“May the odds be ever in your favor.” The quote echoed by the eccentric character Effie Trinket can be heard throughout the Hunger Games books and movies, and has become the staple slogan of the dystopian game. The motto is ironic in that it places luck above competitivity and skill — what is truly needed to win the slaughter fest known to all as the Hunger Games. In Walpole, a Hunger Games of their own emerges every spring in the form of an event exclusively created for the graduating class — Senior Assassins.
Similar to the Hunger Games in that the game — where seniors are assigned a target to “kill” with water — dwindles down to eventually one victor, Senior Assassins becomes one of the most highly anticipated events of the spring. And this year, especially, the event has had greater connection to social media and the Hunger Games through Twitter. In the fictional Hunger Games, pictures of the “fallen tributes” are projected upon the sky to signal the death of one or multiple game members. This spring, @walpoleassassin, the WHS Assassin Twitter account — whose profile picture is Hunger Games protagonist Katniss Everdeen — aims to do the same by notifying the public of the recent “deaths” using witty captions and embarrassing pictures of Senior Assassins participants once they fall victim to a water hit.
The Twitter account was started three weeks ago by seniors Peter Hoegler and Maggie Moriarty in an attempt to capture a new aspect of Senior Assassins — the funny side. The account was made by Hoegler after seeing a similar version created by BC High that bolstered about 250 followers. He then contacted senior class President Remy Love, organizer of Senior Assassins, who approved the idea and senior Maggie Moriarty, who wanted to participate in the tweets as well. Today, the WHS Assassin account has 545 followers and each photo tweeted racks up a plethora of favorites and retweets. “I knew Walpole kids liked Twitter, but I had no idea that our account would ever gain this many followers,” said Hoegler.
After a student is informed by senior class President Remy Love that they are out of the game, losers become subject to embarrassing Snapchat screenshots and other photos of themselves on the Assassin Twitter Account. Often, friends of the fallen send pictures via Twitter to the account and either Peter or Maggie will caption it before hitting send and broadcasting the photo to their followers. Among the top tweets was the fall of Jon Kelland, a highly publicized target after boasting about his superlative title “Most Likely to Win the Hunger Games.” Also popular was a picture of the scene of a well-planned assassination in which Doug Stewart trapped Nick Fuller’s car at the top of Porker Hill and got him out with a squirt gun.
The main goal of the account is to provide a funny aspect to the game that can also be slightly embarrassing. Day by day, remaining competitors around the school grow weary of the day their pictures will end up on the WHS Assassin Twitter account. “We aim to keep the tweets appropriate and funny enough to the point where people can laugh at their own picture without hating us,” said Hoegler. WHS Assassin has been generally successful in these motives and the affiliated seniors plan to pass the funny account to the Class of 2015 in hopes that they can keep the new tradition alive.
