I think I started...
When I watched a comercial showing that pokémon was going to be on Cartoon Network. I thought it was some kind of toy. XD
But when I watched the first episode I simply fell in love with it, and became a fan.
It was 1998, I was 8 years old, now I´m 17, almost 18...
I first played pokemon as a videogame when I was 13, with a used pokemon yellow version and a used GBC.
Because, here in Brazil, videogame is something associated with monetary condition, only rich people can buy and maintain videogames without piracy... (sadly it stills like that)
Now that I have money to buy them, I won´t play pokemon again until they release a "decent" version of pokemon, hate this entire new generation.