I call this game "Emotionalism", and more and more, everyone is being expected to play this game, and to follow its rules.
It's a rampant, ubiquitous, extremely common game and not just on social media or with the inventors and Grand Champions of this game, Cluster B personality disordered types (Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, etc.)
For example, this is the mechanism that that enables Cancel Culture to function and creates the environment of Self-Censorship that we now live in.
Here is my short summary of how the game is played. It begins when you say or do something that another person does not like. Let the game begin. This is how it works, the steps are usually implied, not stated outright.
You made me feel bad.
Therefore you are bad. **
So you must change. You must think as I think, and speak and behave only in ways that do not make me feel bad.
If you make it this far, you have chosen to given away your own power, to another. They now own you. You are a slave to their emotions.
** 2.) this step requires your agreement for the game to continue. This is your opportunity to win, the only way to win, by declining to play this game at all.
This step almost always has a FOGS baited hook in it, which you can choose to bite or not. FOGS stands for: Fear, Obligation, Guilt and Shame. It generates questions in your own mind, about about yourself, to question yourself.
Are you bad? Are you sure? Are you perhaps a bit unsure and afraid that you might be bad? Are your values clear to you on this matter? Do you feel guilty about those values? Do you feel obligated to be agreeable and to avoid conflict?
If you do not agree that you are bad, you'll be invited to: "Explain yourself!!!" in some way. An initiator of this game always feels entitled to hear you JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend and Explain) who you are and what you stand for. That does not require Justifying, Arguing, Defending or Explaining. Decline their invitation and resist your own temptations to defend yourself. Just own it, or the game WILL progress to Step #3.
Key point in all of this:
Are you going to allow someone else to decide for you, whether or not you are a good person? Are you going to allow another to define your values for you and to be the custodian of your integrity?
Pay attention. Don't play this game. It's a trap. This is a game you always lose, every time you choose to play it, and the stakes are very high because what you lose is:
yourself.
Be the curator of your own values and have the courage and conviction to be the custodian of you own integrity.
(The quote is from the 80's movie "War Games". The "strange game" was "thermonuclear warfare")
If you play games with ever changing rules which your opponent is making up while not following, you are doomed to fail. This is why emotionalism is so dangerous. All of our emotions are all over the place and always changing.
All of us have "lost it" at times and laid all the blame and responsibility at the feet of the person that pissed us off or hurt us.
It happens, it's human, but with emotionally mature humans, who have good boundaries, it will happen less frequently, and when they do succumb to it, they will come back later, apologize, and own their own shit.
People who insist that someone else own their emotions for them are children (normal/expected) or toddlers in adult bodies.
Institutionalizing emotional adolescence (embracing and excusing Emotionalism) is toxic on a society wide scale.
