My source is a current college student who first experienced this practical joke in middle school in an online game called Counter Strike. He described the situation as one in which all of the other more experienced gamers knew that a certain player was new and decided they would play a little joke on him. When the new gamer asked for advice on how to improve, the older gamers told him to “press F10” and it would make his aiming better, as it was a shooting game. When the new gamer pressed F10, his game immediately shut down and crashed, disconnecting him. My source describes how all of the older gamers, after realizing that the new gamer had disconnected due to pressing F10 laughed and congratulated one another.

This practical joke is the classic case of once you fall for the joke once, you don’t fall for it again, but you rather try to pull the joke on unsuspecting newbies. While it is not written anywhere that the button F10 would immediately cause your game to crash, through either falling prey to the practical joke or by hearing it from others, you now know the joke as well, making it folklore.