It's something that's always intrigued me, I feel it probably harks back to the nasty nick thing the very first year.

When someone is accused of it they always say they are not, but don't say what their tactics are instead, which is of course playing the game

Do housemates still think viewers think they are in it for the experience

I love it when people play the game but are also real like Aaron, Ashleigh, Makosi, Nick and Victor but I don't like it when people play the game by being fake like Mark, Brian B and Winston

i like housemates that are open with the viewers about their game playing like ashleigh was in this series when she wanted rid of the cool gang but i don't like the game players that try to insult the intelligence of the viewers like mark or dexter from last year

I don't think being labled as a game player is an insult anymore. Is It? I know it used to be....way back in the old days. Seems a lot prefer--or at least accept Fake these days.

Why is w@nker considered an insult? Everybody does it.

'Game Player' implies that a persons actions and words are disingenuous, not to be trusted, and are said and done to advance a particular objective, to whit making it to the final and winning the prize, and are therefore 'false'.

Insofar as Big Brother is, ultimately, a Game Show, it shouldn't be a surprise that people should try to 'play' the game to improve their chances of winning, however by extension nobody likes to think that they have been 'played' and are the victim of some manipulative strategy, hence the opprobrium assigned to the term 'game player'.

Big Brother is, if you really think about it, a very odd 'Game Show' because the level of audience investment and audience interaction (even now, when producers have ****ed about with it beyond all reasonableness) is such that someone who is perceived to be consciously manipulating other HMs (and worse, the audience) is given very short shrift indeed, but there are still ways it can be done.

The difficulty is that any house mate needs not only to 'play' their peers, but also the audience, but do so in a lighthearted and smart way, and more often than not they need to play or at least play along with 'Big Brother' themselves, all without coming across as too Macchiavellian, and it is very difficult to get the balance right. You might sail under the radar with your fellow HMs as they expend all their energy butting heads with each other, you might even bring the public along with your plans, as to a certain extent Ashleigh did during Girl Power week, but it is very difficult to keep up both angles of 'attack' and there is still the risk that BB will decide to target you and expose your worst moments to the public and the other HMs and screw with you.

There is plenty of evidence that suggest the best strategy for winning is to keep your head down early on, roll with the punches, approach tasks with enthusiasm and humour, be selective about when and how you "fight your corner", be wittily but constructively critical of others (esp. in the Diary Room) and be more assertive in the final 3 weeks.

Seems simple enough, but it's a lot to remember and hard to actually put into effect with practical actions, particularly when BB and the experience in general is messing with your head!

The public don't like game players, simple as that.

We don't like feeling that we're being duped or manipulated by HMs.

So other HMs know this and use this when they want to turn the public against someone whilst collecting brownie points from the public as we will feel they're on our side and not fake.

I think if someone went in first night and told the public via the diary room that they're going to play a game so as we felt we were part of it and not being manipulated by them, they wohld do really well. But nobody ever would be as open as that because BB would play it to the house at one point and as such, there would be no point having a game plan in the first place.

My own pondering has concluded it's used in the the context of the slur 's/he's a player' ie, that the person is a user and abuser, and not to be trusted.

I don't get why getting to the final and / or winning the money is 'false'. False in what way? Why enter a GAME if you don't try to win it?

You've parsed the sentence in the wrong way, it is the things said and done, the compliments and praise given, the friendships formed, that may be perceived as 'false' if housemates are adjudged to have been playing a game to get to the final. If it is feared that people will say or do anything to get to the final, why would you have trust in anything they said and did as being heartfelt and genuine?

It's not false to want to win, or to try to win, but your every action is reflected through the prism of your perceived eagerness to win and the veracity of your personality and your behaviour is judged accordingly.

I don't like the 'game player'/ 'game plan' accusation at all as I think it is lazy and mostly used by people who are not able to articulate what it is about a person that they don't like - "S/He is a game player" is shorthand for "I don't like this person or what they're doing but I'm not really sure I can explain exactly why"

its a mockery since the format change when even Davina said "its a Game show now".
that's the issue facing BBUK they want everyone to believe the show is now a different beast but when it suits them (HM's and producers) they pull up the old sayings they know people react with.

Which is why we are happiest when England get knocked out early.

If I was a contestant my game plan would be nice to everyone.

I guess that makes me a bad person.

Because truth hurts.

HMs always like to perpetuate the myth that they are all being themselves and they are in for the experience, not the money - which is a bit like BB used to be in the early years. The prize money was less and the whole thing was considered to be a social experiment and not a game show.

IMO an acceptable type of "game player" in BB is someone who just rolls with the punches, does everything BB wants them to do in tasks etc and doesn't pretend to be doing anything else (which is what Pauline and Zoe were doing during their time in the house), while still remaining true to themselves as a person.

When someone is being false for the cameras and for the other HMs in an effort to win, then that is the sort of game player that people don't want to see.

But not on television. Did you feel enlightened by Frankie Cocozza's toilet antics, say? Like he was standing up (or sitting down) for w*nkers? Fair enough if you did, I suppose, but he made me feel sick.

Well, even so, with such a large prize at the end, is it so bad to give praise, form alliances, do anything really to get to the end. It's not as if it's the sort of game you can directly cheat at, is it?

Re; your last para. I totally agree .... many housemates use the term as a simple 'catch all' - like a derogatory code, in a way.

YUP ....

Unfortunately in the world of BB, you would then be being 'false', 'two faced', 'a gameplayer' etc because no one gets along with everybody, do they? (They would say) even though that is totally ludicrous.

I can never get my head round the hypocrisy of the BB concept. Be nice - you're boring, and 'not telling it like it is' WHATEVER THAT MEANS ??!?!?!?! But at the same time, you must be all of the above too. Mind boggling - you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

What is wrong with adopting tactics that can mean the housemate is, in effect, adopting a 'role'.

All this 'real' & 'fake' stuff is total rubbish.

Totally agree. Especially the BIB


And again.

Its a legacy from the time when BB was supposed to be a psychological experiment involving strangers being forced to live together, isolated from the outside world. Game playing would have been an unnatural distortion of relationships gradually changing and developing.

Somebody started calling it "only a game show" and that is what it has relentlessly morphed into, with the loss of all intellectual rigour and descent into showbizzy trickery and headline obsession that that implies.

good opening question.

I suppose it implies fakeness?

But on this show, fakeness soon gets you thrown out.

It is totally a test of who is the nicest person, full stop.

I like it when the game player is open to the viewers about it but generally i dont care.

Victor is my all time fav HM and he was a bit of a game player.

Aww Victor and his sniffles. I loved him. He was totally lovely. Hilarious. I hope there's some niche Victor fan club on the internet.

The problem is that it was an experiment with a big money prize.