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My 13-year-old stepson just told me this story: When Pokémon Red and Green was first released in 1996, there were dozens or hundreds of suicides of children caused by high-frequency sounds in the theme music for the "Lavender Town" location in the game. The game developers had to change the music to prevent additional suicides.

Here are detailed descriptions of this story:

Is there any evidence that anything like this occurred, or that it could have occurred?

(I should note that I dismiss this story as false simply due to its implausibility and lack of credible sources, but my stepson is convinced it is true. His friends who told him about it believe it, and it is discussed as if true in online gaming forums. To him, the fact that major news organizations did not report it is evidence of a cover-up. I'm hoping to use this opportunity to teach him something about critical thinking.)

Sklivvz
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Kristopher Johnson
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    obligatory correlation related [xkcd](http://xkcd.com/925/) – ratchet freak Jun 01 '12 at 17:51
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    From the knowyourmeme link that you provided, it's stated that this came from 4chan, which is well known as being a source of trolling. Every time I've seen this urban legend it's always been quite clear that it's just that - an urban legend. – fluffy Jun 01 '12 at 21:30
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    creepypastas are urban myth by definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_phenomena – Morgan T. Jun 06 '12 at 19:40
  • Is this related to the "outbreak" of epileptic seizures caused by flashing graphics in one or more episodes of the show? See [Photosensitive epilepsy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy). – oosterwal Jun 14 '12 at 04:36
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    The [exact same question](http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2679/how-true-is-the-lavender-town-syndrome) has been asked and answered over on SE's very own Anime and Manga site, and though it's not really answered to Skeptics standards it could serve as a jumping off point. – Tacroy Mar 13 '13 at 21:55
  • Wasn't Pokemon released as red and blue outside of Japan? It seems if the claim specifically mentions red and green, it is necessarily restricted to Japan. –  Mar 03 '14 at 19:27
  • Although, the same music is the same in Red and Blue and Green, but strange that the claim would mention Red and Green instead of the more international Red and Blue. –  Mar 03 '14 at 22:47
  • 'Associated with' or 'directly related to' is the real question here. – Owen C. Jones Mar 04 '14 at 11:51

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