“Don’t think about elephants.” What did you just think of? Mom used to pull that on us when we were kids.

The sports editor at one of my newspapers used to do something similar. When I least expected it, he’d say, “You just lost the game.” Yup, I knew the rules. Sometimes I got him first. Our coworkers were playing the game too. They just didn’t know it.

It was simply called “The Game.” Apparently it’s something that’ started in’s been going around since the late ’90s or early ’00s. If you think about it, you lose. If you say “you just lost the game” you lose, but the listener loses also. The aim isn’t to win, but to make somebody else lose.

Wikipedia has an article about The Game. Wikipedia describes The Game as follows:

Rules:

1. Everyone in the world is playing The Game. Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game. You are always playing The Game, you cannot refuse to play The Game. It doesn’t require consent and you can never stop playing.
2. Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
3. You have to announce when you lose the game. You may have to be reminded of The Game.

The Wikipedia article also refers to related games. Leo Tolstoy used to play a game with his brother where they would try not to think about a white bear and the image would appear every time. Similarly, when someone says “don’t think about elephants,” you cannot keep from thinking about elephants.

This is an example of Ironic Process Theory, aka “The White Bear Problem”.

Kinda funny how brains work.

And BTW, you have SO lost the game.