A ridiculous Christmas game
"It’s just a funny little thing that a couple of idiots from Denmark did to entertain themselves during Christmas."
— Thomas Mertz
Goodness knows I'm no fan of a lot of popular Christmas music. At the first hearing of Jingle Bells and Winter Wonderland I avoid all malls and premises in which Corporate have decided that the Christmas playlist is de rigeur. But this game even beats my distaste of Frosty the Snowman.
Players must avoid hearing the song Last Christmas by Wham! The game began in 2010 when a Dane named Thomas Mertz and his friends noted the ubiquity of the song and started trying to avoid it. The game made its way onto the internet and of course this caught the attention of others. It became popular, inevitably went viral and eventually gained its name in 2016. Winning the game requires that the player avoids hearing the song all through Advent, so 1st December until midnight of Christmas morning. You can't do much to save yourself from tears other than avoiding the radio, the television, anywhere Christmas music might be played. Pubs and shops would seem to be out of bounds, so Christmas shopping would be out unless you bow to the God of Amazon and the like.
To play the game, one simply makes the determination to not hear the song played by Wham! themselves, so covers are acceptable. Players can solo the game or take a public challenge, and there does seem to be a set of honour rules, posted on Mertz's website. No-one should try to prank you à la Rickrolling, and above all
"…it’s an honour system nobody abuses. If ‘Last Christmas’ hits and nobody’s around to see you hear it, it did still make a sound and you must submit yourself to ridicule by your peers immediately."
Some decline to play the game and point to respecting George Michael who died on Christmas Day of 2016. Of course, some take it more seriously than others and consequently lose their sense of humour. I've heard tales of people raging in shopping centres and reports of fights breaking out in pubs if it's played on a jukebox. Those are eclipsed by the most extreme case of Whamageddon rage I found, as reported by the BBC. On 2 December this year Matt Facer, a DJ at Northampton Town FC deliberately played the song at a game against Portsmouth, in front of a crowd of 7,215 people. He later apologised, acknowledging that he could have spoiled the game for over seven thousand people.
Thus far of course I have managed to avoid it, and with a week left to go, am still in with an excellent chance. But of course now I've just remembered that I was still playing The Game and of course, I just lost that one. Good luck, have a Merry Christmas.
I did it, I beat Whamageddon.
nicolasstag says re Whamageddon: I DID IT
Clockmaker told me that the song finally hot Number One in the charts after 39 years.
$ xclip -o | wc -w
482