Editing The Game (section)

== Origin ==
[[File:You lose The Game.jpg|thumb|right|A woman holds up a sign reading "You Lose The Game".]]
The origins of The Game are uncertain. In a 2008 news article, Justine Wettschreck says The Game has probably been around since the early 1990s, and may have originated in Australia or England.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dglobe.com/content/column-playing-game-other-kids|title=Playing 'The Game' with the other kids|last=Wettschreck|first=Justine|publisher=[[Daily Globe (Worthington)|Daily Globe]]|date=31 May 2008|accessdate=11 November 2014}}</ref> One theory is that it was invented in [[London]] in 1996 when two British engineers, Dennis Begley and Gavin McDowall, missed their last train and had to spend the night on the platform; they attempted to avoid thinking about their situation and whoever thought about it first lost.<ref name="lal"/><ref name="metro"/> Another theory also traces The Game to London in 1996, when it was created by Jamie Miller "to annoy people".<ref name="canpress"/> Journalist Mic Wright of ''The Next Web'' recalled playing The Game at school in the late 1990s.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thenextweb.com/media/2015/04/13/you-just-lost-again/|title=You just lost The Game: the enduring hold of the pre-Web world’s Rickroll|last=Wright|first=Mic|work=The Next Web|date=April 13, 2015|accessdate=February 16, 2016}}</ref>

However, The Game may have been created in 1977 by members of the [[Cambridge University Science Fiction Society]] when attempting to create a game that did not fit in with [[game theory]]. A blog post by Paul Taylor in August 2002 described The Game; Taylor claimed to have "found out about [the game] online about 6 months ago".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arseburgers.co.uk/blog/archives/000246.html|title=The Game (I lost!).|date=10 August 2002|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080614182818/http://www.arseburgers.co.uk/blog/archives/000246.html|archivedate=14 June 2008|deadurl=no}}</ref> This is the earliest known reference on the internet.<ref name=canpress/>

The Game is most commonly spread through the internet, such as via [[Facebook]] or [[Twitter]], or by word of mouth.<ref name="kansas"/>