When Pokémon Go arrived earlier this year, the world was turned on to the strange intrigue of augmented reality. We read about people walking off cliffs with their heads in their phones. And then the many others that had made new friends at Pokémon breeding areas, waiting to catch the most prized pocket monsters. The Niantic app swiftly became a cultural phenomenon, residing somewhere between our current reality and the looming seduction of VR technology. Celebrities, too, were enamored of the game, and a brand new Maroon 5 video riffs on the game’s themes; this time, though, the celebrities themselves are the bait.
The video for “Don’t Wanna Know,” as Gizmodo reports, portrays a skewed, BoJack Horseman-esque Los Angeles in which celebrities are dressed in giant animal costumes: turtles, dogs, bears, and even oranges. Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, while pining for his love interest, Sarah Silverman, is followed around by fans waving their phones at him, firing blue AR lasers intended to capture him and his celebrity friends. Ed Helms and Vince Vaughn also star in the clip.
En masse, the video is a lighthearted commentary on both our paparazzi fetishization of celebrities and the strange realm of technology that we’ve begun to embrace. Everywhere we go we lead with our phones, just in case there’s a little monster in our augmented path or a snapshot opportunity with a celebrity. There’s no arguing that phones have become an integral part of the way we live in this world, but maybe we should put them down every once in a while and just chill out. Unless of course there is a Pikachu to catch.
Check out the video above and share your take on it in the comments.
Image:Â Interscope