The Game (mind game)

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The Game

A player announcing her loss of The Game
Designer	Unknown
Players	Everyone
Setup time	None (or as long as it takes to explain the rules)
Playing time	Ongoing since its creation
Random chance	Chance encounters with others losing The Game or with text or audio mentioning the word "game" increase one's chances of loss
Skills required	Thought suppression, Strategy
Theoretically, The Game is always in progress, everybody in the world is a player, and it is impossible to win.

The Game is an ongoing mind game, the objective of which is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which, according to the rules of The Game, must then be announced. How to win The Game is not defined in the rules; players can only attempt to avoid losing for as long as possible. The Game has been described alternately as pointless and infuriating, or as a challenging game that is fun to play.^[1] As of 2008, The Game is acknowledged by millions worldwide.^{[2][1][3][4][5]}

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 Rules 1.2 Strategies 2 Origin 3 In popular culture 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Gameplay

Rules

There are three rules to The Game:^{[2][1][6][7][8]}

1. Everyone in the world is playing The Game. (Sometimes narrowed to: "Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game",^[4] or alternatively, "You are always playing The Game.")
2. Whenever one thinks about The Game, one loses.
3. Losses must be announced to at least one person^[6] (a statement such as "I lost The Game" is often used^{[citation needed]}).

Some players allow a grace period of up to half an hour after someone has lost, during which a player cannot lose The Game again, or is not obliged to announce a loss.^[1] According to the common rules, The Game is never ending. However, one variation of The Game ends when the British Prime Minister announces "The Game is up" on television.^[6]

Strategies

Some players have developed strategies for making other people lose, such as writing about The Game on hidden notes, as graffiti in public places, and on banknotes.^[4][5]

Origin

The origins of The Game are uncertain. One theory is that when two men missed their last train and had to spend the whole night on a platform, they tried not to think about their situation and whoever did first, lost.^[2] Another is that it was invented in London in 1996 "to annoy people". The reported earliest known reference on the Internet is from 2002.^[1] The Game is an example of ironic processing, also known as the White Bear Phenomenon, in which attempts to avoid certain thoughts make those thoughts more persistent.^[9] A classic example of ironic processing is Dostoevsky's quote: “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.”

In popular culture

• In one strip, the webcomic xkcd declared that the reader had won The Game and referred to The Game as a "mindvirus".^[10]

See also

• Jonty Haywood
• Inside joke
• Meme
• Mornington Crescent
• Nomic

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Game (mind game)

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews interviews manager of site 'Lose The Game'

• Losethegame.com