You know the circle game? Where one person creates a circle with their hands just to hit someone in the arm, or possibly face?
It’s classic banter (I don’t condone violence)! A tune almost all of us can dance to, if harming others is your thing, anytime, any place.
No but seriously, in more professional terms, the ‘Circle Game’ is one of peripheral vision, trickery and motor skills, Know Your Meme says.
The game starts out when the Offensive Player creates a circle with their thumb and forefinger somewhere below his waist. The goal is to trick another person into looking at his hand.
If the victim looks at the hand, he has lost the game, and is subsequently hit on the bicep with a closed fist, by the offensive player.
On the ol’ tinternet, people have been known to hide hands making the circle symbols in various images to trick people into finding it.
VICE had it down as the invention Ohio resident Matt Nelson in the early 1980s. He claims to have devised the game while in primary school as a a way to punch his friends.
However, to all the conspiracy theorists out there who doubt Nelson’s account, the game was actually invented on November 15th, 2000 in the fourth episode of the television sitcom Malcom in the Middle‘s second season.
In the episode, the boys play the Circle Game, and thus introducing it to millions of viewers itching to justify punching their friends.
Know Your Meme writes:
While the game has been a staple of schoolyard games since the early 80s, it started appearing online in the 2010s. One of the earliest examples of the game online was posted on June 23rd, 2011 by an anonymous 9GAG user who posted a picture of a little girl with her hand in the circle formation with a circle around the hand. The post received more than 980 points in six years.
I have been a ‘victim’ to the Circle Game but my regular evening karate classes forbid eager circlers from ever making contact with my arm or worse.
Many and various, however, are the times I have witnessed the biceps of my nearest and dearest being laid waste to by the zealous swing of the deviants who play this game.
I guess they don’t know how much they have Malcolm in the Middle to thank for that.
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