• Post The Game You Want && Try The Games Play
• Post The Game You Want && Try The Games Online

Sign the petition: link: my i. The Game is a mind game in which players attempt to avoid thinking about the phrase 'the game' at all times. Online, people often attempt to trick people into reading variations of the expression 'you just lost the game' on discussions forums, image boards and other community sites.

Post office or postman's knock is a kissingparty game played at teenage parties comprising boys and girls. It has been referred to in United States popular culture since at least the 1880s.^[1]

How to play[edit]

The group playing is divided into two groups – typically a girls' group and a boys' group. One group goes into another room, such as a bedroom, which is called 'the post office'. To play, each person from the outer group individually visits 'the post office'. Once there, they get a kiss from everyone in the room. They then return to the original room.

Once everyone in the first group has taken a turn, the other group begins sending members to the first room.

Variations[edit]

• In the variation 'postman's knock', one person chosen by a group to be the 'postman' goes outside and knocks on the door. Another person is chosen by the rest of the group to answer the door, and pays for the 'letter' with a kiss. Then another person is chosen to be postman, etc. The game has many variations. In some versions, playing cards are used to select which people get to be postman and which get to be answerer in turn.
• In the variation 'pony express', the 'post office' is a closet or it is in some other dark room. The game is played the same, but can become more intense. It is described in the 1954 movie Phffft as '...the same as Post Office, but with more 'horsing around'.
• In Sweden, the game is referred to as ryska posten ('Russian mail/post office').

In popular culture[edit]

• In Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiography, Pioneer Girl, she lists games played at teenage parties, including 'post office' and 'kissing games'.

• Published in 1929, Is Sex Necessary?, by James Thurber and E. B. White, refers repeatedly to post office, and to the possibly similar party game Pillow (for example, see p. 43 and pp. 49–50 of the 1964 Dell edition (copyright 1950)).

• In the 1930 Charley Chase comedy short “Whispering Whoopee” Charley hires 3 wild women who play post office with some older gents to try and secure a real estate deal.

• In the 1932 film The Purchase Price, a group of married adults in a farming community have a party (to welcome mail order brides) and play post office. One of the women goes into a separate bedroom and then comes out to the main room and announces that there are x letters and y postcards for [man's name]. The man and woman go into the bedroom, and exchange presumably kisses and hugs, then return to the main room to general hilarity.

• In the 1932 film Huddle, a mixed group of college students in high spirits are talking on a train. One of the young men says, 'Let's play post office.' One of the young women remarks, 'That's a kids' game!' The young man then replies, 'Not the way I play it!' The same gag (which may not have been original even then) is often used subsequently, for example in the 1934 Three Stooges short film Three Little Pigskins and in the 1941 Abbott and Costello film Hold That Ghost. The joke was a recurring one by Abbott and Costello. The joke has been used even in more recent times; in the 2013 film Gangster Squad, where Ryan Gosling's character uses it on Emma Stone's character.

• In the 1936 Three Stooges short film A Pain in the Pullman, when the Stooges are being kicked out of the star's drawing room, Curly says 'I thought she wanted to play post office!'

• The game of 'post office' is referenced in the 1936 film Postal Inspector.

• In Wallace Stegner's first novel Remembering Laughter (1937), which is set on a farm in Iowa, the plot darkens after a party in which post office is played—the game is a prelude to emotional disaster.

• In the 1938 film There's Always a Woman, Joan Blondell's character attempts to impede a police search of her apartment. As one officer is searching a closet, she asks him what they are looking for and he tells her 'A letter', to which she replies 'Imagine a big man like you wanting to play post office!”

• In the story 'Three Hours Between Planes' by F. Scott Fitzgerald (written in 1939 and published in 1941) post office is mentioned as a game that can cause terrible jealousy among children.

• In the 1939 film Hell's Kitchen, after Buck Caesar (Stanley Fields) informs the 'Dead End Kids' that every Saturday at the home-for-boys at which they live will now be treated as a 'holiday,' with 'some nice, clean, healthy sports,' one of the boys stands up and sarcastically says, to the great amusement of the other boys, 'Now don't tell us you want us to play post office.'

• In Osa Johnson's 1940 autobiography, I Married Adventure, she writes that her grandmother 'was my self-constituted chaperone from the moment she had witnessed a game of kiss-the-pillow at one of my birthday parties...' (p. 71)

• In the 1941 film Ridin' on a Rainbow, Gene Autry rescues a girl from the river. After returning her to her stateroom on the riverboat, a sailor who followed them in states 'Let's get out of here before they start playing post office.'

• Docks of New York, a 1945 East Side Kids film, Huntz Hall questions Leo Gorcey about what an older well-dressed man would've been doing prowling in the back alley carrying a large knife. Scratching his head while trying to unravel the mystery, Leo replies, 'He wasn't playin' post office'.

• In a 1948 episode of Lucille Ball's radio show 'My Favorite Husband,' characters play post office at a teenage dance.

• In the 1950 short film So You Want to Throw a Party, Joe (George O'Hanlon) and Alice McDoakes are planning on throwing a party. Joe messes up the inviting of guests and at the party the male attendees play post office repeatedly selecting only Alice in to the room to Joe's chagrin.

• In an episode of I Love Lucy called 'The Charm School' (aired 25 January 1954), Ethel mentions that Fred suggested they play post office the previous night when a beautiful guest arrived at their dinner party.

• In season 2, episode 2 of The Lucy Show, episode titled 'Kiddie Parties Inc.' Vivian says she played post office when she was younger

• In a 1954 television episode of The Jack Benny Program with Fred Allen guest-starring, Benny is surprised by Allen hiding in a closet. When Benny demands to know what Allen is doing in the closet, Allen says, 'Playing 'post office'. Kiss me!'

• In a 1954 episode of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show in which Gracie Allen runs for city council, Gracie speaks to the chief of police. Near the end of the conversation he shakes her hand and says 'It's been a real pleasure'. Gracie replies, 'If you think shaking hands is a pleasure, then you've never played post office.'

• In the best-selling 1956 novel Peyton Place the 14th birthday party of the main character Allison McKenzie is celebrated with a 'kissing game', as 'post pffice'.

• In a 1957 episode of Leave it to Beaver 'Party Invitation', Beaver goes to an all-girl party. One of the girls suggests playing post office.

• In J. D. Salinger's Seymour: An Introduction (1959), Buddy describes himself and his brother as being 'homely,' as children, and how they were 'veteran recipients of bag after bag of unmailed letters', whenever the game was played at children's parties.

• In his unfinished novel Answered Prayers, Truman Capote writes: 'Kissing her, according to Dill, was like playing post office with a dead and rotting whale: she really did need a dentist.'

• In a 1967 episode of the sitcom Bewitched entitled 'I Get Your Nannie, You Get My Goat,' Darrin's boss, Larry Tate, disapproves of Darrin and Samantha's kissing in plain view on a patio at a business function for an important advertising client. Insinuating that it could be viewed as unprofessional and therefore embarrassing, Mr. Tate says, 'Cut that out. What if somebody sees you?...The somebody I'm talking about, Darrin, is Roy Chappell of Chappell Baby Foods. I want to steer him out here so he can meet you and we can sew up the account. And I don't want him to catch you playing post office'.

• In the 1968 film Yours, Mine and Ours, Frank, played by Henry Fonda, is on a date with a younger free-love hippie. The date is interrupted by Helen, played by Lucille Ball. While Frank and Helen commiserate over the problems they have with their respective children, the hippie says, 'Why don't you drop me off at the exit, then you two can play Post Office!'

• In the 2002 film Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie, played by Reese Witherspoon, mentions playing a game of post office in high school, during the first meeting with her old friend Bobby Ray, played by Ethan Embry.

• In The Andy Griffith Show (second season) episode called 'Bailey's Bad Boy', Barney mentions playing 'two-handed post office' at the end of the show.

• In a 1975 episode of All in the Family entitled 'Edith's Friend', Edith's childhood sweetheart asks her if she remembers playing post office.

• In the 1981 Are You Being Served? Christmas special, 'Roots?', in discussing Mr. Grace's upcoming birthday, someone mentions postman's knock, which prompts Mrs. Slocombe to recall, 'Me and Mrs. Axleby played Postman's Knock on my birthday last year!' Mr. Klein remarks, 'Aren't you both a little old for Postman's Knock?' Mrs. Slocombe smiles coyly and says, 'The postman didn't think so!'

Post The Game You Want && Try The Games Play

• In Anders Jacobsson's and Sören Olsson's 1986 book Självklart, Sune, Sune and his friends play the game when Sune hosts a party at home for his friends.^[2] In 1992, the boardgame Sune och ryska posten was released.^[3][4]

• In the 1991 Bottom episode “Accident”, Richie suggests that he, Eddie, Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog play postman's knock at his birthday party, despite being the only attendees.

• In the 1991 episode of The Cosby Show titled 'Attack of the Killer B's' (season 7, episode 15), after Clair talks about how she worked at the post office during her college years, Cliff suggests that they play post office as they are going upstairs.

• The musical sketch from Two Ronnies' 1993 Christmas special includes various characters from the story Alice in Wonderland parodying common Christmas traditions of the time. The Duchess (Ronnie Barker) quotes the King of Hearts as suggesting the party 'play postman's knock again'.^[5]

• At a society party in the 2008 film The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, Jimmy (Chris Evans) is designated postman in a game that arouses jealousy in outcast debutante Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard).

• In The X-Filesseventh season episode 'Closure', Mulder and Scully are about to perform a séance and after Scully sarcastically comments that she has not done one since high school, Mulder jokingly suggests that afterwards they should play 'postman' and spin the bottle.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Hill, Pamela Smith, editor (2014). Laura Ingalls Wilder Pioneer Girl The Annotated Autobiography. Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press. ISBN978-0-9845041-7-6.
2. ^Nadja Wänting (2018). 'Killarna spelar fotboll och tjejerna tittar på'(PDF) (in Swedish). Umeå University. p. 20. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
3. ^'Detta har hänt' (in Swedish). Sören Olssons webbplats. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
4. ^'Produktioner' (in Swedish). Sören Olsson's website. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
5. ^https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00glrl2

The Game is a mental game where the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win most versions of The Game. Depending on the variation of The Game, the whole world, or all those aware of the game, are playing it all the time. Tactics have been developed to increase the number of people aware of The Game and thereby increase the number of losses.

Gameplay

There are three commonly reported rules to The Game:^[1][2][3][4]

1. Everyone in the world is playing The Game. (This is alternatively expressed as, 'Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game' or 'You are always playing The Game.') A person cannot refuse to play The Game; it does not require consent to play and one can never stop playing.
2. Whenever one thinks about The Game, one loses.
3. Losses must be announced. This can be verbally, with a phrase such as 'I just lost The Game', or in any other way: for example, via Facebook. Some people may have ways to remind others of The Game.

The definition of 'thinking about The Game' is not always clear. If one discusses The Game without realizing that they have lost, this may or may not constitute a loss. If someone says 'What is The Game?' before understanding the rules, whether they have lost is up for interpretation. According to some interpretations, one does not lose when someone else announces their loss, although the second rule implies that one loses regardless of what made them think about The Game. After a player has announced a loss, or after one thinks of The Game, some variants allow for a grace period between three seconds to thirty minutes to forget about the game, during which the player cannot lose the game again.^[5][6]

The common rules do not define a point at which The Game ends. However, some players state that The Game ends when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announces on television that 'The Game is up.'^[3]

Post The Game You Want && Try The Games Online

Strategies

Strategies focus on making others lose The Game. Common methods include saying 'The Game' out loud or writing about The Game on a hidden note, in graffiti in public places, or on banknotes.^[2][7]

Associations may be made with The Game, especially over time, so that one thing inadvertently causes one to lose. Some players enjoy thinking of elaborate pranks that will cause others to lose the game.^[8]

Other strategies involve merchandise: T-shirts, buttons, mugs, posters, and bumper stickers have been created to advertise The Game. The Game is also spread via social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.^[8]

Origin

The origins of The Game are uncertain. In a 2008 news article, Justine Wettschreck says The Game has probably been around since the early 1990s, and may have originated in Australia or England.^[9] One theory is that it was invented in London in 1996 when two British engineers, Dennis Begley and Gavin McDowall, missed their last train and had to spend the night on the platform; they attempted to avoid thinking about their situation and whoever thought about it first lost.^[6][7] Another theory also traces The Game to London in 1996, when it was created by Jamie Miller 'to annoy people'.^[5] Journalist Mic Wright of The Next Web recalled playing The Game at school in the late 1990s.^[10]

However, The Game may have been created in 1977 by members of the Cambridge University Science Fiction Society when attempting to create a game that did not fit in with game theory. A blog post by Paul Taylor in August 2002 described The Game; Taylor claimed to have 'found out about [the game] online about 6 months ago'.^[11] This is the earliest known reference on the internet.^[5]

The Game is most commonly spread through the internet, such as via Facebook or Twitter, or by word of mouth.^[8]

Psychology

The Game is an example of ironic processing (also known as the 'White Bear Principle'), in which attempts to suppress or avoid certain thoughts make those thoughts more common or persistent than they would be at random.^[6] There are early examples of ironic processing: in 1840, Leo Tolstoy played the 'white bear game' with his brother, where he would 'stand in a corner and not think of the white bear'.^[12]Fyodor Dostoyevsky mentioned the same game in 1863 in the essay Winter Notes on Summer Impressions.^[13]

Reception

The Game has been described as challenging and fun to play, and as pointless, childish, and infuriating.^[5][6] In some Internet forums, such as Something Awful and GameSpy, and in several schools, The Game has been banned.^[2][7]

The 2009 Time 100 poll was manipulated by users of 4chan, forming an acrostic for 'marblecake also the game' out of the top 21 people's names.^[14][15]

See also

References

1. ^Boyle, Andy (19 March 2007). 'Mind game enlivens students across U.S.'The Daily Nebraskan. Retrieved 18 May 2008.
2. ^ ^abcRooseboom, Sanne (15 December 2008). 'Nederland gaat nu ook verliezen'. De Pers. Archived from the original on 15 December 2008.
3. ^ ^ab'Three rules of The Game'. Metro. 3 December 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
4. ^'Don't think about the game'. Rutland Herald. 3 October 2007.
5. ^ ^abcdMontgomery, Shannon (17 January 2008). 'Teens around the world are playing 'the game''. The Canadian Press.
6. ^ ^abcdKaniewski, Katie (1 March 2009). 'You just lost the Game'. Los Angeles Loyolan. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
7. ^ ^abc'If you read this you've lost The Game'. Metro. 3 December 2008. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
8. ^ ^abcFussell, James (21 July 2009). ''The Game' is a fad that will get you every time'. The Kansas City Star. Archived from the original on 24 July 2009.
9. ^Wettschreck, Justine (31 May 2008). 'Playing 'The Game' with the other kids'. Daily Globe. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
10. ^Wright, Mic (13 April 2015). 'You just lost The Game: the enduring hold of the pre-Web world's Rickroll'. The Next Web. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
11. ^'The Game (I lost!)'. 10 August 2002. Archived from the original on 14 June 2008.
12. ^Tolstoy, Leo (2008). Leo Tolstoy, His Life and Work. p. 52. ISBN978-1408676974.Alt URL
13. ^Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (1863). Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. Vremya. p. 49. ISBN9780810115187.
14. ^Schonfeld, Erick (27 April 2009). 'Time Magazine Throws Up Its Hands As It Gets Pwned By 4Chan'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
15. ^'Marble Cake and moot'. ABC News. 30 April 2009. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 2 November 2014.

External links

• Media related to The Game (mind game) at Wikimedia Commons
• Wikinews interviews manager of site 'Lose The Game' at Wikinews