[link to www.atlasobscura.com]

7/11/16

snip:

“We recruited Jigglypuff to deal with the sodomite Clefairy" is probably not a sentence you thought you'd read today.

When you log onto Pokémon Go—the real-world monster-catching sensation sweeping the nation—the app warns you to pay attention to your surroundings. The game’s creators don’t want you walking into moving traffic just to nab your fourteenth Pidgey, or getting robbed at gunpoint at a Pokestop.

Luckily for all of us, they don’t say anything about trolling hate groups. One of the game’s “gyms”—real-world spots where players can gather to pit their Pokémon against each other—is at 3701 SW 12th Street in Topeka, Kansas. When it’s not serving as a digital monster colosseum, this is the home of the Westboro Baptist Church, a hate group infamous for picketing soldier’s funerals with virulent anti-gay signs. This past weekend, a user named PinkNose took over the in-game gym and set it up with an appropriate guard: a pink Clefairy.

the Westboro Baptist Church immediately escalated the situation. “We recruited Jigglypuff to deal with the sodomite Loveislove Clefairy for us,” the hate group Tweeted yesterday evening."

...more at link.