Gholdengo

About

Gholdengo is a Ghost/Steel-type Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet in late 2022. The Pokémon is the 1,000th Pokémon ever created. However, its design, a solid gold Pokémon with dread-like hair, divided the fanbase upon release. Gholdengo's peculiar design also inspired various fan art, memes and discussions following its reveal.

Origin

In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, players need to find 999 Gimmighoul coins across the map in order to evolve the Pokémon Gimmighoul into Gholdengo.^[1] The Pokémon has a solid gold body with dreads (shown below). Its design initially leaked on November 10th, a week before the game's release.^[2]

Spread

As Gholdengo's design spread ahead of the game's release date on November 18th, 2022, many users were divided on its design. For example, on November 12th, Twitter user @slowflake1601^[3] tweeted praise of the design, writing, "Gholdengo has so much personality it's unreal. If you complain about it possibly being Pokémon #1000 you simply don't know what you're talking about" (shown below, left). On November 10th, user @sl33pyss^[4] then posted a Pen Pineapple Apple Pen meme joking that the Pokémon was a mix of a cheese string mascot and C3PO (shown below, right).

Upon release, social media continued to be vocally divided over Gholdengo. On November 21st, Twitter user @JohnstoneYT posted a video of Gimmighoul evolving and reacting with shock upon seeing Gholdengo (shown below, top). On November 17th, YouTuber NickCucc described it as one of the most grueling but satisfying evolution methods in a video that gained over 96,000 views in four days (shown below, bottom).

So I finally evolved Gimmighoul in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet… pic.twitter.com/CHuwuxudrI

— Johnstone (@JohnstoneYT) November 21, 2022

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References