Cheese Touch

"The Cheese Touch. Nobody knows when or how, but one day that cheese mysteriously appeared on the blacktop. Nobody knew who it belonged to. Nobody touched it. Nobody threw it away. And so there it sat, growing more foul and powerful by the day. Then one day, a kid named Darren Walsh made the biggest mistake of his life. Darren had the Cheese Touch! It was worse than nuclear cooties. He became an outcast, but the only way to get rid of the Cheese Touch was by passing it on to someone else. And so began the Cheese Touch Frenzy. Friend turning on friend. Brother turning on sister. It was madness. Until a German exchange student named Dieter Muller took it away. Sadly for Dieter, that fact was lost in translation. Thankfully, he moved back to Dusseldorf and took the Cheese Touch with him. And so the cheese sits, patiently waiting for its next victim."

- Chirag Gupta

The Cheese Touch is a game, mainly played at Westmore Middle School, throughout the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. If somebody has the Cheese Touch, they will be a social outcast until they pass it onto someone else by touching them, which is pretty difficult, as the main rule of the game causes no one to go near the person. The Cheese Touch was started by touching a moldy slice of cheese on the basketball field that someone had left there, which never got picked up. The movie diary claims that the Cheese is the main antagonist of the first book and film, despite it not being a character.

The Cheese Touch was first mentioned at the start of the first book, where it is revealed that The Cheese Touch originated from a piece of moldy cheese lying on the basketball court. The first person to have the cheese touch was Darren Walsh, who touched it with his finger. Greg says that Cheese Touch works like the cooties: you have it until you pass it on to someone else. Greg says that the only way to protect yourself from the Cheese Touch is by crossing your fingers, and Greg ended up taping his fingers together (he got a D in handwriting as a result, but felt that it was worth it). Greg says that a kid named Abe Hall got the Cheese Touch in the last April before middle school, and nobody would go near him for the rest of the school year. Greg says that Abe took the Cheese Touch with him when he and his family moved out to California, and Greg expresses hope that no one starts up the Cheese Touch again.

Towards the end of the first book, Greg and Rowley are confronted by a group of teenagers they ran into on Halloween night, who end up forcing Rowley to eat the Cheese—they were going to make Greg and Rowley split it, but Greg was able to get out of it by claiming he was allergic to dairy. After Rowley was forced to eat the Cheese, kids at school the next day noticed that it was gone and started coming up with theories as to what happened to it. Greg ultimately kept his mouth shut about what happened to him and Rowley, and eventually claimed to the other students that he ended up throwing it away, which freaked them out because by saying that, Greg technically has the Cheese Touch.

In the second book, Greg admits that he forgot he had the Cheese Touch until the first day of school, but was able to pass it onto a new kid in his homeroom named Jeremy Pindle. However, this doesn't start up the Cheese Touch again, as it's not mentioned again until the eleventh book.

In Double Down, Greg reveals that there's still a stain on the ground where the Cheese used to be, and that some students have tried starting up the Cheese Touch again, though teachers have done their best to stop it from happening. One student snuck a slice of roast beef on where the cheese used to be and tried starting something called the "Roast Beef Touch," but it didn't have the same effect as the "Cheese Touch," and ultimately never came to be.

People known to have the Cheese Touch

 * Darren Walsh
 * Greg Heffley (Not actually, was mistaken to)
 * Rowley Jefferson (Only to be saved by Greg)
 * Abe Hall (book)
 * Dieter Muller (film)
 * Jeremy Pindle (Currently)

Appearances

 * Diary of a Wimpy Kid (First appearance)
 * Diary of a Wimpy Kid (film)
 * Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
 * Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (film)
 * Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down (Mentioned only)

Trivia

 * It is not known what happened to the Cheese Touch, since it was not mentioned in any book after Rodrick Rules. It is likely that it dissolved as Jeremy Pindle is not seen giving it to anyone else and since Rowley ate the cheese.
 * This is further evidenced by Double Down, as everyone seemed to forget if people even had the cheese touch anymore.
 * In the 2012 novel, Wonder, Auggie, the main character, references the Cheese Touch, when he notices "The Plague", a cooties-like game involving him.
 * In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, the cheese used for The Cheese Touch is made out of silicone as stated in The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary.
 * It was also stated that the rotting effect was generated using CGI.