Affinity Groups Face Off in Hot Wings Challenge

By LUCY JUNG and ELAINE QIAO

Students line up to compete in the Hot Wings Challenge.

Photo courtesy of Rina Fuji

On Friday, May 4, affinity clubs Asian Voices (AV), Black Students of Excellence (BSE), and La Alianza Latina (LAL) hosted the second-ever annual Hot Wings Challenge. The event saw exactly 60 students participating and vying to win. 

The three-way competition between the clubs involves 20 representatives from each group — 15 chosen by raffle and five chosen based on nominations from other students — going through rounds eating pieces of chicken or tofu with progressively spicier sauces. One cup of milk was allowed at any point during the competition, and water was unlimited for safety. This year, there were five rounds in the challenge. Representatives who made it to the end of the challenge were survivors, and the club with the most survivors won the challenge.

Students shared their thoughts going into the challenge. “I am most excited to see the Black, Latiné and Asian Exeter community come together in an event where all our members can have fun and destress from academic work,” senior and LAL co-head Ale Murat said. “Most of all, I look forward to LAL winning the challenge!”

“I genuinely just looked forward to spicy wings. It’s hard to find good spicy food here at Exeter,” upper Bai Xue said.

Going into the challenge, upper Catherine Zehner had one goal in mind. “I’m one of three AV co-heads for next year, and I am by far the one with the lowest spice tolerance. I did not want to be the person that dropped out immediately,” Zehner said.

Xue shared similar pre-competition goals. “I knew I wanted to finish. I finished last year’s challenge,” Xue said. Xue also added her personal opinion regarding the spice levels, saying that they were easier this year than the last. 

The common sentiment was that round four had the spiciest wings. When asked which was the toughest round, Xue said, “Probably number four. Or I just had burned my taste buds off by level five.” 

Zehner agreed. “Level four? I didn’t drink any water. But level four got really tough. And then the second I finished the fifth wing, I just finished off my milk. I couldn’t do it. So I got really scared when, for a moment, they were like, ‘We’re gonna have a sixth level.’ I was like, 

‘I’m out of milk and I can’t do it.’ But they didn’t end up doing that, so I’m really relieved. But the fourth level was definitely the hottest.”

Still, students found the challenge to be fun. “I really enjoyed the event, honestly,” senior Keanen Andrews said. “I think the thing I enjoyed the most was seeing everybody pop out from all the different clubs. BSE did end up winning because we had [only] one person drop out. That was a highlight, but it was just nice event overall.”

Club coheads reflected on the planning process for the challenge. Senior and AV co-head Sage Murthy said, “[Planning] was really hard because there were so many co-heads of all the three affinity groups, so it was really difficult to get times when everybody could meet together,” Murthy said. “At the beginning, we disagreed on how it should be run, but I think it ended up going well.”

“We changed the amount of sauces used, we changed the level of spiciness within the sauces, [and] it was a little bit more organized this year,” upper and LAL co-head Sofia Contreras added. “We had people helping out on deck, serving the food, so [it] ran smoothly.”

Murthy spoke on the outcome of the event. “I think the energy was really high. People were excited, which made me happy. I was also lowkey worried people wouldn’t sign up to participate. But many people did, so I was happy about that.”

Murthy also shared her sentiments regarding the future of affinity events like the Hot Wings Challenge. “There aren’t that many affinity events that include all three groups. There are a lot of affinity events for BSE and LAL, but this is one of the few events that include AV. I think that’s something that should come in future years. Hopefully, the co-heads in the future will try to work to make more events like this. I think it’s really fun and I think having all the affinity groups together is really a good experience.”

Contreras echoed Murthy’s sentiment. “I feel like there should be more [affinity collaboration events], because right now it’s only the Hot Wings Challenge,” she said. “There’s a lot of crossover for LAL [and] BSE], but for the next year, so like the 2023-2024 board, I would love to see more AV, LAL, and BSE crossovers.”

“I loved collaborating with the BSE, LAL, and AV co-heads, and most of all, seeing people come and support our clubs,” Murat agreed. Speaking specifically on the Hot Wings Challenge, Murat added, “I think one thing we could improve for the future is having more rounds and maybe lowering the number of competitors so we could have a more focused competition.”

“Shout out to OMA, Dean Hernandez, [and] Dean Camilus for helping us make this happen. Shout out to our club advisors for helping us organize. And shout out to the 2021-2022 board for making this in the first place and starting this really cool annual tradition that I think will be lasting,” Contreras added. 

Xue wished for a bigger challenge. “The only thing to improve is to make the wings hotter,” Xue said. “Too many people survived until the end.”

Zehner, AV cohead for the coming 2023-2024 academic year, also expressed a desire for more competitiveness between the clubs. “I just want to give the three different clubs more chance to talk with each other throughout the event. A little bit more friendly smack talk would fire people up more. I think this year’s challenge was super fun, so I’d want to amplify that next year, especially for the participants,” Zehner concluded. 

Murthy agreed. “People survived [for a] long [time]. Out of 60 participants, we had maybe five people drop out, which was unexpected. We thought more people would drop out. We were kind of worried we wouldn’t have a winner.”

In the end, BSE won by a one person margin. “It was really close,” Contreras said. “LAL had two people [drop out]. AV had like two people, and then BSE had one. If one other person [from BSE] dropped, like it would’ve been a tie.”

“I’m proud of us,” Andrews said, celebrating BSE’s win. “There are a few people I definitely expected to drop one along way, but they surprised me. Especially the underclassmen.”

“I think next year is not promised for BSE and they should watch their back whenever they’re posting about it,” Contreras said jokingly. “No hate, no shade, love BSE.”