If you’re old enough to remember it, you just lost The Game.

I have no idea what’s going on here

Back in the early aughts, when many millenials were in high school, before Facebook and Youtube, The Game began. No one knows who started it, but the moment we learned we were playing it, we began to lose. The goal of The Game is to forget you are playing The Game for as long as possible. The rules of The Game are as follows: Everyone is always playing The Game all the time; at school, during breakfast, at night when you are asleep, etc. The Game never ends. The moment you remember that you are playing The Game, you lose and must immediately announce to those around you, “I just lost The Game!” thus making them remember they are also playing The Game and causing them to lose as well. Upon losing, you begin The Game again. Sometimes players could go weeks or months without losing, sometimes only minutes. At the height of The Game’s popularity, it became common to see people at events such as Comic Con or midnight movie premieres, wearing t-shirts proclaiming “You just lost The Game!” Once they were noticed, groans and shouts of “Fuck you!” could be heard for miles. These people thrived on the chaos, taking great pleasure in the cries of their victims. Most people eventually grew bored of The Game, and many began to claim they won by choosing not to care about it anymore. Some rely on a particular XKCD comic strip or Tumblr post to lend a sense of legitimacy to their feeling of victory. They are fools. It is impossible to win The Game. There is only losing. Only a few diehards remain loyal to the rules. The drop in popularity has allowed many to keep from losing The Game for years at a time. The growth of social media has caused a minor resurgence, although without the satisfaction of real time auditory feedback when causing others to lose, The Game will likely fade back into obscurity once again. Someday when we are old and gray, our grandchildren will innocently ask us to play a game of checkers, and we will shriek and shout until the whole nursing home joins us in defeat. Death is the only release from The Game.

I first encountered The Game not among real people but in Childrens’ Miscellany, which interestingly said that after someone announced they had lost The Game, anyone around had a 30-minute grace period in which to forget about The Game before they also lost