The class of 2024 is yet another graduating class at Cherokee to continue the legacy of the game Spoons. Although it is unknown how long Spoons has been a tradition at Cherokee, it has cemented itself as an important senior-year event.
The rules of Spoons are relatively simple: Each player has a Spoon with their name written on it, and every Sunday, each player receives the name of another player, known as their target. The point of the game is to steal your target’s spoon without getting your spoon stolen.
To have a play count, players must have video/photo evidence or eyewitnesses of the play, along with the stolen spoon of the target. Players can steal their target’s spoons in and out of school, as long as they are not in a spoon-free zone, breaking into a home, or at their target’s work.
The only other way to steal your target’s spoon is by finding them without their spoon. Players must be holding their spoon at all times, and if the person targeting them finds them without their spoon they can tap them and say “Spoons” and they are officially out of the game.
Spoons is run through a senior-wide group chat. Despite there being around 530 students in the class of 2024, only 290 people are in the group chat. This is due to not every student wanting to play Spoons, but also in some cases, students were not aware of the group chat and missed the signup window, which sparked some negative emotions from the excluded students.
Every week of Spoons has specific events that end up affecting the gameplay. A great example of this was the club yearbook pictures that took place in the Performing Arts Center (PAC) on Jan. 9 and Jan. 10. Students took this opportunity to seek out targets that they would not normally see during the school day, and the extra time spent in the hallway made it easier for some students to find opportunities.
While the PAC was a spoons-free zone, the hallway outside of it was not. Nyla Bhimani (’24) was one of the students who was eliminated from the game while walking to one of these photos. “Grace Garafola took my spoon on our way to band photos. The band room was spoon-free, and I was not expecting to have my guard up for the three random seniors playing Spoons in band.”
During this week players got a little creative (although against the rules) with their strategies. This week certain players covered their spoons with slippery material, making their spoons impossible to take. It got to the point where the official senior group chat had to make a statement that read, “Do not put anything on your spoon that will cause the spoon to be slippery. This includes lotion of any kind, vaseline or aquaphor. Do not do this or you will be disqualified.”
This week was extremely eventful in the world of Spoons. Although it is unknown how many players remain in the game, it is safe to say that the number of players has severely narrowed over this week. Who knows what will happen in week two!
Congratulations to all players who made it to the end of the first week! All of our information and stories come from interviews and personal accounts, so If you have a story about Spoons you would like to share for the next article, please email [email protected]. Good luck in week two!
