Seniors, grab your goggles, dust off your childhood floaties, and watch your back because no one is safe. Weiner Assassin has taken the Emery senior class by storm, and as every minute goes by, seniors continue to drop like flies.
Organized by Emery senior SGA representatives Marissa Bishop, Ethan Canfield, Josh Danziger, Audrey Houchglaube, and Elaine See-Toh, Weiner Assassin is a spinoff of the popular Senior Assassin game played by high schoolers nationwide. Although this activity is unaffiliated with The Emery/Weiner School, whispers of strategy, mischief, and eliminations have spread like wildfire through the hallways, and it’s impossible to extinguish the student body’s excitement.
To be a part of the game, all participants must pay an $8 admission fee to cover the cost of their water gun and to add to the prize pool of over $400. There will be two winners: the senior who stays in the game the longest and the senior with the most kills. To eliminate your target, you must sneak up to them unnoticed and squirt them with water. Administrator Audrey Houchglaube explains how “school is the biggest safe zone. You are not allowed to get any student out on campus.” In addition to Emery providing seniors with safety, the students can wear swimming goggles on their foreheads or floaties on their arms for immunity. “I don’t care if it looks stupid when I’m wearing goggles,” says senior David Katz. “I’m going to try and protect myself at all costs, no matter what it takes.”
However, seniors can not always rely on their swimming gear for safety, as the game hosts, Houchglaube and See-Toh, have the power to turn off immunity for all players or even announce a purge “where you can get anyone out and can have everyone’s location. As soon as you get someone out you’re safe from the purge,” explains Hochglaube.
Currently, senior Jacob Silberlicht stands at the top of the leaderboard with nine kills. Silberlicht shares that his “biggest piece of advice is to trust no one and always keep a rocket [water gun] in your pocket.” Silberlicht takes Weiner Assassin to a whole new level of intensity. When it comes to winning, family means nothing. On April 3, the player turned against his own blood by getting out his cousin, Leah Corove, at her house before school. “It’s not family, it’s business,” says Silberlicht. Silberlicht also recommends always “keeping a sausage on hand. What if someone is trying to get you out? Just throw a hot dog at them and run.” While Silberlicht is no longer in the game, he currently holds the title of most kills and will likely be one of two winners of Weiner Assassin.
Unlike Silberlicht’s method to get the most kills possible, Katz planned to win by staying in the game the longest. “The much safer way to play the game is to be on the defensive side and try not to get out yourself. I don’t want to jinx it, but I have hope I can win,” says Katz. Unfortunately, Katz was assassinated on April 25, but his legacy as a top Weiner Assassin will live forever.
While Weiner Assassin may require elements of deceit and betrayal, it has also fostered a sense of camaraderie and shared laughter among the seniors. “It’s really humorous seeing the lengths people are going to. It’s midnight, and people are lurking at their target’s fence,” shares Hochglaube. Katz admits that he thinks “the game has brought the seniors together. It’s one last big thing we all get to do as a class, and I think it’s something we are going to remember forever when we think about our senior year at Emery.”
Weiner Assassin 2024 will go down in Emery history as a game of strategy, laughter, and a whole lot of water. The frustration of getting out in Weiner Assassin is temporary, but the great memories that come along with the game will last forever.
