I didn't have access to a lot of things and didn't have good hobbies or activities to do. There was a copy of a basic Pokemon encyclopedia lying around. I ended up poring over it and editing the whole book, making note of several errata. I had passing familiarity with the franchise. I wasn't really using a computer at the time and wasn't aware of forums and Internet resources, so I just went by what I had picked up casually over the years. The errors were basic information that I happened to know, so I was able to correctly identify them.
But that's not really a casual thing to do, so I might have inadverdently been a "Pokenerd" at one point. Or maybe I was just a nerd, who looked at Pokemon.
I was never into video games, but I was always in awe of the design of the gen. 1-3 games. The artwork on early franchised media also.
Game graphics after that tend to be hard on the eyes. Some of the spin-offs are visually great and engaging. I played a few of them and had fun, but video games in general were never my thing.
The franchise and lores became way convoluted. I don't enjoy anthropomorphizing and the mindset around anime and manga. Even childhood mainstay Pokemon is affected by them and increasingly so, so I have no interest in that part.
Early Pokemon is mostly an engineering marvel to my nerdy side.