From Senior Skip Day to Senior Sunset, seniors have many second-semester traditions that have been passed down for generations. In recent years, the popular game “Senior Assassin” has become an online craze as videos of people participating in the competition trend all over social media.
The game is organized by a mystery senior who arranges teams in a tournament-style competition. Teams work together to hunt down their targets, who are members of their opposing group, in an attempt to drench them with water guns and eliminate them from the game.
A pot of money is up for grabs as an incentive for players. The cash prize is made up of each player’s five dollar entry fee which can add up to big bucks for the champions.
Since it’s a non-school sanctioned game, students are forbidden from playing on school grounds.
This spring, seniors at WJ have been participating in Senior Assassin. For senior Paulina Horowitz, the game gave her and her teammates the opportunity to share a few final high school memories.
“There was one day where my team and I went to the mall together to get our targets and we ended up not getting them but we ate lunch in the mall garage in our individual cars just staring at each other and it was just really fun,” Horowitz said.
Horowitz wasn’t focused on the fear of being pelted with rays of water at any given moment.
“I was definitely a little afraid but it was also exciting because I knew I wasn’t gonna get hurt since the team we were against was nice,” Horowitz said.
While Horowitz found the game thrilling yet safe, senior Charlotte Bull had some worries on her mind before playing the game.
“It was fun but some people were taking it really seriously which was really scary. It kinda freaked me out before the game started since I realized ‘oh people are gonna come to my house’,” Bull said.
Elimination tactics can get intense and often out of hand. It’s common to see attackers posted up outside of their opponents’ homes in an attempt to catch their targets in a moment of weakness.
Many players use their personal vehicles to their advantage, swooping in on their targets and escaping before they can be taken out themselves. Though it sounds amusing, driving while preoccupied has put countless players and civilians at risk.
“It gets really dangerous. Some people are not smart because they try to shoot and drive at the same time. One of my friends was up against some boys who blocked her in her driveway and their cars ended up hitting each other,” Bull said.
Civilians, unbeknownst to the game, have concerns, as the water guns, at a glance, can resemble firearms.
Law enforcement across the country have issued warnings to students participating in these games, in hopes of deterring them from taking their attacks too far.
A water gun being mistaken for a real firearm at a high school located in Pennsylvania prompted local law enforcement to emphasize the potential consequences of playing a game like this.
“While kids want to have fun and they want to celebrate graduation, sometimes the way in which they play these games and try to get each other can really create unintended consequences,” Lieutenant Sergeant Michael Keenan said in an interview with ABC 6 News.
Senior games become traditions because they serve as opportunities for high school seniors to bask in their fleeting moments of childhood entertainment. It only takes a few students who take these games too far to ruin the fond memories for everyone involved.
“As long as you don’t take it too seriously, it’ll be fun,” Bull said.
