As The Pokeball Turns
As The Pokéball Turns is a Pokémon interview podcast that shares real stories from Trainers around the world. From personal journeys to lasting friendships, we explore how Pokémon shapes lives and builds community across the games, the TCG, and beyond. Join creators, community leaders, and everyday fans as they share what makes Pokémon more than just a game. New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday. One voice, one journey, one memory at a time. Your next Pokémon adventure begins here!
As The Pokeball Turns
TRAINER'S EYE #63 - "Psyduck's Quacktastic Quest" ft. El Pochum
From the nostalgic days of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, El Pochum has turned his childhood love for Pokémon into a global adventure. In this Pokémon interview, he reveals how Pokémon GO sparked his desire to explore the world and catch Pokémon in every country he visits. His journey takes him through unique experiences, overcoming challenges and embracing cultural connections, all while living his dream as a Pokémon Trainer.
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
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Your next Pokemon adventure begins here!
My name is David Hernandez, and you're listening to As the Pokeball Turns. Welcome to As the Pokeball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. Many of us have destinations we want to visit within our lifetime. While many of us only have selections in mind, others have more lofty goals. If someone told you that they had the goal to visit every country in the world, what would you think? It's been done before. There are travel influencers who post about these types of adventures all the time. Now what if that person told you they wanted to visit every country in the world and catch a Pokemon from there? Now we're talking. and my guest for this episode is on a mission to do just that. He's living out the lyrics from the original Pokemon theme song, I will travel across the land, searching far and wide. And is here to share his Pokemon journey so far and his ambitions for the future. From Los Angeles, California, here is his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is El Pochum. today I'm joined by a man with the goal to travel to every country in the world, El Pochum. thank you for coming onto the show.
El Pochum:Oh, no. Thank you for the invite. It's actually an honor to be my second ever podcast, as you know, I love to chit chat. I love to conversate just about anything. So it's a pleasure to be here.
David Hernandez:Without a doubt because you are a world renowned traveler, and we're going to dive into your travel stories. after going to Japan for GO Fest, you mentioned that it became one of your favorite places to visit along with 10 other places, which were Mexico, Peru, Russia, Jordan, Australia, Ukraine, Turkey, Sweden, Spain, and Malaysia. Now out of those listed, what would you say would be your top 3 and why?
El Pochum:Right off the bat, Mexico is number one. people tend to go to the typical places, which is like the beaches, like Cancun, Acapulco, and that's great, I mean, there's a great place to go see, but that's not really Mexico. That's touristy Mexico. That's the parts where, you'll see like everything's expensive. You're not going to get the real food, the real people. So if you want the real Mexican experience, you got to go travel out there and what makes Mexico so great is that every city is different. You go to Morelia, it feels like I'm in Europe in some kind of way. You go to Mexico City, that's the must go place to see. Then you go to play like Guanajuato and you get to be like this can't be real like all the houses are painted. you can go up in the top of the hill and see everything, Nighttime, daytime. It's a beautiful thing to see. Mexico has so much to offer. And not only that, it's very affordable. the food, it's number one, it's like, it's amazing. So Mexico is definitely on top of my list and I still haven't yet to see everything. I think I'm about 25 percent covered on Mexico. So we got a long way. Number two, gosh, I gotta think about this one. I would say two and three with no specific order, I definitely had to give a lot of credit to, Russia. Russia was my number one for like a couple of years, but after realizing How much accessible Mexico is, and how affordable it is, it got bumped down to number two. Now don't get me wrong, Russia blew my mind. It's the one of those countries where I grew up thinking, Oh, Russia is bad. US history has taught us that Russia is bad, Cold War, blah blah blah. But Russia blew my mind, it's very surprising. the food, the architecture, the cathedrals, the women, oh my God.
David Hernandez:god.
El Pochum:it's amazing. Like, Russia, every other place I went to, I was like, surprised. I'm just in shock. And culture shock in a very good way. It really did help learning some Russian as well, so that actually, helped me go a long way. Also in Russia. So russia is definitely number two. Number three is definitely going to Jordan. Jordan was one of the first Muslim countries that I experienced, some bit of fear because I remember, obviously, we all grew up in the United States. 9/11, Islamic people, bad people, kaboom, blah blah blah. and I remember, I remember, I remember just like arriving at, Ahmad, the capital, of Jordan. I get there, I order Uber. My hotel was at the Dead Sea, so it was about an hour drive towards the place. Really cheap, like 25 dollars ish for the Uber ride and I remember a guy in their Uber ride. The guy was like, Habibi, would you like me to take you to see something really amazing, like a secret route? I'm like, sure, go for it. And of course the American media was like, Aw, damn, I'm gonna get hijacked by the taliban. Something bad's gonna happen. Something awful. I'm gonna get decapitated. They're gonna kill my family. I'm fucked. But then... As I get to the scene, cause he wanted to show me something, I saw something I never seen before. It's a mountain Full of black snow. I'm like, Yeah and they're like, have you been waiting on like, bro, this is amazing. I've never seen anything like it. It literally looked like a volcano area,
David Hernandez:Ash almost
El Pochum:Ash Yeah, exactly. But he was like, no, Habibi, that's like, like black snow. And I'm like, wow. And if you look on the other side, I saw a dead sea And I'm like, wow What a beautiful sight And after that All my nerves were gone About Islam Muslim people And I'm like wow, this is cool. And after that, I started like this little like spiritual journey of Like connecting with Muslim and Islam And I was just talking to just about every Muslim person there. Everyone was so nice to me. They were being super helpful, super friendly. I went to Jordan, everybody there was so kind and nice. The food, Oh God, the best in the world. Like, Middle Eastern food is just on top of my list. So Jordan and Russia, they're up there, man. they're just places that will blow your mind.
David Hernandez:Now, you know, you talk about how, back in 9 11, there was a lot of prejudice towards Muslims because of, the media and what they were pushing in regards to all Muslims are gonna do this kind of thing. That was just the propaganda that was spewed out. From your experience, because you travel to Russia, and Russia, of course, is in the news recently, and then, Jordan, there's still some people who are hesitant about, the Muslim culture, how has traveling to these places changed your perspective about those countries, both before and after, if that makes sense?
El Pochum:Oh my god, well first of all, I've never had any prejudice towards any group of people, any country. I love to learn about these countries and I love to learn about these people because in the end, I learned to realize that everybody's good. You know, majority of the world has a good kind heart, like, I know, like, there's always a bad rep for every race, but there's always going to be a bad apple from every bunch. but from all my travels, like everybody's just So kind of me, everybody's so generous and I've realized that so many good kind people out there in the world man.
David Hernandez:Now, one thing that's interesting is that you started your Pokemon Go journey actually not even where you're from. You started it actually in New York City, so you were already traveling at the time Pokemon Go started. So what was that like for you to start Pokemon Go where you were?
El Pochum:Gosh, I remember that trip. I was traveling to the east coast of the United States for the very first time in my entire life. I was in New Jersey in my hotel right across from like Manhattan. I saw all of Manhattan, the skyline, all the towers. And I remember he's going on Facebook and I saw, Hey, Pokemon goes coming out, Why don't you give it a go. And I'm like. All right, cool. Let's go ahead and download it. Let's see what it's all about. And I remember being my hotel room and I'm like pulling out my phone. I'm like, Whoa, Squirtle is there. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It is really true. And I'm like, being a little kid again. And like this nostalgic feeling of Pokemon just came back into my life. I'd be honest, like, I'm pretty old. I'm 40 So, technically, I'm an old timer. And I grew up to blue and red ONLY. Afterwards, like I did not like the whole, new typings, the new Pokemon, the nature, And then, all that stuff was just getting too complicated. So I pretty much quit the game for a good, like 15, 20 years. So this was kind of like a nice little thing To get back into. So, I downloaded the game. I was all over New York, playing the game. I had to literally stop by a Starbucks like every two hours to charge my phone because I was running. I didn't have an extra battery pack like we do now. So it was, it was a little tough back then. So I was just on it like 24 hours. And I remember like the next I was going to Baltimore. for BronyCon, believe it or not, I'm actually a Brony and yeah, I remember going to BronyCon, had a good time. I went back to the hotel and I had the itch, I'm like nope, I gotta go out there Pokestops, take down the gyms. my god Pokemon go I've played it since day two not day one I wish I did play this in day one, but day two New York City Going into BronyCon that was just an epic experience my friend and that's what started my journey with Pokemon go.
David Hernandez:you made it sound like you weren't really initially going to download the game. When Pokemon Go was announced, were you just not interested? Like you were just not going to touch it at all?
El Pochum:Well, I never heard about it. I remember just like being in New York city, going to my Facebook and I was just seeing these ads for Pokemon. And at that point, like I said, I was like, okay, maybe I'll give it a little download, but it turned out much better than I thought. It was just a great, fun game. This Pokestops catching Pokemon out there in real life. It was cool.
David Hernandez:And how have you adjusted to like all the new changes? Like the new typing? Have you kind of grown accustomed to like... I'm okay with the new type, like the steel, the dark and the fairy and stuff like that, or you still kind of struggled to where you just don't care for a lot of the Pokemon compared to the originals.
El Pochum:Well, I remember like when the next generation Pokemon were announced, like Larvitar and I think Cyndaquil. I don't really know, like I said, what region they are, but when they got announced, I had one of my best friends who's also a player and he kept Giving me a lot of, advice like, okay, this is Typhlosion, he's a fire type, but he's glassy. Oh, this is Tyranitar, he is very weak to fighting type. Oh, this is, Marill, he's a water type, fairy type. So I was kind of forced to learn all these new typings and all these new Pokemon because obviously if I want to be the best in the game, I have to learn all the typings. I got to learn every Pokemon, all their movesets and what not?
David Hernandez:You have a desire for traveling clearly, and we're going to talk more about into it was that already instilled when Pokemon go downloaded or was Pokemon go kind of the catalyst that led you to even want to travel more?
El Pochum:at that point, when Pokemon Go came out, I have only been outside the country to only Mexico, Dubai, and London. So I was still fairly new to the travel game. I had to travel bug. I had the thought of like visiting multiple countries. I would follow a bunch of like travel influencers and I did get an inspiration to like start a travel channel. However, that backfired. That was just so God awful. I would, because I was like posting, Oh, here's some travel advice. Well, guess what? It's like a hundred other Instagrammers doing the same thing. Oh, here's travel food advice. Guess what? There's a hundred other Instagrammers do the same thing. And so I started to think, what's going to make me stand out? Like what's going to be different than the rest. So it didn't really kicked in until maybe I was like in Peru, which was probably country number like 15. I remember being in Machu Picchu and using the AR feature. I was like, Holy crap, that's a Heracross right here in Machu Picchu. Let's take a picture with it. And I remember I told the person, can you take a picture of me? But then when I saw the pictures, the person took a God awful picture of me. So I told my uncle, yo uncle, do me a favor. And that's when I used the screen recording feature on the iPhone, which was brand new at the time and I screen recorded, my uncle was moving, shaking the camera, but still I captured that video moment of me capturing my very first Heracross in Machu Picchu in South America. that kind of inspired me to think, wait a second, how many people are catching Pokemon around the world? And I'm like, I know there's all these like top YouTubers, like Mystic7 and a Trainer Tips, they're traveling the world getting paid pretty well, but I thought about this. I'm pretty sure they will cover a lot of countries, but let's be honest. I can't imagine them going to like Afghanistan or to Zimbabwe or to Chad or Yemen. Do you, do you even know about Yemen?
David Hernandez:That's one of the places I don't think we can go to as a US, right?
El Pochum:we can, but it's very dangerous place to go to because of the Taliban.
David Hernandez:Right.
El Pochum:But you know what? I'm one of those people that actually, if I build on my Arabic knowledge, which is pretty well, I could probably hold off a conversation with the Taliban. I've heard a lot of stories where people have met the Taliban and they're just people just like us, man. And if I could dare cover that, capturing Pokemon with a Taliban, how sick would that be?
David Hernandez:That'd be some good YouTube content. I can't lie on that one.
El Pochum:So, like I said, ideas of like traveling the world, capturing a Pokemon in every country, it's definitely inspired me to like, be the first one to go to every single country in the world, because yeah, there's a lot of travel influences who have been to every country in the world, but they had a specific goal, you know, and good for them. They accomplished it. But I'm doing something here that nobody in the world is trying to do. And that's to go to every single country, capture one Pokemon and bring it back to the States. Now, if possible, I'm going to try to capture at least one Pikachu in every country. I think that's probably what it's going to stand out. Obviously, if I can catch something that's like a good IV one or whatnot, I'll bring it back to me for tournaments and whatnot. I'll keep something that's like a regional Pokemon, for example, like a Tropius from, I don't know, Egypt or I'll keep the Torkoal from Malaysia or I'll keep a Kangaskhan, you know, But if something like a good IV one pops out or a hundo pops out, definitely keeping those. I'll never forget the day I caught a hundo Buzzwole in Poland, Warsaw, Poland, or a hundo, a Kyruem I caught in Guadalajara, Mexico. So those, yeah, those do stand out, man.
David Hernandez:Are there any regionals that you're missing or do you have all the regionals currently?
El Pochum:I do have all the regionals. I would say the only ones I am missing, like legit regionals are the one from Egypt, the seagull glyph, uh, one, I forget what it's called.
David Hernandez:You didn't get it from GoFest?
El Pochum:I did get it, but it's not the same, you know,
David Hernandez:Oh, so you want a Sigilyph from, uh, I believe it's Greece, right? I think that's where it's located?
El Pochum:Greece, Egypt, like the
David Hernandez:yeah, that area. Yeah, that
El Pochum:Right. So I wanted to capture like that, like an actual legit Pokemon from that region because I caught Pachirisu at GoFest, but it's not the same, you know, like I want to get a Pachirisu from like the north part of the world where it's available.
David Hernandez:Do you have a favorite Pokemon at all?
El Pochum:Oh, how do I not have my favorite Pokemon? Cyduck is my boy. Oh my God. Here's a quick little interesting fact, because I am trying to study all the Pokemon in every single language. Do you know Psyduck's name in other languages?
David Hernandez:No. I don't hardly know any other Pokemon besides maybe a few Japanese ones, but not Psyduck.
El Pochum:IT's Kodak.
David Hernandez:Oh, it's like his evolution. Almost.
El Pochum:Golduck, Kodak. Kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of. But, uh, Psyduck is Kodak in Japanese, in French is
David Hernandez:Seagull Quark? Okay.
El Pochum:Squa psychic and Duck. You know, and I remember I was having this conversation with the, with the French guys at EUIC. I was like, why SQL Quad? Oh, because the duck goes, it's a psychic. So see. And the duck makes a sound quack, quack, quack. And I'm like, no, they may quack. No, no, no. My friend is quack. I say quack, quack. We're at this debate. We're like, it's the overnight about duck sounds now. Trip out on this in German. It's going to throw you off. Like I said, Psyduck, seek a quack and Kodak brace yourself in German. His name is. Anton,
David Hernandez:Wait, what?
El Pochum:Yeah, I saw your face. I guess that's it all because ento is duck in german therefore anton
David Hernandez:I don't know. I feel like you said Entee almost. That's, well, I'm not, I'm not a German speaker for a reason.
El Pochum:no, no, but yeah, like I said, like I said, in french his okay in english is In french is Yeah, that voice that changes and in German is Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton,
David Hernandez:And you know all the Psyduck's names in other languages, right? This is because you sound... Wow, what are the other ones? Do you remember?
El Pochum:Well, I just discovered that, um, Gengar is the same in German. It's Gengar. However, in French, it's, ectoplasma.
David Hernandez:Ooh, I kind of like that, actually.
El Pochum:That is pretty cool.
David Hernandez:Yeah.
El Pochum:And now that I've learned how to read a Hiragana and Katakana in Japanese, I actually went over the Pokemon today and I'm like, what, this is pretty, like now I'm able to reach a Pokemon in Japanese. So I was going over there. I'm like, wow. Some of them have the same name. Some of them have a totally different name. for example, like Pichiyoto. Evolves into Pidgeot. However, in Japanese, Pidgeotto is Pidgeot.
David Hernandez:Oh, so it'd be Pidgey, Pidgeot, Pidgeotto in Japanese. Is that
El Pochum:Actually, no, no, no, no. Um, Pidgey in Japanese, I believe it's like Popo.
David Hernandez:Boto?
El Pochum:Popo, Popo, And it evolves into Pidgeot. Pidgeot. I gotta look it up. It's like Pidgeot, Popo, Pidgeot, Pidgeotto.
David Hernandez:Wow.
El Pochum:Right.
David Hernandez:in the U. S. they just flipped it.
El Pochum:right, they just flipped it kind of like bison and Vega. They flipped the two characters, you know? I'll be studying all those languages. I'm currently like really focused on Japanese. I'm making it my fourth official language. I really want to like travel the world, learn languages and literally learn every single Pokemon in every language possible..
David Hernandez:So what's your way to play Pokemon? Do you just collect? Or, what are the other ways you like to play?
El Pochum:I realized that the majority of people love to collect Pokemon like they love to like get their, hundos. They love to get their shiny. They love to get, specific Pokemon for that reason, especially shiny. Me. I am like the least high for shinies like I would get a shiny, people will get all excited, but I'm like. Well, before we get excited, let's check the IVs. If the IVs are crap, I delete the Pokemon right away. And they're like, what are you doing? It's a, it's a shiny. I'm like, but it's a crap IV. And I don't really care about that. So for me, because I'm a big PV peer and go battle league, I only care about IVs or a hundred percent Pokemon. Only if it's viable for PvP like, if I get like a hundred percent, Golem, I don't care. about to be trashed. It's not really for PvP.
David Hernandez:Right. but that excludes your Pokemon you collect for other countries, right? You keep those kind of separate by themselves?
El Pochum:Right, right, right. So besides that, I do like to collect Pokemon from other countries. I like to collect Pokemon that share my birthday. So October 24th, so that's 10 24. So if I can get a whole bunch of Pokemon with Their birthday, uh, 1024 CP, that'd be great. Or my daughter's birthday, that's my collection.
David Hernandez:you mentioned how you traveled to a lot of places and it'd be impossible for us to cover every single one. What's one that sticks to your mind the most? Like one place that you everybody should go visit that you haven't already mentioned?
El Pochum:oh, man. Oh, man. I look at my wall. I got to look at the thing right here. One place you should go visit. Man, this is tough. That's such a tough question, but I'm going to give props to probably the most unrated country I've been to. Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, go to Poland. I know people are like, why Poland? Well, let me tell you this Eastern Europe is super affordable and it's going to blow your mind by the food, the people, what you're going to see like it's going to blow your mind. It is home to Auschwitz. So if you know a little bit about World War II history, Poland is definitely the place to go. You'll see Oskar Schindler's factory, the place where Hitler put up places, the, um, the concentration camps, Auschwitz. So you'll see like all that. And it's going to hit you hard when you get there, you're gonna be like. Damn, this really did happen and it's going to like humble you a bit. It's going to make you appreciate life a little bit more because you're going to be like, damn, this is what people went through. I've done so many tours and almost every tour is always like very jolly, happy people talking in a mic, giving like the presentation. But this was the first one where I experienced the host was just like Very, uh, mellow speaking in a very soft tone and telling us all these stories. I kid you not, I was crying for the most part, just like hearing some of these stories. I'm a big softie. I'll cry to just about anything. And hearing the stories of like the kids and towards the end, I remember going to this wall where you read all these stories from like survivors and people who did not survive, like their last letter. And I'm just like, Jesus Christ, like, I am just like sobbing. I am in tears reading like anything that involves a father and a daughter that gets me. So when I heard the story about this father who like he had to die in order to save his daughter That was tough to read, man.
David Hernandez:You've been listening to as the Pokeball turns. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So you've talked about how you want to visit every single country in the world. Are you also including countries that are kind of not advised to go to like North Korea, Myanmar, entry Iraq as well.
El Pochum:Oh my God, those are my top, those are the top of my list, my friend,
David Hernandez:Really? What is it about trying to go to that countries that intrigue you so much?
El Pochum:I want to see the truth because as I mentioned, Russia was one of the first countries that exposed me to the truth. All those things that my teachers have taught me, the news has taught me about Russia, same thing with the Middle East, you know, like the, they taught us so much things, so many false things. And when you get there, you're like, that's not true. That's not true. I really do want to see North Korea with my very own eyes. I know it's probably not the most advisable place to go to, but if I can get that dual citizenship and get my Mexican passport, I will do everything I can to go see, That part of the world, the only other communist country besides Russia, I've been to that blew my mind also with the truth was Cuba. Cuba, yeah. It's not, it's not a pretty sight to see like within like the city and the rural areas, but. I was exposed to a lot of truth like the people there are very happy. The people there are loving the people. I saw not everybody happy, but it was just mind blowing. Cuba is talking to the people and hearing some things. So definitely North Korea is on top of my list. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Middle East is like on top of my list that's priority to go visit. All those like forbidden countries are at the top of my list, my friend.
David Hernandez:You don't have any concerns about, Something happening or just the danger or do you just kind of put it to the side and just you consider The reward higher than the risk of going there
El Pochum:Look, I know every country has its good side and its bad side, has a bad side. I've done a lot of research. I followed like the perfect influencers to, guide me to these places. As a matter of fact, I remember I saw this Instagrammer. He keeps going back to Afghanistan very often. And it makes me wonder, wow, you know, like Afghanistan is by God, beautiful. Seen so many stories, seen so many posts on YouTube. It's so beautiful. The food, the people, the experience it's on the top of my list. I know Pokemon might not be a big thing in some of these countries, but me being a big kid and inner kid myself, I want to see what kind of cartoons people are watching, because what if they do like Pokemon? What if, they watch Mickey Mouse? What if they watch, uh, Rugrats or Spongebob? I don't know. But it'd be nice to like conversate about cartoons with, the people out there and with the kids and people, because it's great to talk about cartoons. It brings the inner kid out in people. we'll see, man, I mean, it'd be great if I can talk to Kim Jong un and talk about his favorite cartoon. I guarantee if you give me that moment, I guarantee I will, though Dennis Rodman was able to talk to Kim Jong un. Let me tell you this. I love talking to people. I love bringing the kid and people, and you have no idea how many people I befriended, because of talking about cartoons.
David Hernandez:Really so cartoons really bring people together. This is what you're
El Pochum:yeah. As a matter of fact, I got a little quick story. this happened this year. my lifelong dream to go around the world. So the first destination was in New Zealand. So I landed in Auckland, New Zealand. I went into the bar now, listen up guys, if you guys are watching and you want, advice when it comes to women, confidence goes a long way. I'm walking around Auckland with my Eevee hat and my Eevee backpack. I go into this bar and within like 30 seconds, two beautiful Australian women approach me and we're having like drinks and we're just like having a chat all night long. And I remember dealing with this one guy, like a short guy, Polynesian, kind of looking like the rock and half of his bottom face was full of tattoos. I saw, and I was like, Bro, I wanted to approach him and be like, yo, that's some cool tattoos. The strong girl was like, don't you dare talk to him and I'm like, why don't you do it? I'm warning you. All right, fine, fine, fine. So the night's going through, she goes to the restroom. Can you walk me in the restroom? Yeah, sure. I'm right there. I turn around and I bump into that guy. And I'm like, Oh my bad, bro. Like he looks kind of tough. He looked like very scary looking. Like I said, Polynesian kind of look like the rock, but meaner. And I'm like, bro, I apologize. I didn't mean to bump into you. And his reaction was, Oh my God, that's a cool hat. Where'd you get that backpack? Um, I got it back in the States. Really? Where are you from? Oh, I'm from Los Angeles, California, bro. That's such a sick bro. I love Pokemon. Pokemon is like my favorite cartoon of all time. Can I take my favorite Pokemon? Yeah, sure, bro. I love Bulbasaur. Bulbasaur is my favorite one. He was just this big tough guy just turned into like this big kid, the little kid talking about Pokemon, telling me about his love at Bulbasaur, the cartoon. so we're having the chat girl comes out of the restroom and she grasped me immediately and pulls me over. And she's like, what the fuck did I tell you? Don't talk to him. And then he's like, Hey, what do you guys want to drink? I'm like, it's on me. I'm like, look, babe, he's getting us a drink. All right. Fine. You know, so we, you know, he gets us, he buys us two drinks. Like, oh, you're not saying anything now. So it's almost closing time, And I remember out of nowhere, the guy. He came in with his girlfriend out of nowhere, he punches his girlfriend in the face. And I'm like, Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. What's going on? And that's when the girl says, we gotta go. So we start getting out. We pay our tab. And she tells me, what did I tell you? What? We're having a good time. We're just talking about, what did I tell you? Don't talk to him. What? Why? Just tell me who is that guy? How come you don't want me talking to him? He's the leader of the biggest gang in New Zealand and I told her, well, guess what? We became VFS because of Pokemon. What's up? And you got a free drink, right?
David Hernandez:So because of Pokemon it allowed him to kind of Put his guard down and be able to free y'all to connect that way.
El Pochum:Correct.
David Hernandez:In your opinion was it about Pokemon or cartoons that allow people to connect and be able to cross those bridges?
El Pochum:Well, here's the thing I come to realize, look, we as humans, we all got to grow up, right? You know, we gotta like start a job. We gotta have relationships. You gotta start doing adult things and I get it. You know, we gotta be adults, but in the long run, there's a lot of adults that just quit being a child, you know, like quit, like doing the things that they love. You know, why stop playing Pokemon? Why stop watching your favorite cartoon? It took me a while, but finally this year I was able to, there's gotta be a term for this, you know, like when gay people are finally happy to express themselves, they come out the closet. Well, something happened to me this year where not that I came out the closet, I'm not homosexual in any way, but I kind of came out of this cartoon closet because never in my life have I ever been this happy because now everywhere I go, I rock Pokemon gear. I have Pokemon earrings. I have Pokemon shirts. I have Pokemon, everything. And everywhere I go, I kid you not. There's always someone that walks up to me like, Hey, cool shirt. Oh my God. I like Pokemon. And we started having a conversation and I talked to people. I'm like, well, how come you don't play Pokemon? Oh man. I grew up. I don't have time, but yes, you do. You know, like you gotta find time to the things that you love to do. Like now I'm like starting a Psyduck collection. you may have seen my Twitter post where I bought all those plushies in Japan, I'm living the happiest time of my life because this is one, I don't know who said it, but as you get older, you need to satisfy your 10 year old self or your five year old self. Me growing up poor, me growing up, not having access to all these things. I'm living the life now and being able to access the world access, the knowledge to communicate with people and having access to all these toys. I've always wanted. Why not? Right.
David Hernandez:I don't even know if this would be the correct term. It sounds like you almost had an awakening to where you know, you kind of realize like, why am I trying to hide who I really am? I love Pokemon. I love, you know, engaging into my younger self, right? To where... A lot of people had to go through that as well, cause you know, Pokemon when it came out, it was frowned upon as you grew older, like, why are you still into that stuff? And a lot of people have had to go through that, and once you kind of come to accept like, hey, this is who I am, this is what I like, why should I not indulge in what I like? It's not hurting anybody else, it's not killing anybody, why not? Hahahaha
El Pochum:That's correct. And that's why, um, Japan blew my mind because it was probably one of the first countries where I was able to be myself and I was praised by so many people. I had the Pikachu Luchador mask on and everybody around was like, Oh, kakkoi desu and which means that's so cool. Or kawaii desu, that's cute. And when I heard those words, I would turn around and be like, photo. And they're like, hi, hi, you know, uh, Arigato. And I'm like, all right, cool. this is where like all the years of wrestling knowledge kicked in. I grew up a big fan of Bret the Hitman hard. And I would always remember how he would always like walk down the aisle, he get his glasses and he picks a random kid in the audience and gives him the glasses. So when the Japanese people were like, you know, Hey, picture time, I will get the poncho that was wearing and I put the poncho over them and I saw their face. Like, Oh, and they were just so happy. And that made me realize. This is who I am meant to be, you know, like deep down. I know I'm an entertainer at heart. And so little by little, like we're getting our, our foot in the ground, like international wise, It's crazy to know that there's, people in Europe that knew about me. There's people out there in Asia that know about me, but in Japan, they never heard of me. Little by little, you know, people are slowly getting to know who I am. So by learning this Japanese, hopefully it opens the doors to communicate with them. And who knows, man, maybe I will love to one day talk to the CEO of Pokemon who also is a big Styduck, Kodak fan, and we can just have a good time just being Kodaks together. Yeah. So cool.
David Hernandez:For a way people know about you, it's because you do content creation, you do streaming, you started streaming on Facebook, which is completely out of left field for most people, most people start on Twitch. What is it about the streaming platform that made you want to start there?
El Pochum:I never heard of Twitch. I've heard of it, but I wasn't too familiar with it. So when I was on Facebook. I started there because it was just easier to start. I realized that most of my audience was Spanish speakers and let's be real, a lot of the people in Central and South America don't really make that much money. And not sure if any people know about this, but most of them cannot afford like the cell phone plan that we pay. Like my God, I'm paying almost 400 for me and my family's, and my daughter's cell phone plan. It's ridiculous. for them, like they probably get like the 20, 10, 20 phone plan and the thing with their phone plan is that they may have very limited data, but they get unlimited. Certain social media. So they might have unlimited WhatsApp, unlimited Facebook and unlimited Facebook messenger. If they upgrade for five hours more, they'll get unlimited Instagram and unlimited Tik TOK, something like that. Unlimited YouTube. I don't know. Every plan is different. So Getting that kind of knowledge, I realized, you know what, I want to do it for my people. People will not be able to access me if they're on their mobile phone, going back home from work, because that's going to chug their data. And so, I stuck to Facebook, and it really broke my heart having to leave the platform. Once in a while, I'll stream on Facebook, but that's so god awful, streaming on Facebook. So, that's why I'm sticking to Twitch right now.
David Hernandez:Do you just leave because it was just so bad, or was it just...
El Pochum:It's just, I mean, Let's just put it this way, I've been streaming on Streamlabs, I specifically choose Pokemon Go as my game of choice, but for some reason on Facebook, it comes out as Resident Evil VR.
David Hernandez:What the heck? What? How does that make any sense?
El Pochum:Well, one day I was, I wanted to try Resident Evil VR, and for some reason, it got stuck on that. I disinstalled the stream last platform on my PC, reinstalled it. And it's still on Resident Evil. I tried to message the company, they don't respond. And I'm like, I'm losing a lot of viewers because of this, because if it says Pokemon go, people will know, Hey, he's live playing Pokemon go.
David Hernandez:How did you find your audience on Facebook? Because Facebook, for most people, from the content creators I've talked with, Facebook is relatively dead, but for you to have a following is really interesting. How were you able to build an audience there? And what advice would you give for people who wanted to do Facebook?
El Pochum:Well, here's the thing. I've realized that I was very, very different, very wild, very alternative, no holds bar, no fucks given when I first started. I would do my streaming and I was known as the broke gamer when I first started, I was gonna be the broke gamer as my handle, but it wasn't really working because I remember it was like a couple of people coming in, it was a bunch of Latinos, Mexicans specifically, and Peruvians. they're like, how do you spell your name? Broke gamer. So I realized they're not really following. This is not going to work because. they don't even know what the word broke means. They know broke means to break something. But in my terms, it means like you're broke. Like you don't have money. So they don't get that. And gamer,
David Hernandez:It's a slang term that people don't understand right?
El Pochum:correct. And so it wasn't working. Pochum was a nickname that was given to me 20 years ago at my very first job. So I stick with that and it worked. But I remember in the beginning it was tough because you would only get like five, less than 10 viewers on your streaming platform, but I launched a TikTok video. A tick tock like video. It was pretty funny. It went pretty viral and bam, my page when I remember from like less than 500 followers in the first three months, to like literally over 10, 000 followers. And within six months.
David Hernandez:Wow, that's crazy. Just all because of the TikTok?
El Pochum:That and also the Facebook and people started noticing like the kind of person I was, I had this girl, one of my best friends, she's, travels with me very often and she's an only fans kind of creator, uh, Lori, if you're listening, hi, I love you. she is like one of my closest, truest friends and it's because of her. I would say it's, I. Credit to the growth of my, show because I realized, Hey, I thought, how would you guys like to have a girl as a guest? Yo, yo, let's have him over. And I know sex appeal works with Latin America. So I'm like, all right. So I went to her apartment one day, we stream, she had a stripper pole and I'm like, Let's go, if I hit a 5-0, me and my friend are going to dress in a stripper pole. And of course, at a time I was destroying everybody at GBL, so we were just hitting a stripper pole and bam, just spinning around doing pole dances. but then I realized, you know, what Latinos. They love, women. So I would start bringing like girls as guests to come over and, Oh my God, my thing started to blow up. also to know some as a small fact, I was the very first Pokemon go Facebook streamer to hit level, 10, which was the legend right now. It's legend. But at the time it was level, 10. So it was season two. I was in Caleb Peng's team, Skarmory, shiftry and Meganium. And I'll never forget that stream. There was like over a thousand people watching, so much donations being made on my live stream. And Oh my God, people were just like there with me to celebrate that moment. I remember my daughter was across the street. She was rooting for me. I was crying in tears. I was like, I hit legend, season two and like, so I had to pose, I had the outfit and it was just like amazing moment to be part of history in Facebook gaming.
David Hernandez:for those who don't know, what does El Pocho mean?
El Pochum:So Pocho means derives from the word pocho. Pocho is a word to make fun of, Mexicans or Latinos who are born and raised in United States in a way they're kind of not really Mexican and not really, sticking to their heritage. They're more like whitewash than anything. I'll be honest. I can be a little bit whitewashed sometimes. I can be ghetto. I can be very Mexican. I can change my tone. You know, like if I'm talking to rich clients, I'll be super professional. If I'm talking to the hood ghetto gangsters, what's up, homie? What's up? You know, all that stuff. I will talk ghetto slang with them. If I'm talking to my Mexican fight, Hey, what's up? Like that's the thing about me. I can adjust to any situation. I can adjust to any group setting, and I will just go with the flow.
David Hernandez:I think that's something that I can relate to as well because... I'm sure you watched Selena and I remember the scene to where, uh, the father was talking to Selena about, you know, we're too Mexican to be with the white people, we're too white to be with the Mexican people. And I relate to that because I'm so far whitewashed that most people who are Mexican heritage don't recognize me as Mexican. But I'm too, I'm not white enough to be part of, you know, that crowd. So you're kind of caught in between two places and it's very awkward, but. It allows me to be able to be flexible and to be able to adapt in different situations just like you do.
El Pochum:That's true. That's true. That's true. I mean, trust me. I have a lot of friends from all walks of life. You know, I can name you five white friends that I have. I can name you five Asian friends, five Latinos, five black friends, five Indian friends. I just love talking to people in general, dude. Like I love all types of people. Let's talk about Pokemon. Let's talk about cartoons. Let's talk about good times. You know tHere's a lot of people that misjudge me that don't understand me, but they understand that all this, some of the stuff I do online, it's all for show. It's not really who I am. Once you get to know who I really am. You'll know who I am. there's a lot of haters Like right on Twitter lot of haters. I definitely don't want to mention names, but in a tournament, I was trying to, make amends with that person. And they straight out come and fuck off you fucking mexican you piece of shit mexican and I think I have I have it all on tape on my 360 camera. I know haters just come and go. There's a couple of streamers haters But for the most part I get along with everybody dude, I I know people are out there talking shit about me and that's great because I really don't care About what they had to say about me. I know who I am. I know what I'm worth and I'm only hanging out with the people who matter.
David Hernandez:One thing that you've been passionate about is mainly just the Latin American content creators. You feel like that they don't really have a place for people to kind of see them. In your opinion, like, what way can the people within Pokemon Go kind of promote them, or what is a way for them to get them engaged to kind of discover these Latin American content creators that people don't know about?
El Pochum:Latin America is definitely, overshadowed by everything that's going around the world with all these NIC, the regional tournaments. how can we solve this? Like literally, you just gotta get these people like, from Pokemon Go, Pokemon Play to come to one of our tournaments the only one in like Latin America would be Mexico city regionals, which is once a year. And then there's all those tournaments in Brazil. I don't know what their obsession is where Brazil is, but there's not many tournaments happening in like Peru or Ecuador or Chile. I understand, you know, it's not the most common place to hold tournaments, but we need to get people to go out there. How? I don't know, but we need to get some like high budget production, like the way to do it at these, regional tournaments at one of these, regionals in South America or Latin America, because my God, Mexico city regionals this year was Definitely one of the lowest budget events I've attended, but my God, the passion, the love for the game, like it was a sold out event, 256 players entered, and I can tell you this we're playing games like during intermissions. They're not doing that. Any regionals or any NIC if you were just like on standby waiting, waiting, waiting, but no, we're playing, Everybody, okay, we're going to pick three volunteers and you're going to act out as a Pokemon and the crowd has to guess who, which Pokemon are you, you know? and I remember I got one, one, one guy to join me and we're going to do a duel. And I told the guy, I'm going to be flapping in the floor like a Magikarp and you're going to kick me. And I'm going to look like I'm evolving into Gyarados. And then people were like, Oh, it's a Magikarp evolving into a Gyarados, you know? So lot of fun games are happening in Latin America and it's a whole different experience, man. Like I'm telling you, you gotta check it out. people need to like, give Latinos, give Latin America a chance. There is so much talent out there. Not only players, but shoutcasters. They have so much potential. They have so much to give. I guarantee you get any of those guys into the broadcast booth. You're going to have a damn good time.
David Hernandez:Last thing I want to talk about just for this interview is, you got the chance to attend not one, but two GoFests. You got to attend both Japan and New York City. What was it like for you to attend those GoFests? Let's start with Japan.
El Pochum:man, Japan, Japan, Japan. You know,
David Hernandez:It took one of top ten spots! Let's just, let's put that in
El Pochum:it didn't. right, right. I didn't realize how big Pokemon was until I finally attended a GoFest because if you look at GoFest or any events that happen around the world, you realize that a lot of the Japanese events sell up right away. And I'm like wondering why, you know, like, what, like, is it really that big out there? Oh, yeah, it's the Mecca. Japan is the Mecca of Pokemon. that line to enter the park was almost like, I kid you not about a mile long.
David Hernandez:Oh wow.
El Pochum:Yeah, it was very, very long. We had to like zigzag, go around in this hot, extreme hot weather. And it was just a blast. Like just being there. I got to meet some Japanese content creators out there. Great people. We still keep in touch these days. they're helping me with my Japanese. So Arigato to them. the people there, gosh, like the only two places where I see passion with the game has been Latin America and Japan, like God damn, like Japanese people are really into it. Like, it's, it's mind blowing. Like Japan is unlike anything else. So I did the in park events and then when I went back to Osaka in the city, oh my God, everywhere you went, people are on their phones. it's like New York city crowded, but with people on their phones playing Pokemon, it was just phenomenal seeing one, I would say one in every three people was playing Pokemon in Osaka.
David Hernandez:Oh wow, that's crazy. So they were everywhere, basically.
El Pochum:They were everywhere. The raids, I mean, you can do a raid, boom, gets filled up in seconds, you know, with 20 people in the lobby. so that, that's my experience in Japan. Japan was just amazing. I would go, I'm actually planning to go back to more future events because like I said, the people there, they love me. the content creators. They're great. So with studying Japanese two hours a day, I think I should have some kind of basic knowledge to just get some conversations going out there in Japan when I return.
David Hernandez:What about New York city? How was it different? Or how was there in New York city? That bad? Well, I guess coming from Japan, I guess. So
El Pochum:yeah, coming from Japan, it's like, put it this way, imagine, Japan being a deluxe supreme pizza and New York City being cheese pizza.
David Hernandez:that's a
El Pochum:It's like, well, yeah, it's like they take, it's totally different. look, New York wasn't the best experience. I remember it was raining the day before, so it was like my shoes, like my feet got wet, the whole grass was wet, half of the park was pretty awful. the production level was pretty bad. My God, like I tell you, of all the Pokemon events I've been to, nothing will ever beat Monterrey Safari Zone. No, not Safari Zone. It was like a Go Tour. That was by far the best event ever. But going back to New York, New York was lackluster, wasn't really the best. I don't like the fact that I had to pay an X amount of money just for half a day. Whereas, like, another go fest. It was like multiple days. I mean, yeah, I got to do city stuff and whatnot, but it's just not the same. the New York event was okay. there was some cool stuff to check out, but it just wasn't the same. You know, Japan just did it better. Mexico did it better. I just wish they put more focus on, production on these GoFest events, because yeah, it was, it was, it was missing out on, on, on things. So Niantic or Pokemon company, if you're hearing this, if you ever are, go to my Mexican homies, go to Mexico, see how shit gets sent out there because we make it better.
David Hernandez:My last question in regards to go fest, you know, if somebody's on the fence and they're thinking about going to a go fest, what would you tell them?
El Pochum:If you're thinking of going to a GoFest, get ready to have fun. Get ready to have fun. Get ready to make friends. Because some people are like, okay, do I go alone? Do I go with friends? You can do both., definitely keep in touch with like Facebook groups or discord groups and go out there and check out what people are doing and what events are being done. Because I'll never forget in New York city, I hung out with like, Jesus Christ, with, um, battle bill with a HomeSliceHenry with, Desi's the best and everybody We're all just like drinking having a good time twerking dancing crip walking having a blast man, dude It was just so much fun hanging out with them and just being humans, you know, not Pokemon players, just being cool human beings.
David Hernandez:Well, poach em. You've been a wonderful guest. I do have one last question before we do close this taco stands. So you have the goal of being able to go to every country in the world after you see the last country available. What would be next for you?
El Pochum:wow. Very good question. Um, at that point, I'd probably be a millionaire or something like that. That's my goal, but. Oh yeah, I got some like apps and games I'm working on, but what would be my goal? I would probably, after going to every single country, I mean, I don't know how old I'll be, I don't know when, what part of my life I'll be, but at that point, I'll probably try my best to like, if I do have a significant other, it'd be great to like travel the world with somebody, maybe it could be with my daughter, Or with a family member or a best friend or significant other, but that probably would be my next goal. Just like, okay, we travel the world. We caught Pokemon in every single country. Or possibly, if possible, like I said, if I do have that budget to do all that again. I will love to go back and give back to the country, I will love to give back to the kids. I will like to go to some of the most poorest areas, make it the most dangerous areas. I don't care, but hopefully people will know that I'm like a real life Santa Claus going out there and giving away Pokemon plushies and cards to kids out there.
David Hernandez:Oh, be cool.
El Pochum:I want to do that. So I will never forget being a kid, being poor and not having access to the things that I wanted. And now I want to make that little dream come true. I got, dude, I got like Pikachu plushies. I got from Goodwill, backpacks, plushies, stuff from Japan. I'm getting away. One of those Pikachu ramen. To one lucky kid in Mexico and in Peru.
David Hernandez:Oh, that's awesome. They're gonna love that. Whoever wins it.
El Pochum:Oh yeah, man. But they had to work for it though. It's not going to be easy. Like I'm going to do some kind of like a scavenger hunt where if you complete the list, boom, you win the big prize.
David Hernandez:Well, El Pochum. That is the interview. Thank you for ing us with your presence and talking about your travel stories. You really have been to a lot of places, and I'm hoping they're able to get that within this show. Before you go, if people wanna connect with you, if they wanna check out your content, where can they go? By all means, please plug away.
El Pochum:I'm on Instagram very, very often. Instagram is like the place to be. I've been getting, coached by, various top YouTubers and TikTokers. They're pushing me to go to those platforms. Yeah, definitely want to keep up the content so that way you guys can see my travel journeys, see all the language of Pokemon, so you can learn, Gengar and Psyduck in German or French or whatnot.
David Hernandez:For sure, man. I'll make sure to include links for El Pochum's content in the description of today's episode. Thank you for listening to As the Pokeball Turns. If you want to support the show, consider becoming a patron by either clicking the link in the description or going to patreon. com slash as the pokeball turns. Now here's a sneak peek for the next episode of As the Pokeball Turns.
