Pokémon’s Regirock Grew to become An Absurdist Punchline

When a number of corners of the web collide, you typically come upon among the most absurd, unexplainable nonsense. That’s half my TikTok For You Web page, and having firmly set myself on the Pokémon TikTok observe, the algorithm feeds me all types of movies of Pikachu and all his 1000+ mates.Which means I’ve seen numerous clips that insert the Technology III rock-type titan Regirock into any meme and format you’ll be able to think about, and I’ve been racking my mind for months attempting to clarify it to individuals.

Many of those movies originate from the account regirocktok. This account has dozens of movies that put Regirock into completely different moments of popular culture. If there’s a sentence that has been uttered by a celeb or public determine that may have Regirock’s identify pressured into it one way or the other, this account has discovered it and put TikTok’s text-to-speech over the audio to say the Pokémon’s identify. Additionally they put its low, robotic voice within the video sooner or later for good measure.

The regirocktok account could be the largest advocate for placing Regirock and its different Regi-brethren in numerous clips, however it’s not the only real supply of members of the Legendary Titans used as meme fodder within the Pokémon group. The Regis (Regirock, Regice, Registeel, Regigas, Regieleki, and Regidrago) are all outlined by being largely faceless entities that embody completely different components. Their “faces” are simply dot-like eyes, so that they don’t convey feelings by way of expressions. Nonetheless, regardless of their unbelievable Pokér face, every of them has an absurd-sounding voice, and the juxtaposition of their imposing options and the foolish sounds they utter makes them excellent punchlines.

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These contrasting options make Regirock and its fellow titans straightforward to mission on. It’s why, when Pokémon followers are all the time in search of a Regi joke. It’s why a video of an individual coated in floating tubes resulted in in a made-up, water-type Regi referred to as Regitube changing into a viral sensation. Regirocktok is the pure endgame for the fandom’s adoration for these characters on a platform like TikTok, the place tendencies evolve, however keep a selected format. This may be by way of a selected dance or audio, with creators riffing on these bases to make new jokes, all of which require a fundamental understanding of the unique format to be in on it.

Attempting to clarify how we obtained to regirocktok nearly takes away the magic of the joke that we’re all in on. It makes zero sense to anybody on the surface,however is definitely understood by anybody who has been on-line and a Pokémon fan, and who has seen how obscure fandom perceptions of one thing can morph into memes. The Ruby and Sapphire PokéDex entries describe Regirock as one thing highly effective that needed to be sealed away, however to a subset of contemporary Pokémon followers, it can all the time be Cunty Regirock with a purse.