Own Goal
A counterproductive decision
Example
Did you see how many subscribers Netflix lost after they removed all that content?
Yeah, what an own goal. Trying to save money and lost even more
TMW you realize you've made an own goal
Related Slang
| Unforced error | An easily-avoidable mistake |
| Throwing | Losing a winnable game on purpose |
| Throw the game | Lose the game on purpose |
| Blamestorming | Brainstorming who to blame |
| Errorist | Error-prone person |
| Oops | Exclamation of a mistake |
| My bad | My mistake |
Can you score under par in this golf terms quiz?
An own goal is a decision that backfires and produces the opposite of its intended result. The term comes from sports (especially soccer), where it describes a goal that a team scores on itself.
In non-sports conversations, people typically use own goal to describe a decision that backfired predictably and dramatically. This undesirable result could have been prevented if only the person making the decision had thought through the likely consequences of their action.