
Robinhood just shut down trading in the stock, because You can think of it as a more sarcastic way of saying something like “you reap what you sow” or “you get what’s coming to you.Let's talk about GameStop. Put together, the expression “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” implies that if you act in a thoughtless way you will face negative consequences. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: what it really means In short, if you win a stupid prize because of something you’ve done that was stupid, you will probably regret it. The politician who courts violent extremist is unlikely to satisfy them for long and may alienate his other constituents, winning himself the loss of his seat or even a violent attack.Īnd the less said about the prizes you win from annoying the police, the better. To return to our previous examples, if you play stupid games in a relationship, your prize is likely to be getting dumped or feeling miserable.

No, these prizes are often violent or humiliating (see also: cringy vs cringey) for the lucky “winner.”
#A STUPID GAME TV#
The Meaning of “Turnabout Is Fair Play” in a Nutshell “May the odds be ever in your favor” ― Meaning & Context “Running Numbers” - Meaning, Origin & Context “Eyes wide shut” - Meaning, Context & ExamplesĪgain, these aren’t the tacky and useless prizes offered to contestants on classic TV game shows. Now that we understand what stupid games are, “stupid prizes” should be pretty clear. The games could even involve harassing members of the police or armed forces.īasically, a stupid game in the context of this quote is something that’s a bad idea but the person in question is doing because they think they can pull it off or haven’t thought through the consequences. The games in question here could be mind games, like those played in unhealthy relationships to manipulate or gain power over the other person.Īnother example would be political games where a politician is stringing along members of a violent fringe group because he thinks he can keep them in check and gain more political clout for himself. Instead, the word “games” here is being used to refer to some people’s tendency to push buttons and do things they shouldn’t. Likewise, we’re not talking about spending an hour deciding whether to put a comma before or after also when there are guides that make the choice easy. The type of “game” referred to hear isn’t usually an actual game. Was this expression just coined by someone who secretly hates board games?Īctually, no. They can be a great way to pass the time on a winter evening when you’re stuck inside, or they can help you get to know people better. We could pause to let that sink in, but instead let’s leave the origins of this expression shrouded in mystery and learn what it means.Įverybody loves board games. However, the phrase certainly predated this time period, as can be seen by the persistent assumption online that it dates from the 1980s.
#A STUPID GAME FULL#
The first actual use of the full phrase, at least according to Google Books, was sometime in the mid-2010s. This appears to have been in a small progressive magazine called Gauntlet which talks about how people on the game show Truth or Consequence compete to “win stupid prizes.” However, a search of Tom Clancy books on Google Books reveals that the phrase actually never appears in a single one of his novels.Īccording to Google Ngrams, the first time “win stupid prizes” as a phrase showed up in print was in the early 1990s. Many people on the Internet claims to have first seen it in Tom Clancy books in the 1980s and 1990s. The first recorded use of the phrase “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” is unclear. The “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” origin Normally, this phrase is used to refer especially to violent or humiliating things that happen when someone does something foolish.
The expression “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” means that if you take part in something that’s obviously a bad idea, only bad things will come of it. What does the expression “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” mean? It doesn’t appear very often in stock expressions, but when it does it’s memorable.Ī case in point is “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

One such word is “stupid.” It implies complete disdain for somebody, with the hint of a suggestion that they are either not in their right mind or just not thinking properly.īecause of its put-down power, “stupid” finds its way into all sorts of insults. And I don’t mean technical words that describe punctuation, like semicolons, even if you don’t like them.

Some words in the English language just aren’t very nice.
