Once upon a time, a deal or no deal playing strategy was created called wakeyism. The exact creator of the term is unknown to me but the fundamental basis of the phrase is clear. If you went to the end, you were a wakeyist, playing to wakeyism.

This thread is aimed at clearing up the thought process that went into so called wakeyism, and if that matches to the predicted definition that other members suggested. (Heck i'm not even 100% what was going through my mind 13 years ago)

I make this thread for the members that still browse that are aware of the term and if any other members from the days gone by that still pop on the forum (KP, daniel4389, James1978, davey, aaron brock, daniel123, h2005, among others) assuming of course that anyone actually cares. It's a bit of a moot point given that dispose the fact no one posts on here anymore, the show has also come to an end.

Browsing many of the threads back in 2006 onwards, particularily in 2007 post wakey1512 banning - Wakeyism as a process, seems to be defined as the act of going to the end of the game, taking ones box, ignoring many of the offers presented, irrespective of their generosity and irrespective of the risks proceeding to the next round. The origins of wakeyism are always presumed to be outright offer refusal. But remember this - wakey1512 was a keyboard warrior and serial watcher of the programme!

To fully understand wakeyism its important to seperate the reasons for 'my personal' wakeyism. The likely reason is because at my then young age I never fully appreciated the value of money, a generous 5 box offer that is overshadowed by larger values remaining in play clouded the value being offered because I didn't know the value of lower values that are still lifechanging. That is true to some degree but i feel my true wakeyism was down to the simple need for entertaining television. Many members on here could watch a player accept £22,000 regardless of the deal strength purely because it made a difference to that player and that they were happy and call it entertaining television. Unfortunately that never entertained me and would somewhat bore me (that says a lot about me as a person i think ). I found more entertainment from watching someone go to the end in a gripping 1p/£250,000 final. That is exciting television by anyones standards but unfortunately this became a bad habit of mine - the need to watch other people gambling.

Going back to the origins its possible sometime in 2006 I watched a game involving a gamble and it paying off, resulting in a large amount won from the box and the consequential elated mood and general good feeling post game. It may have been £100,000 Gaz but i'm not 100% sure. This set the foundations for what I thought was entertaining. I certainly didn't find 3rd offer deals entertaining. And then there came entertainment from watching someone hit all the blues after a 3rd offer deal another key factor to understanding some of the (uncalled for) critique. (Although some contestants from 2007/2008 would probably still get my blood boiling if I watched back now we all know which ones )

This moulded the wakeyism model. No longer could I be entertained watching someone deal for £12,000 at the 4th offer when there are still most of the top 5 in play, despite £12,000 being an incredibly large amount of money. I was hoping so much that each time I tuned into deal or no deal that it would be someone going to the end and winning a high value from their box (understandably, the format would dry up incredibly quick if everyone did this..) however you can understand a 14/15 year old will definitely not have seen it this way at the time. (No excuses for basicasic, he was in his 40s )

The same theory could be said for wilsonism and basicasicism, the latter certainly so because i would expect a 40 year old man has a full understanding of the value of money. It's all a matter of entertainment. Put me or the other members in the chair even 13 years ago I think things would have played out differently to our forum persona.

Make of this what you will, but know that wakeyism certainly isn't the reckless motion of going to the end regardless as a tactic. Wakeyism is simply the desires of a 14/15 year old wanting to be entertained watching the telly irrespective of the contestants sentiments and own personal targets. Looking back it is all rather embarrasing, id be grateful for £500 nowadays

Thanks for reading

Thanks for the insight thundercat - very...entertaining...

I think this is really, frankly, the level of understanding and analysis that we just weren't capable of when wakeyism was a going concern on this forum - one's youthful mind has nothing to look back on, because it's a drawing board that's constantly being adapted and changed and erased and re-written on at that time, and it's only once the bulk of the personal development is done that we can evaluate things with some clarity.

So with hindsight, it's a simple connection to make, between 'wakeyism' as a concept and its true origins - if I've understood you correctly - in a bombastically youthful desire for an entertainment fix that happened to manifest itself in the daily showing of Deal Or No Deal. That connection wasn't evident to myself or perhaps many of the others 13 years ago, of course.

There is a saying used by theatre actors; 'the role of the king is always played by the others', that is to say, the king himself, although at the epicentre of the performance, in fact does very little in his own right, and his greatness is played up by the other characters, his achievements exaggerated, his prowess waxed about at every opportunity, and as a result, he becomes this grand, almost divine, but almost completely fictional being.

I think we can unhook that analogy from the theatre and latch it onto wakeyism, too, because from those simple beginnings in your excitement-hungry teenage brain, once the forum was familiar with wakey1512's internet persona and the concept of wakeyism was born, the rest of us formed our own interpretations of it, and what it entailed, expanding those ideas until we had something that was - now, having read your explanation - far apart from its true identity.
The nature of a forum, being that it's a collection of ideas and points of view, lent itself to all those ideas eventually forming one general attitude that came under the umbrella of 'wakeyism' and I think the risky, often abrasive nature of this new attitude in turn lent itself to fierce debate. We humans are very polarising creatures - as someone once said, 'you're either with me or against me!' - and in the theatre of public opinion, division rules supreme.

I do think it's fitting that here, many moons after the show ceased to be, and many more since the term itself lost any relevance to the current affairs of this forum, the enduring idea of wakeyism finally has an explanation from the man who used to be the boy who introduced it to the world.

OK, maybe that's overdramatic, but it really is nice to read your side of the story and the truth behind the evergreen myth.
That's probably all I can rustle up in 20 minutes or so, but I hope it's useful at least!

Happy days haha! It was a good job I got banned. If I'd carried on watching I think I would have either smashed the telly or had a heart attack.

Seriously though, It's interesting seeing John looking back as an adult at his attitude to money as a teenager and how it influenced his thinking towards the game back then.

For me as an already long-in-the-tooth adult I look back with much the same thoughts now as I did then. I think after 2007 when the initial excitement and novelty of the show had worn off, most people went on the show just to win a few grand rather than gamble and try to win big. The show was probably the only chance many people would ever have of having this sort of money in their back pockets to spend as they like so it was like a magnet for the less fortunate members of society. When you have very little the thought of even losing 1000 must have been too much for some, despite the potential for winning much more. So it's understandable .... but it ruined the show though lol.

Me? I was never short of a 'few bob' and I wasn't really interested in winning a few grand. I would have gambled my way to the end for 1p or €250,000 and laughed either way.

Ah trancematics - I think even without the basicasic avatar I'd have known

It's quite a decent nostalgia trip looking back at the older posts I find. Who would have thought at the time of posting that we would look back at posts and reflect on them 15 years later. There's definitely some comedy value in there as well, dispose some of my more cringeworthy posts.

This makes me think that the way I presented myself can be split down 3 ways. Maturity, passion for the show and personality. There's no use trying to get a 15 year old to grow up overnight, passion for the show goes without saying and personality is what it is. I think people perhaps expected too much of a 15 year old especially looking at certain members frustration at some of the replies. Some members were particularly sensitive, a certain topic created by the member 'Billy' circa 2007 being a prime example of that.