Once upon a time we were all minding our own business, catching Pidgeys in the Trader Joe's cheese aisle and shoving Yellow Team scum out of midtown, when "Pokemon Go" servers went down. Naturally, the only solution is to download a "Pokemon Go" server status app and wait patiently by the phone for the Poke-gods to grant us back our Literal Reason for Being — because honestly, checking over and over and over again by yourself is more than a little depressing. Almost as depressing as that damn Ivysaur CP 393 that ran away from me in Central Park yesterday. (No, YOU'RE bitter AF.)
It makes sense that it's crashing today — while "Pokemon Go" was hugely popular by last weekend, over the week it surpassed Tinder as the most popular app and set records for engagement time (43 minutes per user, y'all). And this is the first major weekend we've all been off work and flooding the server. (I mean, true trainers were catching Rattatas from the office bathroom stall mid-pee, but whatever, normal people.) In any case, at least we are all united by our "Pokemon Go"-less angst — so united, in fact, that we have two different ways to check the servers to know when to get online.
The first is a website called CCMCD, which has a page that lets users plug in whether "Pokemon Go" servers are down, faulty, or functioning. It looks like this:
Unsurprisingly, everyone is reporting instability right now. Go do your civic duty as a trainer and report the "Pokemon Go" server status yourself, or just keep refreshing until we're back online.
And if you don't have that kind of time in your life, download the Hooks app, where creator Oleg Kozynenko has created a shortcut to send users notifications about the "Pokemon Go" server status on iPhone and Android. All you have to do is search for "Pokemon Go" in the search box and choose "'Pokemon Go' Server Status alert".
In the meantime, if you're looking for something to do while you're staring into the funneling black void that is having free time without "Pokemon Go" to fill it up, then by all means, check out another one of Bustle's articles on how to cope when "Pokemon Go" is down. I can't bring the game back, guys — what do I look like, Pikachu's magic tears? — but I can at least offer you this very small solace. Good luck, comrades. Also, BLUE TEAM 4 LIFE.
Images: The WB; Hooks; CCMD
