Interview with Joe Merrick (Serebii.net) - Johto Times

On October 21st, 1999, a Pokémon fan called Joe Merrick created a website which grew to become Serebii.net, one of the most trusted and respected sources of news and information related to Pokémon. To celebrate twenty-five years of his website, I had the pleasure of speaking to Joe to reflect on the history of Serebii.net and its place in the Pokémon fan community.

Right, so I'm Joe and I run Serebii.net, the world's foremost hub for Pokémon news and information and I have been running it for almost 25 years now. Through the site I cover all aspects of the Pokémon franchise, from games, to the anime, and even to museums.

So in the 90s, Pokémon was just starting out and was so mysterious throughout school. The anime came here and we were all watching it and a friend soon went on holiday to America and came back with the game. I eventually asked my mum to import it, which she did, and the rest is basically history.

Nice memory for the original name, haha. Basically, it was boredom. We were in the computer lab during a lunch break and friends and I were bored so basically decided to make webpages on WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors on Geocities and other sites. I decided to go forward with a Pokémon one since that was growing here and just about to release on the Game Boy, and it just fell into place.

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