Wildcat Tech held the Wildcat Kiss-Off in the Shepherd Union Building on Wednesday. Competitors stood on top of a platform while Weber State University students cheered them on. The rules were simple: Each student held an iPad mini between their partner’s lips, arms behind their backs, and tried to outlast the other participants. Judges walked around the platform, waiting for couples to drop their iPads. The couple who could withstand the hours of standing while their lips embraced the plastic wrapper won two iPad minis, donated by the campus bookstore.
“It was originally my and Ben Taylor’s idea to start this,” said Sam Howe, one of the coordinators and judges for the event. “A couple years ago, we had an event called the iPod Kiss-Off, where we did pretty much the same thing, but we decided to up the ante and make it a little more interesting. Basically, it’s the endurance. Whoever can outlast the competition is going to win their iPad. If it continues on for a couple of hours, we may have them go ahead and stand on one leg. Once again, up the ante and make it a little more difficult so we are not going to be here all night.”
The Kiss-Off was created to promote WSU campus stores and Wildcat Tech.
“This is for anybody and everybody,” Howe said. “We had a drawing for people that were following us on Facebook at Wildcat Tech. Last time, they lasted four hours. This is a little bit more difficult because of the weight of the iPad versus the iPod Touch. We are assuming a little bit less, but still, hopefully, we are going to have some good competition.”
Zach Christiansen and Morgan Walker were in the Shepherd Union Atrium to cheer for their friends.
“It’s not actually a kissing competition,” Walker said, “because you have an iPad in between. It’s funny.”
The competition lasted for three hours and 53 minutes. Markie Ashburn and Lorenzo Bindrup were the winners.
“One iPad is like three Book of Mormons,” Christiansen said, “so it’s totally fine. If it was like hardcore, how long can you make out for, you’d have so (many) angry people in here.”
Bianca Haro and Blas Reyes, freshmen working on their associate degrees, competed in the Kiss-Off. Haro said she heard about the competition through Facebook.
“I registered every day so we could get a chance to enter in it,” Haro said, “and they picked us through the e-mail.”
Reyes said they would have done better if they’d had time to practice.
“We practiced at home, but we practiced with a normal iPad,” Haro said. “And it didn’t have the plastic on it. The plastic totally made it difficult. He’s really tall, so I was thinking how it was going to work. It started to twist on my lip, so we tried to, like, twist it the other (way), but I ended up dropping it, and I was telling him, ‘Don’t drop it.’ If we would have gotten a better grip on our lips, I think we could have done better.”
Ali Alalaharits and Brian Ibrahim said they were shocked to see the Kiss-Off competition. Being from Saudi Arabia, they had never witnessed an event like this before.
“No boy and girl are together,” Ibrahim said. “Family from the girl can kill you. It is very bad.”
In Saudi Arabia, they said, the men are not allowed to talk to the women on the street or on the campus.
“I wouldn’t do it for an iPad,” Alalaharits said, “but if (it was) for car, I would. I was excited to see it because it is so different from my country.”
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