Don’t worry about Swine Flu… Worry about ZOMBIES!!!
Swine Flu is capturing a ton of media attention these days… Hopefully, there’s a very slim chance that this super-epi-pandemic arrives at your campus any time soon. But zombies? They’re likely already there.
More and more college campuses are being invaded by Humans vs. Zombies. HvZ is essentially a complicated version of ‘tag’ that involves scores of college kids careening through campus in a desperate attempt to avoid being turned into zombies (or in a desperate attempt to turn the other ‘human’ competitors into zombies). HvZ is spreading across the nation at a rate rivaled only by the aforementioned pork virus.
Why should you care? Because the crux of the HvZ debate is, where (if at all) does an institution draw a line between student activities and something that (to a casual passerby) might be misconstrued as some sort of chaotic, relatively inexplicable, armed uprising.
To quote a recent article posted on Boston.com:
“The game provides students with a distraction from studies as they chase one another from classroom buildings to dorms. Students say HvZ is a healthy way to keep them on campus on the weekends and away from drinking. But the game has come under scrutiny. Reports of large groups of students wearing bandannas and shouldering 2-foot toy guns have alarmed passersby on some campuses. The game has been banned at some schools, including Butler University and Washington State University.”
So what do you think? Harmless diversion or armed rebellion in need of some quashing? I think it’s the former but am up for a healthy debate.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we’re not hearing about HvZ on every new broadcast and half-hour NPR report, not to mention every other tweet from normally sane people. Maybe if that were the case, we’d be more worried about HvZ than we are. And who knows that the lingering effects might be for those infected with the zombie virus?
Posted on April 30, 2009 by Michael Stoner
I’m on the “harmless fun” side of things. At least it’s not “Assassin” which we played during my mid-90’s college days… Something tells me that these days, the name alone would be enough to get it banned (not to mention the fact that we were running around campus with nerf guns, plastic knives and water balloons—and often waiting in the shadows for people).
Posted on April 30, 2009 by Jason Allgire
Another former college Assassin player casting a harmless fun vote. And other than the fact that the students are chasing each other around in the fresh air, how is playing HvZ different from killing each other on Xbox?
Posted on May 1, 2009 by Mark Sheehy