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A variant of, or added rule to, the “Loser Says What?” game.

The basic idea of the ‘game’ is to quickly say the phrase “[Loser] says what?” to a person the player wishes to trick or tease, with [Loser] being replaced with any mean-spirited descriptor (‘loser’, ‘slowpoke’, etc.). If the target does not hear this phrase, they may respond with “What?”, therein ‘proving’ they identify with the mean-spirited descriptor.

This variant of the game expands on the premise, in which being tricked into saying “What?” means one must ‘pass it off’ to another person within five minutes, or face an unspoken consequence (most likely a feeling of shame).

Context

Learned from a friend of the informant during middle school, as a game played with several people. Played during recess or outdoors where lots of children are present.

Analysis

It is unclear to me whether this 5-minute rule exists in most versions of this game, or if it is unique to this group of people. In my experience, this was simply a harmless joke to pull on friends. In this context, it exists as a game similar to Tag, with the exception that a player is not made aware of their participation until after they are tricked.