife and he has like a couple kids, they had some other stuff they could have been doing that day, but re was like, no, I'm gonna stick around and do this cuz they had me at a featured battle, I could be on it anytime. The whole stream happened, he wasn't featured once and at first you're thinking, oh it's no big deal. You could think it's no big deal, but then it's like RIzi's a teacher, like you don't know how many kids could actually be tuning in just to watch him. He feels a little bit upset cause it's like he wasn't on. He's like, Hey, this did kind of feel a little bit shady, a little bit tokenism and like the immediate backlash that came towards him. Like, Hey, this is bigger than you. This is about all these people. And I'm like, I think you guys are missing the point of what he's saying. He's not discrediting what the point of the stream was, it was just more so he's the only black face on the poster. Now shout out to NHoff and FinalBossAJ. They completely understood what Reezy was saying and they like, was like, okay, we get how that might've looked. They was all on board with it, but then it kind of like blew up into something where like some of the black Pokemon Go players was like, yeah, this feels like tokenism and we weren't really on board with that. And it was like, ah, just

David Hernandez: 50:38

It felt like it was a marketing tool really, it sounds like.

MJGettit: 50:40

Yeah, it's like at times for me, when people ask me if, hey, if I can come on and do stuff, like that's some of the thought process that goes through my head is like, okay, how are you going to market this? what exactly are you trying to do here? If I tell you I can't come on, if I tell you I can't do this, how do you react afterwards? Cause I always kind of pay attention to those who was like, they asked me to do something and like because of life or work, I can't do it, and I say, Hey, no, just can't do it, sorry, but keep me in mind. I always keep an eye on those who ask me that and then I tell them no the first time and then I watch how they react afterwards and it's like, okay, so you genuinely want me to come on, or you're just trying to use my name to big up your name?

David Hernandez: 51:16

Right? Like, are you really interested in me on coming on the show to create something? Or are you just using me to kind of gain another audience and just use me for whatever have you?

MJGettit: 51:25

Right. it is like that. It is that stuff in general where it's like, yeah, and I know there's not that many of us, like, first off, there's not that many of us that are good the black PV players that are good, like I, I can name all the good ones. Like the really good ones probably with one, maybe two hands. Then you have Rim who's a lot better than I think he gives himself credit for like top eight at N A I C is nothing to sneeze at like I feel like if he ever went hard as self, he be a high ranking elite. Reezy out here making the lowland sandshrew popular is all get out. And then of course back to some of the OGs like DJ Enterprise on Twitch yos me, mofo. So it's just kind of like when I say Pokemon Go can't handle a black content creator, it is a mixture of all the different experiences that I've seen, all the ones that I've heard, all the ones that I've talked about with other black content creators and just my own experience too, where it's like, oh, you guys wouldn't do this to some other people, but you gladly do it to us.

David Hernandez: 52:23

I'm gonna leave it with this question. How can the Pokemon Go community be more welcoming to bl to, to black content creators moving forward beside, I mean, I would imagine one of'em would be like being, not being a marketing display would be a huge improvement.

MJGettit: 52:37

Best way for me to put it, we all love Pokemon while we want to be involved in some of this stuff, it shouldn't be on us to come out here all the time looking for somebody to like partner with us or somebody to do stuff with us, or somebody to like have us on stream and whatnot. It is in the same vein of racism's a problem, but you can't be out here asking black people to be the one to fix it. We're the ones affected by it and I know I just turned a lot of people off there but, oh well, get used to it. We're out here, we want to be a part of it, we wanna be seen, but like, if we can't do it, don't take it as an offense like, oh hey, we just don't wanna do it like, sometimes shit just pops up where we can't do it or me personally is like, Hey, I know a lot of people reaching out to me for faction stuff. I'll help you with whatever it is you wanna do factions wise, but like, if I can't do it, I can't do it. And I know there's some out here like watching SkepticalTracer on Stream. I didn't know he was black, like me, Reezy Rim, a couple others like we all got to talking like, yo, did you know he was black? Nah, I didn't know he was black. Cool. He made a top eight! We're here for you. We're repping you. Like trust and believe we're all rooting for you. Like We just have this sense of community was like, okay, cool. There's more of us popping up. And we just kinda wanna be like just, hey, like let us come in. Like we can probably make it a little more cooler. Cause you know, in a, at least in America, if it has black people behind it, it's going to get cool. So like, just like accept it. Run with it. And if you think I'm lying, cool. Tell me how baseball's doing outside of playoff time.

David Hernandez: 54:05

Oh, mj, you've been such a joy today.

MJGettit: 54:08

like at the end of the day I'm always here for jokes. I'm always here for fun. even when I get heated, I'm just here to have a good time and like, it was just a lot of shit that I was getting hit with and then like seeing it happen to the others, like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna put a voice to it. I'm going to be the one to like take this on headstrong, if no one has a problem with it. Be cool with us, we really just want to come in and have fun. Some of us wanna collab with you, but like things happen, just treat it like everybody else in a way.

David Hernandez: 54:35

Just make sure y'all are included and make sure that we don't hinder how y'all are included. I think that's probably the biggest takeaway with everything you've said so far.

MJGettit: 54:43

Pretty much and it's like if we say out loud that, hey, this didn't look right, like, Hey, it didn't look right, just listen to what it is that we gotta say, we're not saying that you are wrong. We're not saying that you're racist is forward. We're just saying, Hey, it just wasn't look right.

David Hernandez: 54:56

Well, thank you for coming on the show mj. If people wanted to get in contact with you or check out your articles, where could they go check you out like, by all means, please plug away.

MJGettit: 55:05

Twitter@MJGett it. We stand tinton in this house. I change the header every once in a while something either crazy passive aggress, well, not passive aggressive, aggressive, aggressive cuz they'll know exactly who it is I'm talking about. If you wanna read my articles, you can go to silph.gg and it'll be like in the cluster group with the E M E A, APAC and Latin America articles. Most weeks I have'em out there, some weeks, like either because work or sickness, I won't have it. Or like if something's happening with the website, you can also just again, follow me on Twitter cuz I'll release the bootleg version that's Google doc free, where you can read it and all the errors that happened there. And if you ever have any problems with me, my DM are slightly open and you can feel free to tag me.

David Hernandez: 55:49

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