--- title: Epic Video 'Shows Huge Mob in Taipei Racing After Pokémon' description: The unauthenticated video could, if confirmed, be indicative of just how all-consuming the smartphone game has become canonical: https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/ author: Nash Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-22T09:32:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:40.143Z og:title: Epic Video 'Shows Huge Mob in Taipei Racing After Pokémon' og:description: Thousands-strong crowd races through streets in surreal but unauthenticated clip og:url: https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Epic Video 'Shows Huge Mob in Taipei Racing After Pokémon' twitter:description: Thousands-strong crowd races through streets in surreal but unauthenticated clip twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Pokémon Go May Have Just Shown Us What the End of the World Looks Like > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Driver Playing Pokemon Go Crashes Into Police Car. [Watch (HLS stream): Driver Playing Pokemon Go Crashes Into Police Car.](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Mq4MoLNW.m3u8) (0:51)  _Published 2016-07-20. A man drove into a cop car while playing Pokémon Go on his phone in Baltimore on Monday._ by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins Aug 22, 2016 9:32 AM UTC by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins Aug 22, 2016 9:32 AM UTC A surreal video that purports to show thousands of [Pokémon Go](http://time.com/4400791/pokemon-go-iphone-android-nintendo/) players in Taiwan stampeding after a Snorlax — a relatively rare creature in the Pokémon pantheon — could, if confirmed, be indicative of just how all-consuming the smartphone game has become. The unverified video was [first posted on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/maggiejoypig/videos/1352812231398943/) on Saturday by a user in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, and later posted on YouTube. In it, we see a mob pushing through an intersection in what looks like the city’s Xinbeitou district with the urgency and intensity one usually expects of marathons or attempts to escape alien invasions or terrorist attacks. There was a Snorlax waiting for them, it is alleged, and so they took off en masse. While TIME has not authenticated the clip, [Chinese media reports](http://taiwan.huanqiu.com/roll/2016-08/9341622.html) say that the Xinbeitou area has become a daily focus for “thousands” of players looking to catch the particularly exotic Pokémon that appear to populate the surrounding streets. Overcrowding is so intense, reports say, that the civil-defense brigade has had to be called in, along with police reinforcements from neighboring areas. The Pokémon Go craze has been causing disturbances in many parts of Asia. In the Thai capital, Bangkok, police have threatened to arrest pedestrians and motorists [playing the game on major roads](http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1067812/police-launch-pokemon-blitz) because of the number of accidents the game has caused. In Cambodia, players have caused outrage by chasing Pokémon in the [Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum](http://time.com/4446135/pokemon-go-phnom-penh-tuol-sleng-cambodia/). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/"},"headline":"Pokémon Go May Have Just Shown Us What the End of the World Looks Like","datePublished":"2016-08-22T09:32:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:40.143Z","description":"Thousands of people swarm a Taiwanese intersection in a scene reminiscent of science fiction","url":"https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Video Games","Bizarre","pokemon go"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nash Jenkins","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/","name":"Pokémon Go May Have Just Shown Us What the End of the World Looks Like"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Driver Playing Pokemon Go Crashes Into Police Car.","description":"A man drove into a cop car while playing Pokémon Go on his phone in Baltimore on Monday.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Mq4MoLNW/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-07-20T16:16:26.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Mq4MoLNW.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/","duration":"PT51S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4460911/pokemon-go-taipei-stampede-snorlax-mob-xinbeitou-taiwan/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```