Zohran’s embarrassing scavenger hunt

I still look back fondly on my 10th birthday party – a cute little scavenger hunt through the landmarks of Central Park. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to waste a peaceful Sunday afternoon reliving those glory days 20-odd years later. 

Zohran Mamdani is cut from a different cloth, it seems. New York’s socialist soon-to-be mayor hosted his very own campaign-themed “Zcavenger Hunt” on Sunday, and thousands of over-worked (or unemployed?) New Yorkers seemingly had nothing better to do than embrace their inner whimsy. 

Mamdani announced the event on Saturday in typical fashion – a highly produced video clip poking fun at his opponents. “You’ll solve a series of clues all related to a particular theme in New York City history,” Mamdani explained, “each of which will take you to the next location.” 

Each clue hinted at a past NYC mayor, leading participants to a historical location associated with them. By Sunday afternoon, a dense crowd had converged outside the answer to the first clue, Tammany Hall, where the scavengers received an official campaign punch card. Those who made it through the subsequent clues by 5:30pm won a special prize: a meet and greet with Mamdani himself at Little Flower Cafe in Astoria. 

The scavenger hunt was an undeniably brilliant publicity stunt. It drew attention to Mamdani’s signature issue, New York’s suffering public transport system, as participants were encouraged to train and bus between clues. Each clue highlighted Mamdani’s adopted persona of reformer and outsider in comparison to past mayors. Tammany Hall, for example, has been associated with Democratic Party corruption for centuries, while Mayor Fiorello Laguardia is remembered for both his anticorruption campaign and love of Little Flower Cafe. Neither Andrew Cuomo nor Eric Adams would have had the star power to draw thousands out for a quirky afternoon romp – and the hunt brought Mamdani’s already magnetic social-media-based campaign to new heights of engagement. 

Still, it’s all more than a little embarrassing. Pictures from the meet and greet show about exactly who you’d expect to dedicate their Sunday afternoon to a political game: lots of blue hair, facial piercings and performatively hipster outfits on millennials who could certainly benefit from a socialist-backed gym membership. A landmark-based scavenger hunt would have been great fun for some nerdy, history-buff tweens – but do these overgrown theater kids really have nothing better to do than live out childhood nostalgia? 

The event was fitting for Mamdani, himself a member of the theater-kid demographic. The label doesn’t necessarily denote an obsession with musical theater, but instead an immature flare for living performatively; every little mannerism, accessory and life choice becomes a prop in the dramatized performance of one’s own life. Mamdani uses this to his advantage, as every knowing wink and cheesy smile becomes a curated part of his happy-go-lucky campaign persona. For others, it’s just plain sad: unable to secure any meaningful foundation for adult life, they cling to a stunted grade-school irony and lose out on forming any real identity. So of course they jumped on adult scavenger hunt, which sounds more like the plot of a bad Friends episode than anything you’d encounter in real life. 

For all the talk of radical change, Mamdani’s campaign cannot escape its theater-kid irony. What he’s selling to these disaffected New Yorkers is pure childhood nostalgia: free this, subsidized that, a morally simple vision for New York’s good guys and bad guys where everyone gets the care they need and deserve. Don’t worry, just have fun, the campaign seems to say – the carefree whimsy of childhood filtered through a political program. But those on board will be shocked to discover how this program, in practice, will deliver little more than the bad governance they’re already used to. 

The cracks are already showing, as naive lefties discovered during the hunt itself. Given the large turnout, participants noted how campaign staff quickly ran out of punch cards, leaving the bulk of late arrivals to participate unofficially without the opportunity for a meet-and-greet. This left participants “ticked off” as staffers got “catty” and hid rather than explaining the situation at Little Flower. 

It seems the law of finite resources still applies – no matter how good the performance. And if a campaign built on fun and whimsy can’t even deliver on punch cards, then the administration stands little chance at solving New York’s many real issues. 

Leave scavengers hunts for children, and let the adults govern.