You Know You Play Too Much When

About

“You Know You Play Too Much When” is a phrasal template for jokes listing humorous consequences of participating in an activity for an extended period of time.

Origin

The earliest known variation of the phrase was posted to the Wireplay Forums^[2] on January 2, 1999, when user Pokey submitted a thread titled “You know you’ve been playing too much Unreal when…” to discuss some of the most commonly observed behaviors associated with players of the first person shooter video game Unreal Tournament.

Precursor

The phrase bears a resemblance to the “you might be a redneck” stand-up routine by American comedian Jeff Foxworthy, in which he lists several signs or reasons someone may be seen as a “redneck.” The routine was also featured as the title of his 1993 studio album You Might Be a Redneck If.^[1]

Spread

On April 14th, 2003, Neoseeker Forums^[9] member Freyas Protege submitted a discussion thread to share in-jokes about playing too much of the role-playing game Kingdom Hearts. On May 28th, 2004, PokeCommunity^[10] Forums member DarkMage31 started a thread listing what can happen if someone plays too much Pokemon. On February 26th, 2005, Plenty of Fish Forums^[11] member Evil~Princess~Tera submitted a list of 50 consequences of watching too much of the animated television show The Simpsons.

1. You call your wife/mother/daughter/sister Marge
2. You work at a nuclear power plant
3. You see a hitch-hiker and say “Can’t they get a pole for that sign”
4. You get into a fight as to why the Simpsons is better than South Park
5. You worship Matt Groening as your God
6. You own a Simpsons website
7. You have every Simpsons episode on tape
8. Your mobile phone rings to the sound of Danny Elfman’s theme
9. You use “Woo-Hoo” as a term of delight
10. You use “D’oh” as an expression of anger
11. You have a cat called Snowball
12. You have a dog called Santa’s Little Helper
13. You shaved your head of all but 2 hairs to look like Homer
14. You make your wife/girlfriend dye her hair blue to look like Marge
15. You can name the title of any Simpsons episode from the first 3 seconds alone
16. You’d rather watch the Simpsons than have sex
17. People refer to you as “the Simpsons kid”
18. You’ve been to the doctor because you believe you have the Simpsons gene
19. You placed a $1,000 bet that Homer shot Mr Burns
20. You refer to gay people as “a Smithers”
21. You are reading this
22. Your favourite alcoholic beverage is Duff Beer
23. You prefer Buzz Cola to Pepsi or Coca-Cola
24. You live in Springfield
25. Your internet alias is “El Barto”
26. You cried when Maude Flanders died
27. You bought the “Do The Bartman” CD – and still listen to it!
28. You’ve cut-off one of your fingers to be like your idols
29. You have a tattoo of a snake on your right arm
30. You’ve bowled a perfect game
31. Your daughter’s bowled a 295
32. Your wife has webbed feet
33. You are a member of The Springfield Message Board
34. You’ve got 100% on The Duff Brewery IQ Test
35. You’ve had a website shut down by Fox
36. You read Play Dude magazine
37. Your local newsman is Kent Brockman
38. You think Krusty The Klown is funny
39. You prefer Krustyburger to McDonalds
40. You’ve ever been dumped because of “that d*mn cartoon”
41. The only foreign words you know are “El Viaje Misterioso De Nuestro Jomer”
42. You use the expression “Mmm…”
43. You’ve spent over $500 on Simpsons merchandise
44. You’ve quit your job because it required you to work when the Simpsons was on TV
45. You’ve quit your job to become an inventor
46. You’ve ran for Sanitation Commissioner
47. You have Simpsons posters in your room
48. You’ve changed your name to Homer Simpson
49. You encourage your daughter to play the saxophone
50. You subscribe to the Simpsons comics

On May 4th, 2008, Neoseeker Forums^[12] member Rune Ripper started a thread for jokes about playing too much of the game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. On June 20th, 2010, the Cheezburger site Very Demotivational^[7] highlighted a demotivational image macro of a man sleeping next to a horse with and the caption implying that he was laying next to Sarah Jessica Parker (shown below).

A few days later on July 25th, a list article was created on the Borderlands Wiki^[4] providing examples of behaviors associated with playing too much of the shooter video game Borderlands. On February 11th, 2011, Redditor bezenartw submitted a post titled “You Know You’ve Been Playing Too Much Bioshock When” to the /r/gaming^[8] subreddit, featuring a webcomic in which a video gamer confuses reality with the gameplay interface from Bioshock while answering the door in real life (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post accumulated more than 2,000 up votes and 100 comments.

On July 19th, a page listing various consequences of playing too much of the role-playing game Dragon Age was posted on the Dragon Age Wiki.^[5] On September 14th, the CNET Australia YouTube channel uploaded a video highlighting the “top 5 ways to tell you’ve been playing too much Deus Ex” (shown below), which gained over 220,000 views and 830 comments in the first two years.

On December 16th, Redditor eequalsmc2 submitted a post titled “You know you Internet too much when…” to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[6] subreddit, featuring the Scumbag Steve doorway image without the character and the caption reading “Even this doorway / pisses me off” (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post garnered upwards of 7,600 up votes and 130 comments.

On April 11th, 2013, 9gag^[3] user pachomoncadam submitted a post titled “You know you’ve modded GTA too much when,” which featured a screenshot of a modded Grand Theft Auto game with several armed penguins and a lemur (shown below), gaining over 45,600 up votes and 15,000 Facebook shares within the first two months of submission.