WARNING: The following blog post may trigger seizures and nausea

They unveiled the logo for the 2012 London Olympics earlier this week and it's so magnificently malformed that some are claiming that it could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy...

It reminded me of something that happened almost ten years ago. On December 17th 1997, Japanese television broadcast an episode of the popular Pokemon show. During the episode there is one scene that has intense rapid red/blue blinking. In the minutes and hours following that scene, hundreds of Japanese children were rushed to hospitals because that sequence caused those kids to suffer seizures, convulsions, fainting, extreme headaches and nausea! The flashing was taken out of subsequent airings of the episode.

So... wanna see it? Here it is, with the original video unedited. If this link goes bad just do a search on YouTube for "pokemon" and "seizures" or "epilepsy". But I'm seriously warning you: I watched this thing, and it did give me a headache. I'm just posting this as an example that the fears about the new Olympics symbol aren't necessarily frivolous.

Here it is: the banned Pokemon "seizures" sequence. Remember, you watch this at your own risk...

Categories: epilepsy, london, olympics, pokemon, seizures, television