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The mood is intense, people are on edge, danger lurks around every corner: it’s pin tag week at Emma Willard School. Employees and students from all areas are dressing accordingly, hiding out wherever they can, and ambushing their quarry all over Mount Ida.
Every spring, the campus community loses their minds a little bit about "pin tag". For those who sign up, the week is one of scheming and survival. Participants hide under desks, lurk around corners, and attack in crowded hallways.
What is pin tag?
An adapted version of clothespin tag, the game begins with sign-ups. Those who choose to play retrieve a clothespin with a target’s name on it (their name is also on a clothespin given to someone else), and must “sneak up on your target, and attach the pin to them (not to their hair or backpack) without them noticing.”
When the target is pinned, they’re out. The survivor takes the pin of their target’s target, and moves on. At the end of the week the winner is not just whoever left standing, the one who has pinned the most targets (this isn’t a week where you can just lay low and hope for the best).
There are, of course, some key rules and guidelines:
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Do not disrupt classes, test-takings, or scheduled meetings to pin anyone.
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Do not pin your target once hall activities, sports, and Morning Reports have begun.
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Pinning is NOT allowed from 10:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m.
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To successfully pin someone, your target must not notice you doing so.
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Once you pinned your target, keep track of whom you’ve pinned. This way, the School Council can check if you are the Pin Tag Champion on Friday if you survive until then.
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Put the pin with the target you’ve just pinned in the jar of your team (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or employees) outside Campus Safety.
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Take the pin with the name of your target’s target; that is your new target.
“So many Emma traditions are just for a certain group,” said one student. “But this is the entire community, faculty, kids. Even if you’re just watching! Everyone is involved!”
During pin tag, relationships are tested. There are alliances, set-ups, betrayals. This year the game on campus seems somehow more
intense than previously. Maybe it’s the nice weather, an unseasonably warm late April has the community happy and enjoying the sunshine as though it’s June, or maybe it’s the influx of new community members.
“Like, Mr. McKinzie [Associate Director of College Counseling], he’s not someone who I would have guessed is super into pin tag but he’s really into pin tag."
Catching up with Xavier McKinzie in Slocum just near the Student Gallery, he’s being cautious. When asked how things are going: “It’s dangerous, and it’s stressful,” he says. “Anxiety 24/7, I love it.”
Down the hall, Director of Practicum Bridget McGivern was pinned early and has been able to enjoy the fun from the sidelines. “It has been a lot of fun and joyful discussion with people I might not otherwise have anything fun to talk about with,” reports. “So that's been fun, but also: it’s a bloodbath!”
“The alliances forged and broken this week–it’s like Game of Thrones out there,” she adds, laughing.
Flip through this slideshow, featuring commentary from the participants themselves:
Flip through this slideshow, featuring commentary from the participants themselves:
Pin tag wraps up at 4:00 p.m. today, Friday, with the winners enjoying a crown and bragging rights for eternity. For those who don’t sign up, it's still fun to watch the chaos unfolding on campus, though a few people who haven’t experienced it first-hand this year are thinking about joining in 2024.
“I’m really upset that I didn’t sign up because I think it would have just been so much fun to be a part of it!” says Roya S. ’24, rolling up a blanket under the climbing tree. “Next year I’m gonna annihilate and everybody better watch out!”
So you, dear reader, have been warned.
A pin from pin-tag.
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