Targeting The Senior Demographic
Making it to graduation these days can be just murder!
My son is a senior in high school and, like many parents in my situation, I’m concerned he is going to be, well, assassinated.
“Assassinated?” I sense you thinking, dismissively. “No one assassinates teenagers. They’re not important enough. Oh sure, I’ve thought about running one or two of them off the road when they pop wheelies on their bikes and ride through traffic like little maniacs. But assassinate them? No.”
Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong (although I’m with you on the little shits popping wheelies on their bikes in traffic). In fact, high school seniors across the country are being assassinated in droves, albeit only metaphorically, in a game called, appropriately enough, “Senior Assassin.”
The game is reportedly popular all over the United States and, as my son has described it to me, pits classmates against one another in a competition where the objective is to eliminate one’s target — a fellow senior — by squirting them with a water gun. If you are eliminated, your assassin takes over your target, and so on until there is only one assassin left, or graduation takes place and everyone gets on with their lives, I suppose.
In his school’s version of the game, assassinations may not take place on school grounds, but anywhere off campus is open season. Everyone playing must also download an app that allows assassins to track their targets’ locations at all times. And, perhaps to add a whimsical element to a game about murdering people, a participant can’t be “assassinated” while wearing ski goggles (note: the ski goggles rule does NOT apply on Fridays, also known as “purge days”).
Wikipedia reports that, “despite its popularity, the Senior Assassin game has raised safety concerns among some educators.” Isn’t that JUST LIKE today’s uptight killjoy “educators” to fret about a fun recreational activity for teens just because it involves students stalking and shooting one another?
Get The Sled Out
Anyway, sometime after the game began my son left the country with his mother to visit Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. While there, he posted a video to TikTok in which he wishes his assassin good luck in finding him, only then to reveal he is recording from a dog sled being pulled by a team of huskies. Thanks to the tracking app, his assassin presumably already knew where he was, but soon thereafter so did the 300,000 other people who watched the video.
Eventually he had to return, however, and, out of abundance of caution, upon deplaning promptly pulled out a pair of ski goggles, much to my wife’s chagrin.
“You really think your assassin tracked your flight, drove to the airport, and is now stalking the terminal for you?” she asked.
“I’m not taking any chances,” he replied, donning the goggles and leaving her to wonder where all this diligent preparation and attention to detail was when it came time to do his schoolwork.
Later on he heard through the school grapevine that his assassin had, in fact, tracked his flight, driven to the airport and waited in the terminal, only to depart with the mission unaccomplished upon spotting the ski goggles. He might have also been scared off by the team of sled dogs tearing through baggage claim.
It’s A Family Affair
As of this writing, the game is still ongoing and has even expanded. By which I mean my son has impressed the rest of the family into service as his ersatz security detail, in particular on Fridays when not even ski goggles will protect him.
So now, whenever we leave the house as a family, his mother, brother and I fan out ahead, pirouetting as we scan the area for suspicious characters. Once we give him the “all clear,” he shoulder rolls out the door and scampers into the car while we shout, “Go! Go! Go!” This process is then repeated when we exit the vehicle, enter a building, return home, etc. I have to say it adds a certain “Bourne Identity” feel to an otherwise mundane family trip to the grocery store (albeit at the cost of startling fellow patrons, especially when we enter public restrooms).
In addition to bringing families together, the Senior Assassin game also helps boost the local economy. Not only do sales of ski goggles and water guns spike, but area pharmacies also report that anti-anxiety medications for teens absolutely fly off the shelves!
Frankly, this game has so much to offer, I’m surprised it hasn’t expanded beyond the educational realm into the corporate world. For decades, companies have been sending groups of coworkers off for weekend retreats to engage in “team building” exercises like trust falls and egg-and-spoon races, with mixed results at best. But what exercise could help workers learn how to succeed in today’s professional environment better than a game where everyone is secretly trying to murder everyone else?
Or, failing that, my son says dog sledding is a lot of fun too.
Sign me up! 🔫