What Does Play Stupid Games win Stupid Prizes Mean
I heard this phrase a lot throughout my career as a soldier. Play stupid games win stupid prizes basically means if you are going to willfully and knowingly do something stupid, illegal, or out of regulations, you need to be prepared to accept the consequences. To help clarify, I will include a story about a former soldier of mine.
A junior soldier of mine wanted to purchase a vehicle. It was his first one ever, and he was very eager to get it during the weekend. Myself and my Fire Support Officer briefed him that he should buy from a reputable dealership, and that a license, registration, and insurance were necessary to operate a vehicle… Lawfully anyway. We both told him that we would like to accompany him to the dealership so we could help him make a sensible purchase. The young man listened and stated he would comply with all that was briefed to him. No problems right? Haha.
'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes' basically means if you are going to willfully and knowingly do something stupid, illegal, or out of regulations, you need to be prepared to accept the consequences. It’s usually used when someone suffers due to a situation entirely of their own making. Especially when the “victim” complains about the fallout…that they brought upon themselves.
Every now and then I see a competition and the prize is just plain stupid. Even worse is when there’s just the one prize. Maybe a thousand entries and for what? The opposite viewpoint is interesting because the phrase is actually guaranteeing people to win stupid prizes. It doesn’t say could win, it says win. Is that true? Does everybody who enters win the same prize? What if there’s only one prize? So the phrase is merely a contrived phrase to say that folks should aim higher.
It's a sarcastic expression. People say it when something bad happens to a person in the course of them doing something wrong or stupid. The person might normally receive sympathy or justice, but doesn't because of the wrong they did. It can be said in response to something minor, something big, or something that the speaker is opposed to.
Examples:
- A little boy keeps tickling his sister even after she begs him to stop. Then she accidentally throws up all over him. Their mom might say, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
- A murderer is burying his victim in the woods. A nearby hunter mistakes the murderer for a deer and shoots him. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- Someone bribes the police to get away with an illegal business. When someone robs that person, the cops don't do anything because they were also bribed by the robber. Play stupid games…
What does play stupid games win stupid prizes mean?
In a very literal sense, it is saying that if you play a stupid game, you win a stupid prize. This could be referring to carnival-style games, where even if you win, you end up with an over-priced, poor quality prize.
The more-broadly applicable lessons could be:
1) If you spend your time on pointless activities, the outcome will be equally pointless.
2) If you decide to treat something as a waste of time, it usually will be.
3) If you find yourself continually receiving unwanted results (poor job, bad partnerships, failing grades), it could be because your going about things in a overly-simplistic, inauthentic, or superficial way.
What does, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” mean?
It’s exactly like, Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.
Have you ever been to the boardwalk amusements and tried to win a stuffed toy, you’ve been standing there playing at a dollar a try on the giant spinning wheel for over an hour when you finally win, and all they give you is a baseball card, because you have to win 5 times, and it says so on the sign they just pointed out, while saying good win so far, ready to keep going with that lucky streak.
It generally means something like, “act stupid, and you get what you deserve”.
You’ll typically hear this as a sarcastic comment when people are observed to suffer a bad outcome after acting in a way that shows poor judgment and leaves them vulnerable to the bad outcome.
You might hear the comment, for example, when somebody reads about a teenager taking the Tide Pod challenge and winding up in the emergency room.
It means if you are doing things in a stupid manner, or not in the way you should, your prize will be trouble for you as a consequence of your wrong behavior.
Thanks for asking me!
Related Posts
0 Comments