Imagine Going Back in Time
Imagine Going Back in Time
[Cueball talks to Megan while looking at his smart phone.] Cueball: Ugh. A player named "Reelect Trump 2020" put a frog Pokemon in the gym next to mine.
[Megan puts her hand to her face. Cueball is holding a device in his hand with an antenna. He uses the other hand to move a stick on the device.] Megan: Imagine going back in time and saying that to yourself 20 years ago. Cueball: Oh, I have a time machine! I'll try that.
[A sound effect between panels, likely the sound of Cueball's time machine.] Bzzzzt
[Two Cueballs standing, facing each other. The one on the right is holding the handheld device, and is thus Cueball from 2019.  He is apparently repeating his statement to the other Cueball from 1999, with only the last 3 words shown. He gestures towards the left Cueball. Above the left Cueball there is a frame with a caption:] 1999 Cueball from 2019: ...next to mine.
[Cueball from 1999 is shown, with Cueball from 2019 speaking off panel.] Cueball from 1999: I see. Cueball from 1999: Pokemon is still popular in 2019? Cueball from 2019: Yeah.
[Cueball from 2019 is holding a finger up in front of Cueball from 1999.] Cueball from 1999: And it's cool for people your age to play it? Cueball from 2019: OK, I did not come here to be mocked. Cueball from 1999: This is a sobering cautionary tale. Cueball from 2019: Listen, self...

Cueball is checking his Pokémon Go app to check on the status of a Pokémon he had previously left in a gym (to defend it against the other two teams in the game). In the gym he sees that another player named "Reelect Trump 2020" has left a frog Pokémon, which is now standing next to his. Cueball, evidently not a fan of President Trump or his supporters, finds it distasteful to be indirectly associated with someone whose political views he finds unpleasant. Alternatively, it may simply be that Cueball doesn't want politics injected into a game that he plays for fun.
When he remarks on this to Megan , she observes how strange that remark would sound if he said it to his younger self from 20 years ago. Normally when people say "imagine going back in time", they are merely constructing a hypothetical scenario to illustrate how rapidly society has changed over the years. Megan is likely pointing out that the idea of Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States (let alone coming up for re-election) would have seemed very farfetch'd just 20 years ago.
However, it turns out that Cueball somehow actually does have the time-travel technology required to pull this off, and so he takes Megan's suggestion literally and goes back in time 20 years to do exactly what she suggested: he repeats the statement to his younger self to see what his reaction will be.
Unfortunately, past Cueball (in the year 1999) chooses to focus on a completely different aspect of the statement: the fact that Pokémon - a game that past Cueball sees as a children's game - will still somehow be popular in 20 years, and that his adult self is still playing it. These observations make Cueball feel uncomfortable, as they highlight the fact that he is spending time on pursuits that his younger self sees as frivolous or childish. He gets defensive and starts to argue with his younger self.
When his younger self begins to call it a sobering and cautionary tale, it may dawn upon present Cueball that he may just have changed how his former self will behave. (Could he, in the new iteration, never even begin playing Pokémon Go, and thus present Cueball may disappear and a different version of himself will exist 20 years later? Or could he have seeded encouragement for himself being more readily connected to all things Pokémon in the intervening years, putting himself further ahead of the resurgence in its popularity?) Or else future-Cueball is just frustrated at how past-Cueball is failing to notice his intended revelation — and in turn is failing to appreciate past-Cueball's own naive but still insightful interpretation.
Pokémon is a media franchise that debuted in 1996 in Japan as both a video game and a trading card game. It was originally designed for and marketed to younger children (the tie-in cartoon series constantly emphasizes its main characters are ten years old), with a design, aesthetic and gameplay that were optimized for a younger audience. Since then, and up to 2019, there have been a total of eight generations of video games on consoles. As the franchise continued to thrive and evolve, it's gone through multiple generations, including Pokémon Go , an augmented reality game for smartphones. These latest versions, in particular, have become popular with (and marketed to) adults, some of whom grew up playing the earlier generations.
In 1999 in North America, only the first generation of Pokémon video games had been released, consisting of Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Red for the Nintendo Gameboy. The second generation of Pokémon video games would not even be announced in Japan until November 1999 , and advertising for the North American release would begin in December of 1999.  A person living in 1999, who has only seen the first generation, with no official confirmation that a second generation was even being considered, and unable to predict the nostalgia market that would appear later, would quite plausibly wonder about its popularity 20 years later.
Donald J. Trump was the president of the United States at the time of publishing, elected in 2016. Even during his campaign, the idea of his election was considered absurd in many circles, as he had never held any kind of public office, and had no background that would lend itself to expertise in government or public policy. Prior to his election, he was primarily known as a New York real estate mogul and host of the 2003 reality television show The Apprentice .  While he'd been teasing the idea of a presidential run since the 1980s, and indeed was seeking the Reform Party candidacy in 1999 (at the advice of then-Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura , another actor-turned-politician), most people did not take the idea seriously, and the concept of him actually being President of the United States would have been hugely unexpected to most Americans in an earlier era.  1999 Cueball might regard the name "Reelect Trump 2020" as an ironic joke, like a campaign button for Vermin Supreme or the Sweet Meteor Of Death . That Randall is not a fan of Donald Trump became clear in 1756: I'm With Her and many comics that followed it, now including this.
Randall released a comic about Pokémon Go less than a week after its release back in July 2016: 1705: Pokémon Go . But Pokémon in general has been a recurring theme in xkcd long before Pokémon Go was released.
Pepe the Frog is an internet meme that has become associated with Donald Trump after his use of it during his presidential campaign. The use of a frog Pokémon, therefore, is a callback to this internet phenomenon.
The Pokémon left in the gym is most likely Politoed , the only official frog Pokémon released in the game at the time of publication. It comes from the tadpole series with Poliwag that evolves into Poliwhirl which by using a King's Rock can be evolved to Politoed (instead of to Poliwrath ). There are other frog-like Pokémon in the game which are scheduled to be added to Pokémon Go, but where people who dislike Trump might have chosen Toxicroak , it seems an unlikely choice by a fan that hopes Trump is reelected!
This comic's joke is similar to one used in the 1985 science-fiction film Back to the Future , in which Doc Brown (of 1955) is shocked to learn that Ronald Reagan would be the President of the United States in thirty years' time, when in 1955 Reagan was a TV actor.
Digimon , as mentioned in the title text, is another media franchise which is similar to Pokémon in some ways, though it is sometimes perceived as more "cool" and "adult" oriented.  Its popularity in North America rose around 1999 with the airing of its anime series, but never became as popular as Pokémon .
This was the first of two time travel comics in less than a week, as the one two comics after this one, 2222: Terminator: Dark Fate , also had future Cueballs travel back to visit their past self.
[Cueball talks to Megan while looking at his smart phone.] Cueball: Ugh. A player named "Reelect Trump 2020" put a frog Pokemon in the gym next to mine.
[Megan puts her hand to her face. Cueball is holding a device in his hand with an antenna. He uses the other hand to move a stick on the device.] Megan: Imagine going back in time and saying that to yourself 20 years ago. Cueball: Oh, I have a time machine! I'll try that.
[A sound effect between panels, likely the sound of Cueball's time machine.] Bzzzzt
[Two Cueballs standing, facing each other. The one on the right is holding the handheld device, and is thus Cueball from 2019.  He is apparently repeating his statement to the other Cueball from 1999, with only the last 3 words shown. He gestures towards the left Cueball. Above the left Cueball there is a frame with a caption:] 1999 Cueball from 2019: ...next to mine.
[Cueball from 1999 is shown, with Cueball from 2019 speaking off panel.] Cueball from 1999: I see. Cueball from 1999: Pokemon is still popular in 2019? Cueball from 2019: Yeah.
[Cueball from 2019 is holding a finger up in front of Cueball from 1999.] Cueball from 1999: And it's cool for people your age to play it? Cueball from 2019: OK, I did not come here to be mocked. Cueball from 1999: This is a sobering cautionary tale. Cueball from 2019: Listen, self...
