Video Shows Zombielike Mob of FIU Students Swarming Campus for Pokemon

It's come to this: Society has broken down, social customs have been abandoned, and the young and spry among us have been doomed to wander the Earth in leaderless mobs, hunting not for food or adequate shelter, but for fugitive digital turtles.

Pokémania has hit Florida International University, and there is no cure. We may only wait, ride out the plague, and pray for survivors. Case in point: In a video posted on YouTube Monday, a zombielike throng of FIU students can be seen trundling through campus, phones outstretched, calling out a single word — "Squirtle!" — into the warm night.

In case you don't have an internet connection, Pokémon Go is a smartphone game that allows users to "catch" Pokémon that have been placed randomly in geolocated spots across the world — instead of sleeping, eating, or going to work, American teens, 20-somethings, and actually pretty much everyone else have spent the entire week hunting for creatures. There's even a slate of Pokémon Go-themed bar crawls scheduled around Miami this weekend.

(Full disclosure: Half of the New Times staff has been stumbling around Wynwood hunting Pikachus all week.)

In the video above, a throng of players apparently figured out there was a Squirtle — an adorable blue turtle-like Pokémon — hiding out somewhere on campus. Soon word spread, and a whooping mob stormed through campus. They went absolutely bananas when someone found the little critter at the end of the video.

There appear to be no other live adults around, ostensibly because they have either been eaten, trampled, or absorbed into the mob itself.

Though the video was posted Monday, Pokémania has yet to subside on campus. Here's a shot of a different mob sounding a vuvuzela after they found a Bulbasaur:

Vuvuzela to signal the bulbasaur nearby! #FIUPokemon @FIU pic.twitter.com/IkZWecDQID

— Cafecito Papi© (@JorgieMilan) July 13, 2016

Perhaps realizing no one at FIU would be attending class this week, campus police also tweeted out this safety video:

Catch them all, but be safe while you're doing it! #FIUPD #PokemonGO #PokemonFIU pic.twitter.com/080lyxsFtF

— FIU (@FIU) July 13, 2016