Youngster Joey

About

Youngster Joey is a Pokémon trainer NPC who first appeared in the second installment of the Pokémon series, Pokémon: Gold and Silver. His constant boasting about his low-leveled Rattata, which he claims is in "the top percentage of Rattatas", along with his excessive phone calls, has managed to garnered attention with fans of the series.

Origin

Youngster Joey^[4] first appeared in the video games Pokemon: Gold and Silver, as an early NPC opponent of the playable character, being only equipped with a low-leveled Rattata. After defeating him, Joey will offer you to give you his Pokegear number, allowing you to have rematches with him throughout the game, or often time to call to solely praise his Rattata.

"Remember my super cool Rattata? My Rattata is different from regular Rattata. It's like my Rattata is in the top percentage of rattatas."

Spread

Even though he appeared in Gold and Silver, it wasn't until his reappearance ten years later in the remake, Pokemon: HeartGold and SoulSilver, when fans began to take notice of him. A Facebook^[1] fan-page for Youngster Joey was created on March 14, 2010, the same day as the North American release of the remake, accumulating over 6,000 likes, along with the parody Twitter account @YoungsterJoey^[2], being created three days later, gaining over 300 followers. The earilest known mention about Joey in online discussion appeared in Neoseeker^[3] forum thread created on March 16, 2010 in which members began mentioning other NPCs as an annoyance.

Throughout the first half of 2010, mentions of Youngster Joey began appearing on sites like Yahoo Answers^[5], GameFAQs^[6], the Pallet Tribune Forums^[7], and the Bulbagarden Forums^[8]. On May 26th, DeviantART member shinyscyther submitted a fake Pokemon card titled "Joeys Rattata LEGEND,"^[10] (shown below) which featured a Rattata mimicking the art style of the Pokemon LEGEND trading cards.

On August 3rd, the "fuck yeah, youngster joey"^[9] Tumblr was launched, featuring fan art and postings relating to Joey and his Ratatta. On April 12, 2011, the CollegeHumor site The Dorklyst ranked Youngster Joey at number seven in its list titled "7 Minor Characters Nerds Made Famous."^[11] On Tumblr, fan art and posting relating to Joey can be found under the tags "#Youngster Joey"^[12] and "#top percentage."^[13] Searching for "Youngster Joey" also generates nearly 350 results on DeviantART as of January 2013.^[14]

Notable Examples

Cosplay

Search Interest

Search queries for "youngster joey" began to take off on April of 2010, a month after the International release of Pokemon: HeartGold and SoulSilver.

External References