Actual success, successful failure, and unsuccessful epic failure

On game shows, success denotes winning a lot of money and/or other prizes, whereas failure denotes losing horribly and winning little or no money or prizes. If the failure is particularly bad, the internet often declares it to be an epic fail (grammatically incorrect noun), epic failure (grammatically correct noun), or to have fail(ed) epically (grammatically correct verb), which, in internet slang, is when something goes horribly wrong, and could have been prevented if the person who committed the failure had just done the right thing. On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? specifically, losing horribly can mean one of two things, but before failure can be defined, success must be defined first.
 * On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, success is generally defined as a contestant winning the monetary amount of question 10 (usually worth 32,000 units of the local currency) or greater and not subsequently losing the vast majority of his/her winnings on a much higher-level question, whereas failure can be defined in one of two ways:
 * A type 1 failure is when a contestant gives a wrong answer to one of the first 5 questions and leaves with absolutely nothing at all (see Wrong answer before first safe level).
 * A type 2 failure is when a contestant gives a wrong answer to one of the last 2 questions and suffers a devastating, if not catastrophic, massive loss of prize money (usually 218,000 units of the local currency on question 14, and 468,000 units on question 15); in addition, losing on the 15th and final question results in the dreaded Million pound lose cue.

The generic term loser can refer to both contestants who leave with nothing by flunking out on one of the first 5 questions, as well as contestants who lose massive amounts of prize money by flunking out on one of the last 2 questions; the term top prize loser refers to contestants who flunk out on the 15th and final question and lose the most massive amounts of prize money; the term biggest loser other than top prize loser refers to contestants who lose the next most massive amounts of prize money other than top prize losers, usually by flunking out on the 14th and penultimate question.

The average success level for any given contestant is achieving the monetary value for question 10, although some perform above average, and others perform below average. Some who reach the higher levels of the last 5 questions are lucky enough to get them right and win massive amounts of prize money, or if not, then they walk away, while others who go for it get it wrong and lose massive amounts of prize money. Others fare much worse, performing significantly below average and winning little or no prize money. If they're just lucky enough to get past question 5, they'll leave with at least something; if not, then they leave with nothing at all. Other than plain and simple bad luck, additional explanations for why and how unlucky contestants have lost horribly are shown below. It should be noted, though, that some versions of the show worldwide have adopted an "extra high risk" format that disables safe-haven milestones, which means that a contestant can flunk out on the any of the next 10 questions and lose absolutely everything.

Contestants who have made it onto the show obviously must know some trivia, as the qualification process is extensively tough; in the earliest days of the show, contestants got onto the show via a landline phone call game, and if the player gave a wrong answer, the phone call would automatically be cut off. Later on, as internet technology advanced, they added an internet game, and just like the phone call game, as well as the actual game show, if the player gave a wrong answer, the game would end. Sometime after that, as cellular mobile phone technology advanced, the show added a mobile phone text game, which also ended immediately if the contestant gave a wrong answer, and sometime after that, the show also added auditions, in which potential contestants took printed exams, similar to students in academic high schools and colleges; unlike the phone, computer, and mobile text games, the printed exam does not terminate the contestant if they give just one wrong answer, but they must achieve a high score in order to get onto the show. Once they get onto the show, however, some contestants succeed, while others fail. Reasons for why this happens, other than plain and simple good or bad luck, are unknown.

It should be noted that losing horribly in either manner is considered to be extremely humiliating, and in the age of the modern day internet, any contestant who loses horribly in either manner is guaranteed to be uploaded to YouTube, where they will be harassed and cyberbullied mercilessly and endlessly by online users who will post nasty comments to their video.

See Category:Empty-handed for a list of contestants who went away with nothing by flunking out on one of the first 5 questions. See Category:Empty-handed due to extra-high-risk format for a list of contestants who went away with nothing due to an extra high risk format. See Category:Penultimate question fail for a list of contestants who lost on the 14th and penultimate question. See Category:Final question fail for a list of contestants who lost on the 15th and final question.

Causes of failure
There are two root causes of failure:
 * Cause #1: No room for error - It only takes one wrong answer to terminate the contestant's game. The show gives the contestants Lifelines in order to prevent them from committing an error, but the lifelines will not save the contestant once they commit an error; once the contestant commits an error, that's it; it's all over; they are out of the game instantly.
 * Cause #2: All-or-nothing, high-stakes, high-risk gambling format - if a contestant gives a wrong answer, not only are they out of the game, but they also lose all of their winnings. At the beginning of the game, there is no prize just for making it into the hot seat, so if a contestant gives a wrong answer within the first 5 questions, they leave with absolutely nothing at all. Questions 5 and 10 are (usually) safe-haven milestones that guarantee the monetary amounts for those questions if the contestant gives the right answer to those questions (usually 1,000 units of the local currency for question 5, and 32,000 units for question 10). However, some versions of the show have adopted an "extra high risk" format that disables safe-haven milestones, meaning that contestants can flunk out within the next 10 questions and lose absolutely everything. As they progress through the game, the higher the stakes rise, and the higher the risks rise, with the losses becoming increasingly severe if they give a wrong answer the later they progress through the game. Below is a rating index for the severity of losses for the last 5 questions, using the classic UK amounts:
 * Question 11: £64,000 - No loss; the contestant stays at £32,000
 * Question 12: £125,000 - Some loss; the contestant loses £32,000
 * Question 13: £250,000 - Extensive loss; the contestant loses £93,000
 * Question 14: £500,000 - Devastating loss; the contestant loses £218,000
 * Question 15: £1 million - Catastrophic loss; the contestant loses £468,000

It is these two rules, the lack of any room for error and the loss of all winnings when they give just one wrong answer, that have sentenced so many contestants to game show infamy, and a lifetime of humiliation on YouTube. On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, there is no room for error; contestants must proceed very carefully, for just one error, just one careless mistake, can lead to extremely disastrous consequences. There is no consolation prize for any contestant who flunks out within the first 5 questions, and if the contestant flunks out within the last 2 questions, they will lose massive amounts of prize money. No careless mistake goes unpunished, either by the game itself or by the YouTube community, who will upload contestants unlucky enough to commit careless mistakes to the site and harass them with nasty comments.

In addition, below are the top 6 secondary reasons why contestants lose horribly on the show: counting down from 6 to 1: Misspeaking and/or speaking too fast can be made even worse when the contestant is placed on an extremely tight time limit, as was the case in Lovi Yu's situation.
 * Reason #6: Because they misspoke or spoke too fast on an easy question
 * Example 1: Paul Weir Galm, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), syndication
 * Example 2: Lovi Yu, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), syndication


 * Example 3: Jennifer Starks, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), primetime


 * Reason #5: Because they did not read the question properly
 * Example 1: Stan Wu, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), primetime
 * Example 2: Whitney Beseler, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Hot Seat (Australia)


 * Reason #4: Because they second-guessed their instincts on a harder question
 * Example: Kati Knudsen, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), primetime
 * Reason #3: Because they could not think straight under pressure
 * Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is not just a test of general knowledge, but also a test of one's ability to think straight under pressure, which is not easy when you're on television in front of a live studio audience, and with millions more watching at home. In addition, the rules of the game, which state that there is no room for error and that you lose all of your winnings if you give just one wrong answer put even more pressure on the contestant. The pressure of the game may sometimes cause contestants to forget the right answers to the questions that they are facing once they get into the hot seat. And in cases where a time limit is applied, the game also tests one's ability to think fast, because if they don't beat the clock, the game is over, and depending on the rules, they may either be forced to walk away with whatever winnings they have won, or be penalized as if they gave a wrong answer and have their winnings dropped.
 * Reason #2: Because they did not use their lifelines properly
 * Example: Ken Basin, Ask the Audience lifeline, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 10th Anniversary Primetime Celebration

Examples of improper usage of Phone-a-Friend and 50:50 lifeines are needed.


 * Reason #1: Because they simply did not know the answers
 * As UK host Chris Tarrant would always say when a contestant came dangerously close to flunking out within the first 5 questions and leaving with nothing, "the questions are only easy if you know the answers," and when a contestant does leave with nothing, he states that, "it was just such a shame that they did not know on that occasion." It's not that anyone who leaves with nothing is stupid; they just did not know the answers to the particular questions that they were presented with. At home, the at home viewing public may know the answers to the questions that the contestant on the show is facing, but once they get into the hot seat themselves, what they should know is the answers to the questions that they are presented with.

Success rates and notable successes around the world

 * In terms of the number of Top Prize Winners, the Japanese version is the most successful version.
 * The U.S. primetime version had 9 millionaires; the U.S. syndicated version had 3 millionaires. All of the millionaires were regular, ordinary contestants, and no celebrity contestant has ever won $1 million; the highest amount ever achieved by any celebrity contestant on the U.S. version is $500,000, which has occurred only a few times.
 * The UK version had 5 millionaires, excluding Charles Ingram, who achieved his £1 million victory by cheating, and was stripped of his winnings. As with the U.S. version, all of the millionaires were regular, ordinary contestants; the highest amount ever achieved by any celebrity duo is £500,000, which occurred only once: Laurence and Jackie Llewellyn Bowen were the only celebrity duo to walk away with £500,000. It should be noted that when they went for the million, they originally got it wrong and lost £468,000, but were later given a second chance, because their original £1 million question turned out to have a significant flaw, in that it was ambiguous, because it technically had two right answers. They decided not to risk it again and walked away with £500,000. It should also be noted that celebrities winning the top prize in any country are extremely rare; in most cases, the highest amount that any celebrity contestant usually achieves is the monetary value for question 14 (usually 500,000 units of the local currency).
 * The original Australian version had 2 millionaires.
 * The current Hot Seat format Australian version has 1 millionaire so far; prior to that, the show went through 6 Top Prize Losers.
 * The Indian version has 6 top prize winners.
 * On the current Russian version, the top prize has been won 6 times.
 * In Germany, there have been 14 top prize winners.

Failure rates and notable failures around the world

 * In terms of the number of Top Prize Losers, the Japanese version is equally as notorious for its type 2 failures as it is for its successes, because while many contestants have won on the final question, many others have lost on the final question. Japan is also notorious for its type 1 failures as well; numerous contestants have flunked out on one of the first 5 questions and left the show with nothing. In addition, with the new Super Millionaire format, there are no guaranteed sums, so contestants who gave a wrong answer at any point in the game left with absolutely nothing at all because of this new rule.
 * On the UK version, failures of both types were extremely rare; fewer than 10 contestants left the show with nothing, and only two contestants flunked out on the £500,000 question and lost £218,000; technically, no one has ever flunked out on the £1 million question and lost £468,000, because the one time that it happened, which happened to celebrity contestants Laurence and Jackie Llewellyn Bowen, the question turned out to have a significant flaw, in that it was ambiguous, because it technically had two right answers. They were later invited back to play a second £1 million question, and this time, they decided not to risk it again and walked away with £500,000. Regarding type 1 failures, fewer than 10 contestants actually left the show with nothing, but there were a significant number of other occasions when some contestants struggled within the first 5 questions and came dangerously close to flunking out and leaving with nothing.
 * The U.S. version is notorious for its type 1 failures; numerous contestants have flunked out within the first 5 questions and left with nothing, with a significant number of them having fallen at the very first hurdle. Type 2 failures were rarer, but they have happened; a smaller, but sizeable number of contestants, both on the primetime and the syndicated versions, have flunked out on the $500,000 question, and at the 10th anniversary celebration, Ken Basin became the first contestant to flunk out on the $1 million question.
 * The original Australian version produced the first recorded case of a celebrity contestant to win nothing, U.S. Survivor contestant Richard Hatch, who flunked out on his $500 question. Worldwide, cases of celebrity contestants winning nothing are extremely rare, but they have occasionally happened. On the U.S. primetime version, every celebrity contestant was guaranteed $32,000 regardless of their performance in the hot seat, and regardless if they even made it into the hot seat at all, but outside the U.S., celebrities are not guaranteed any money for charity, meaning that it is possible for a celebrity to win nothing. Contestants who have won nothing internationally often have won nothing because of a new "extra high risk" format that disables safe-haven milestones; contestants flunking out within the first 5 questions are very rare. Domestically, within Australia, Hatch was the first of three $0 winners on the traditional format of the show.
 * On the Australian Hot Seat format of the show, flunking out within the first 5 questions became much more common, and there were 6 million dollar question losers who fell from $250,000 all the way down to just a measly $1,000, losing $249,000, leading to superstitions of a Hot Seat curse, before Edwin Daly finally broke the curse by giving the right answer to his $1 million question, ending the curse.
 * On the very first episode of the New Zealand version of the show, the very first contestant to sit in the hot seat, Courtney Washington, left with nothing after flunking out on her $500 question.
 * On the Indian version, only two contestants have given a wrong answer to the final question, but many others have given a wrong answer to one of the first 5 questions.
 * On the Russian version, a small number of contestants have flunked out on one of the first 5 questions, but with the new "extra high risk" format, in which there are no guaranteed sums, many other contestants have left with nothing after flunking out within the next 10 questions.
 * In Germany, only one contestant has ever given a wrong answer to the final question, and would end up leaving with only a measly €500, but a significant number of contestants have left with nothing due to the game's new "extra high risk" format. However, one notable contestant who flunked out within the first 5 questions was Tanja Fuß, who fell at the very first hurdle.

Perceptions of failure

 * In Japan, contestants who flunk out on one of the first 5 questions will often be laughed at by the in-studio audience, as well as by the at-home viewing public, believing that the contestant is stupid for not knowing the answer to that question. If the contestant flunks out on one of the last two questions, however, the audience may be more sympathetic.
 * In the United Kingdom, the in-studio audience will often be sympathetic to the contestant, regardless of whether they flunk out on the first 5 questions or the last 2 questions.
 * In the United States, the in-studio audience will usually be sympathetic, but the at-home viewing public will be mercilessly nasty; they will upload the contestant's humiliating moment of failure to YouTube, where their victim will be mocked, ridiculed, insulted, taunted, laughed at, and harassed by online users who will post nasty comments to their video and refer to these contestants as "stupid idiots" and other lack-of-intelligence-based pejorative names, simply because they did not know the answers to the particular questions that they were presented with.
 * In Australia, the in-studio audience will laugh at the contestant if they flunk out on one of the first 5 questions, but if the contestant flunks out on one of the last two questions, the in-studio audience will usually be more sympathetic. Either way, however, the at-home viewing public will be merciless, by uploading them to YouTube and harassing them with nasty comments, similar to the U.S. version.

Trivia and Notes

 * In internet slang, due to an internet meme, the word fail is often used as a nominalized interjectory noun, as opposed to a verb, the way the word is traditionally supposed to be used; traditionally, the word fail denotes being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations, but as an internet meme, it is used as a derisive label to slap on a miscue that is eminently mockable in its stupidity or wrongheadedness. Writing packed with nominalizations is commonly regarded by academic professionals as slovenly, obfuscatory, pretentious or merely ugly. The grammatically correct form of "epic fail," without nominalization, as stated by the second New York Times article, is "to fail to an epic degree," although "epic failure" and "to fail epically" are also grammatically acceptable as a proper noun and a proper verb, respectively. The word flunk is a synonym for the word fail as the word is properly used. Flunk out was the term used by the primetime version of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? to denote when a contestant gave a wrong answer and was not saved by the 5th grade classmate; on the syndicated version, the penalty for giving a wrong answer was to lose all of the money that they had currently won up to that point, but unlike the primetime version, the contestant still remained in the game to win more money as long as there were further questions in the main phase of the game. The opposite of failing in internet slang, is not succeeding or passing, but winning. The words fail and failure should typically only be used when falling short of expectations in achieving an objective or goal, or when taking an exam or test; when playing a game, the grammatically correct words would be to lose, as verb, or a loss, as a noun. The term win can be used as both a verb and a noun, but it should only be used when playing a game or competition in which a prize or award is at stake; in this case, since this is a game show, the word win can be used; otherwise, when not playing a game, the word win should not be used; instead, the words success and succeed should be used when accomplishing goals and tasks, the word pass should be used when taking a test or exam, and the word gain should be used when acquiring advantages or increasing quantity.
 * Many members of the YouTube community who harass contestants for losing horribly in either manner on the show tend to refer to the contestants as "stupid, retarded idiots" and other pejorative insulting names, but don't seem to know what these words really mean. Just because a contestant does not know the answer to a particular question, not matter how easy or hard it may be, does not make them stupid; they just simply did not know the answer to that particular question. They also don't seem to know the difference between naiveté, stupidity, and mental retardation. People who are naïve aren't necessarily stupid. People who are stupid aren't necessarily retarded. Naiveté, or unintentional ignorance, means that the person simply didn't know any better; stupidity can either mean intentional ignorance, which means that they did know better, but decided to commit the mistake anyway, or foolishness or insanity, which means not learning from one's past mistakes and repeating the same mistakes over and over again; mental retardation is when a person is literally unintelligent. The terms idiot, moron, and imbecile were originally formal terms that referred to people whose intelligence quotients (IQ) were below 25, 50, and 75, respectively, but then they became pejorative names for people who made stupid mistakes. The collective term for all three is retarded, which comes from the Latin retardare, "to delay", which meant that their mental development was delayed, but then that too became a pejorative term. It should also be noted that people can have mental disabilities and not be retarded, and that if a person really was retarded, logistically, they wouldn't even be on this show in the first place. Just because a contestant flunks out on any given question, regardless of its difficulty level, does not make them stupid; they just didn't know the answer to that particular question, and as Chris Tarrant always said, the questions are only easy if the contestant actually knows the answers.