Bit idea: be considerate, helpful, kind, and patient to the people you're playing a game with, or even playing against, and if you get any pushback for that, say "it's just a game."
It's typically said after someone was an asshole in the game and then tries to justify whatever they did to be an asshole. That's often the primary use of it, and even when it's not, it's often used to invalidate other people's discomfort or unhappiness while playing.
Like what just just did here, right now, invalidating other people's experiences with how they saw that cliche used.
what I am saying is that using the phrase that way is a misuse. Like saying boys will be boys to excuse abuse when it's a phrase about children playing roughly. Or it's "just a few bad apples" when the phrase is "a few bad apples spoil the bunch"
what I am saying is that using the phrase that way is a misuse
Yes, and it is a very common misuse. Saying it is a misuse doesn't stop people from using that way and it does not stop that way from taking precedence over time.
"Bad apples" is said so often about police brutality that that misuse is probably more commonly used than the complete old saying, "misuse" or not.
As another more specific example of how "misuse" can take over, Pepe the frog was never intended by his creator to be the basis of nazi memes, but those nazi memes were so common that the comic's creator, after a long legal struggle, gave up on the character and even drew a funeral to represent giving up on trying to get the character back.