The TTC is investigating after a man walked along the subway tracks at Union Station in a viral video making fun of Pokemon Go players being too distracted by the game.
The “Pokemon Go Problems” prank video shows Mark Correia wearing a “Pokemon Trainer” T-shirt and bumping, stumbling and walking into a variety of objects while he pretends to be completely drawn into the phone game phenomenon.
The video has more than 425,000 views on Facebook since it was posted Tuesday.
At one point Correia appears to walk along the subway tracks at Union Station, and it’s that stunt that has upset the TTC.
Spokesman Brad Ross took to Twitter to denounce the clip, calling it “An incredibly dangerous stunt that could have resulted in death, serious injury or prolonged delay for 1000s. Not OK.”
“Subway track is not a place where anybody should be going at all,” Ross told Global News.
“That’s trespassing at track level,” he said, adding Correia could also have tripped and been electrified by the third rail.
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Ross said that while he recognizes the video was a parody, he’s worried about copycats.
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“My fear is people watching this will go track level to play this game.”
“We don’t want anybody at track level doing that at any time for any situation. It is a dangerous place to be,” he said. No one has been hurt playing the game on the TTC thus far and none of the virtual creatures inhabit the subway tracks, added Ross.
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Ross said transit investigators are looking into the matter, adding that even though TTC officers didn’t stop the incident at the time charges after the fact are possible.
In an interview, Correia — whose website calls him a “professional entertainer” — said the idea for the video came to him while watching so many people publicly hunt the colourful monsters.
“I wanted to do it in a way that shows how stupid it can be by going so exaggerated you realize that maybe it’s not far off,” said Correia.
Correia, 20, admitted his subway walk was “a dangerous situation.”
“I can’t advise anyone to do this. It’s a stupid thing to do completely,” he said, suggesting he waited for service to end for the day before hopping down to track level.
He denied the video’s depictions are too far off the mark, saying one-half of the comments it’s received are, “This would never happen,” but “half of them are, ‘My friend just walked into a building the other day playing this game.'”
Correia said he also expected the transit service to be less than happy.
“As a comedian you’re always trying to push the lengths and boundaries of what you do and I think people are always going to get upset if you go a little too far,” he said. “And I think the TTC would be upset with this one.”
In other segments of the video, Correia holds open subway doors — a fineable offense — jaywalks through traffic outside the Eaton Centre mall and walks into Lake Ontario.
The video was created by a “production company” started by Correia called Noodle Boys that makes online videos. Its Facebook page says it is “dedicated to unconventional projects and social deceptions on a grand scale. Why? Why not?”
With files from Mark McAllister and The Canadian Press
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