Archive

Your Wellness Instagram Is Just Yassified Colonialism, Actually.

Posted 11:51am Monday 11th September 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

I think we can all probably agree that the golden age of social media is officially over. We’re no longer posting wholesome and heartfelt statuses on Facebook or being unapologetically cringe on Instagram while simultaneously running a successful One Direction Twitter fan account. Instead, Read more...

Literary Legends: A Peek Inside 2023’s New Zealand Young Writers Festival

Posted 9:02pm Sunday 3rd September 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

From the 21st to the 24th of September, Ōtepoti is lucky enough to be hosting the New Zealand Young Writers Festival. Produced by Dunedin Fringe Festival, the event is a free, four-day celebration of our creative community across all literary forms: poetry, fiction, zines, journalism, podcasts, Read more...

Pussy, Power and the Patriarchy

Posted 8:45pm Sunday 3rd September 2023 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

Being a boss bitch comes with an asterisk. Even that term, boss bitch, still carries the word “bitch” in it, as if women can’t be in charge without being insufferable. But despite all the resistance, many have forced their way to the top. Like a modern Elle Woods, pushing on in Read more...

Self-guided art tour/pub crawl

Posted 3:51pm Sunday 13th August 2023 by Critic

Want to go see some art but also want to make it a red card? Here are some pre-planned stops on an art gallery pub crawl. Just remember: no touching the galleries, even after ten pints. And no, you couldn’t have made that yourself.    Start at Ironic Bar and Cafe before heading Read more...

Rouge:

Posted 2:17pm Monday 7th August 2023 by Zak Rudin

Disclaimer: OUSA does not endorse dumpster diving as it can have serious legal ramifications.     Joey, a local fashion dumpster diver, told Critic Te Ārohi dumpster fashion “is fast fashion”. As in, you’ve gotta be fast: “I don’t want to get Read more...

The American College Jumper. Why?

Posted 1:51pm Monday 7th August 2023 by myia Pearce

I doubt many Americans are walking around their college campuses with Otago University jumpers.    You don’t need to visit Michigan to rock U of M gear. You don’t need to know how to pronounce “Worcester'' to look like an alumni, and the only reason I can Read more...

OPINION: Everyone dresses queer now and it’s fucking with my gaydar

Posted 1:43pm Monday 7th August 2023 by Amelia Blockley

Gaydar is a magical thing. It gives us queer folk the ability to pick up on little hints and clues that can guide our flirtatious approach, and since the 1940s and 1950s fashion has been one of the best ways to sense someone’s queerness. Docs, work wear, chunky rings, and suits were some of Read more...

The Search for Conehenge

Posted 1:45pm Monday 31st July 2023 by Hugh Askerud

Ahhh, the simple art of cone theft. Over the years many have loaded a number of descriptions onto this noble craft: thrilling, devious, psychotic even, but pointless? Many have dared to make this bold assertion, calling cone theft ludicrous for the fact that the art has no purpose. And…to Read more...

Degrees and How They Smell: A walkthrough of the academic perfume aisle

Posted 1:43pm Monday 31st July 2023 by Rose mills

Computer science: The worst. Just the worst. Have you been to the comp sci labs in the science building? They absolutely reek. They never shower because they don't want to get their electronics wet. Yuck.   Natural sciences: Distinct aroma of mud, weed, and septum piercing. Strangely Read more...

Chlöe Swarbrick: On Harm Reduction, Landlords, and (still) being the Youngest in Parliament

Posted 4:34pm Monday 24th July 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Whether you love her or hate her, over the past few years, it’s been hard to ignore Chlöe Swarbrick. The 29-year-old Green Party Member and Auckland Central MP was elected to office at 23, making her the youngest politician to enter parliament since Marilyn Waring in 1975. In 2023 Read more...

Fresh Stress Relief

Posted 4:27pm Monday 24th July 2023 by Fox Meyer

It’s that time of year again - it’s ten degrees colder than when you first began to complain about the winter chill, your fingers continue to grow stiff on your laptop keyboard, it’s difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and the motivation you thought would return after the Read more...

OPINION: Gaslighting is totally normal, actually. (a response)

Posted 4:21pm Monday 24th July 2023 by Lotto Ramsay

Gaslighting is totally normal, and I can’t believe you didn’t know that. Assuming you’re a loyal Critic reader, I’m sure you know all about gaslighting by now. We can’t seem to publish an issue without mentioning the word, and we even ran a feature earlier this year Read more...

How to Take Your Landlord to Court

Posted 9:58pm Tuesday 18th July 2023 by Zak Rudin

Dunedin’s rental rates are rising faster than any other university town in the country, but the quality of the homes is not exactly a sterling standard. Since people come and go every year, it can be easy for a property owner to neglect a home for years on end, always promising to do work for Read more...

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins: On the Tertiary Sector, Student Life, and Protesting

Posted 9:44pm Tuesday 18th July 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins represents one thing: hope. At least, hope for rangas and hope for people from The Hutt that, despite the circumstances they were born into, they too can achieve their dreams. While he now has the biggest job in the country, it wasn’t long ago that Chippy was just Read more...

Opinion: Nepotism: It’s okay if it’s tradition!

Posted 5:58pm Monday 29th May 2023 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

Exam season may be daunting but, remember, if old mate Charlie can succeed the throne at the overripe age of 74 and still not know his allocated lines, then you can walk off that B+ with your head held high. Despite the archaic, dormant vibe that the British monarchy insists on maintaining in the Read more...

South Otago Pubs Ranked by How Scared I Am to be In Them

Posted 5:52pm Monday 29th May 2023 by Hugh Askerud

Last month I cut my hair short. No longer was I the long-haired lad who sat reading Proust in the summer sun. Instead, I endeavoured to become the beer-guzzling, duck-shooting, rugby-loving, Southern man which my rugged short hair prescribed me to be. Yet how is it possible to make such a rapid Read more...

Opinion: Dear Straight Men: Gay Girls Leaving Gay Events Don’t Want to Fuck You

Posted 6:00pm Thursday 25th May 2023 by Becca Thorby

With Dunedin Pride month firmly at our backs, a memory that stands out to me was Woof! and Dunedin Pride’s club night ‘Wetness’ on March 19. The dress code was the very elaborate “moist / thirst-trap / tropical summer / poolside swimwear / evening-wear skin / cabana cocktail Read more...

Drum and Bass: How it took root in Dunedin

Posted 4:05pm Sunday 21st May 2023 by Anna Robertshawe

In the 1800s, they brought gorse from the UK. Now it’s everywhere. In the 2000s, another import took root in Dunedin’s soil: Drum and Bass. Whether you love to hate it or hate to love it, you can’t deny the fact that drum and bass is at the heart of Dunedin music culture. Read more...

Banned Shirts: Why Not Knowing the Band is an Act of Feminism

Posted 3:49pm Sunday 21st May 2023 by Jamiema Lorimer

Nirvana. The Beatles. Pink Floyd. Bands that mean absolutely nothing to the girlies. Or do they? In this essay, I will outline why basic bitches wearing band shirts is actually a feminist act of sticking it to the man. Self-proclaimed music bros, Anthony Fantano subscribers, and guys who tune Read more...

QUIZ: Which Dunedin Venue Are You?

Posted 3:26pm Sunday 21st May 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Your latest Tinder match hits you with the dreaded question: “What kind of music are you into?” What half-truth will make you seem more interesting? Jazz, but like, real jazz. Have you seen Whiplash? I’m actually in a surf rock band, that’s probably my go-to Read more...

Opinion: Busking Needs a Glow-Up

Posted 3:06pm Sunday 21st May 2023 by Hugh Askerud

As a timid fourteen-year-old, I wanted to go busking in town with my ukulele. Ignoring the fact that a ukulele is a terrible busking instrument, I quickly found myself in a swamp of bureaucratic bereavement which only subsided after I gave up on my musical dreams forever. Granted, I was a terrible Read more...

How to Know if You’ve Got The Ick

Posted 11:54am Tuesday 16th May 2023 by Anna Robertshawe

Part 1 of 2: Understanding the Ick       Understand that getting the ick is not your fault. Society often stigmatises the ick and those who suffer from it. This means it can be easy to believe that you are a bad person. And maybe you are. You might be Read more...

Correlation or Causation?

Posted 3:19pm Sunday 14th May 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

According to Gen Z, “pipelines” are no longer what Big Oil puts in the ground. Rather, a pipeline is an ominous way of understanding the correlation or causation between particular people and their tendencies. There are a few pipelines which are specific to Otago and greater student Read more...

Secret Community Unearthed!...Sorta

Posted 2:03pm Sunday 7th May 2023 by Hugh Askerud

Athletics aren’t necessarily synonymous with student life. Sport New Zealand attests to this, claiming weekly participation in sporting activity drops from 98% to 75% at the age of 18. Despite these staggering statistics, the question remains: how do breathas remain so skinny in spite of such Read more...

How to Lose a Guy in Five Dates

Posted 3:26pm Sunday 30th April 2023 by Nina Brown

As someone who’s been called a serial monogamist, I recently had the novel (dis)pleasure of re-entering the Dunedin dating scene. Now, “dating scene” is a somewhat generous term for what awaits singles on the damp streets of Dunners, which I was reminded of upon redownloading Read more...

Opinion: The System Isn’t Broken

Posted 3:11pm Sunday 23rd April 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

A clean, green, egalitarian nation. One that cares deeply for its people and wildlife, all of whom exist within a beautiful, isolated bubble of freedom, safety, and prosperity. At least, that’s what New Zealand likes to go around bragging about. But when you take a deeper, harder look at this Read more...

Burnt Out

Posted 2:38pm Sunday 23rd April 2023 by Anna Robertshawe

“Work hard, play hard” works, until it doesn’t. Most of us drink anywhere between 1-4 nights a week, work one or two jobs, and belong to one or two clubs or volunteer groups - all on top of uni. It’s a lifestyle, and we make it work. But students are burning the candle at Read more...

All the gear, no idea

Posted 11:41am Sunday 16th April 2023 by Max Phillips

Otago is the MDMA capital of New Zealand.  Wastewater testing has revealed that Otago consumes nearly twice as much MDMA (1.8x) per capita than anywhere else in the country. In Quarter 2 of 2022, the Southern District consumed 538 mg per day per 1,000 people, compared to a national average Read more...

How to Smuggle Meth into New Zealand: Just Add Vinegar

Posted 11:38am Sunday 16th April 2023 by Rauri Warren

Imagine if New Zealand banned a specific LEGO set from crossing the border. Let’s say it’s the Titanic model, set #10294. That set comes with precisely 9,090 pieces, and only a specific combination of those pieces results in set #10294. Now let’s say that you built set #10294 Read more...

Pick your Poison: Drug Trends in Dunedin

Posted 11:32am Sunday 16th April 2023 by Anna Robertshawe

The relationship between drugs and Dunedin party culture is probably stronger than your parent’s marriage. But much like fashion and music, taste in drugs has changed over the past few decades. Critic Te Ārohi decided to take a deep dive into Dunedin drug trends over time and ask why some Read more...

Moshers of the world, unite!

Posted 3:04pm Sunday 2nd April 2023 by Hugh Askerud

Trapped in every student’s soul is an immutable desire to mosh. Whether that be in a crowd of hundreds or alone in a crusty bedroom, mosh culture is fundamental to the plight of every student. As the age old saying goes: “Up there’s for thinking, down there’s for Read more...

Different Breeds of Landlord

Posted 3:02pm Sunday 2nd April 2023 by Zak Rudin

Nestled throughout the sprawling ecosystem of Dunedin lies perhaps the most pervasive pest of all: the landlord. They come in all different shapes and sizes, marking territory in their own unique and equally infuriating ways. With each species of landlord comes a different experience. Critic Te Read more...

Lavender Town: A Lesbian’s Guide to a Dunedin Day Out

Posted 3:59pm Sunday 26th March 2023 by Lotto Ramsay

Rock climbing What is it about this sport that attracts queer women? It’s true that climbing gyms are often swarming with shirtless, sweaty “boulder bros”, and outdoor walls can crawl with trad climbers sporting greying beards and bulging veins, but climbing is overall a diverse Read more...

Dammed If You Do: Safe Vulva Sex

Posted 3:17pm Sunday 26th March 2023 by Lotto Ramsay

Note: This guide aims to inform on safe sex practices with and between vulvas. Not all women have vulvas, and not everyone with a vulva is a woman. Resources around STI prevention tend to focus exclusively on sex involving penises, even though STIs can also pass vulva-to-vulva Read more...

Homie-Eroticism: All the gay shit breathas do

Posted 3:11pm Sunday 26th March 2023 by Lotto Ramsay

Dunedin is one of the few places on earth where you’ll hear the f-slur casually used by straight breathas who are mere hours away from drinking out of each other’s nutsacks. I posit that Breathadom creates a unique space for playful, casual male intimacy that remains socially Read more...

Ko Te Katoa o Te Ingoa i Kōrerotia

Posted 2:55pm Sunday 19th March 2023 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

Mātauranga taiao, environmental knowledge, has never been more relevant. Built over generations, it’s represented in the names of places all around us, and it offers insight into how these places might behave in a changing climate. That is, if you know what they Read more...

Birds of a Feather

Posted 2:34pm Sunday 19th March 2023 by Fox Meyer

Note: We’d like to thank the DCC staff who take care of Sid and his avian mates for letting us in and sharing Sid’s story. They’re keen to tell a bigger story about the ethics of aviaries, which are a relic of a more Victorian time. They can’t just get rid of the birds Read more...

My Life with the Bus Hub Barnacle

Posted 1:50pm Sunday 19th March 2023 by Hugh Askerud

A bus hub barnacle is usually about 1.5 metres tall, and can be identified by their disposable vapes and matching clothing. Pack behaviour is common in this species. While they are often regarded as dangerous, like so many other mid-sized mammals, their bark is worse than their Read more...

Nut Up or Shut Up: Why Halls Should Go Vegetarian

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 12th March 2023 by Fox Meyer

The way halls work right now, with opt-in veggies but obligate meats, is completely backwards.   I don’t care if you keep eating meat in your day-to-day life. It’s kinda cringe, but ultimately, the emissions from one private jet flight outweigh any of your dietary choices. So Read more...

Cutting Your Fringe: The Cost of Defunding the Dunedin Fringe Festival

Posted 1:17pm Sunday 12th March 2023 by Jamiema Lorimer

Dunedin Fringe Festival 2023 was thrown into doubt in September last year when Creative NZ (CNZ) declined their funding application. This year’s Fringe is set to go ahead, after a crowdfunding campaign and a great show of support from the community. Critic looks at what costs it took to send Read more...

It’s All Greek to Me!

Posted 1:10pm Sunday 12th March 2023 by Hugh Askerud

Before you get upset about the title, understand that a toga party in New Zealand in 2023 is about as Roman as it is Martian, so making a Greek pun is excusable.   With that out of the way: Toga party. What’s the deal? This annual event has become an intrinsic part of student Read more...

Avatar 2 Sucked, Actually

Posted 2:53pm Sunday 5th March 2023 by Skyla o Ngāti Hine

Avatar: The Way of Water recently ranked as the sixth-highest grossing film in all of cinematic history. Like thousands of other Kiwis around New Zealand, you may have found yourself in your local Hoyts this summer enjoying a box of popcorn and the long-awaited sequel. It’s also likely that Read more...

Game of Throwns

Posted 1:32pm Sunday 5th March 2023 by Hugh Askerud

There is something distinct in the Otago student spirit which inevitably leads to a bottle, egg, or other assorted item being thrown in the streets of studentville. Maybe it's the Leith’s unyielding supply of inedible trout which spawned the madness, or perhaps the bountiful amount of food Read more...

Google Form Flat Quizzes: How Much Heat Can You Handle?

Posted 1:28pm Sunday 5th March 2023 by Iris Hehir

When tensions are highest in a flat, everyone agrees to the bad idea of doing an anonymous Google Form quiz. It’s a fact of life. However, like with all good things in life, you can choose the spiciness level of these questions. From complimentary props to sulk-inducing burns, here’s Read more...

Opinion: Critic Te Ārohi Will Be Covering The Election This Year

Posted 7:53pm Sunday 26th February 2023 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

For those of you too young to remember, or those who need a memory jog, Critic Te Ārohi made the decision to not cover the 2020 general election on the basis that party politicians had “nothing more to offer students than a shrivelled pea.” The decision received an extensive amount Read more...

Flo and O Party Themes, Reviewed

Posted 6:42pm Sunday 26th February 2023 by Critic

    Monday 13th: Courtyard: Back to School Appropriate for day 1 of parties. Makes sense. Opportunity to wear some kinky outfits.   Eyewitness testimony: Seemed to have the most turnout as a uniform is pretty easy to source. People got sloshed immediately and many Read more...

Local Produce: Becca Caffyn

Posted 7:48pm Sunday 9th October 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

“I’m good at feeling and feeling deep,” Becca Caffyn laments on her new song ‘Replacement Blonde.’ The sorrowful ballad is also the title track of her debut EP. We caught up with Becca to talk about her latest music, change and processing these feelings through Read more...

Opinion on VIP Entry: Special Admission or Special Treatment?

Posted 7:44pm Sunday 9th October 2022 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

For too long, Māori have been surrounded by the stigma of relying on handouts and “free money” from the government. There are social expectations of what Māori are meant to be, and if you don’t fit a particular narrative, then you aren’t Māori enough. A plastic Read more...

Dictionary of Rare Duds Slang

Posted 7:39pm Sunday 9th October 2022 by Critic

Acoustic adjective: To wank without the use of sex toys, objects, or lubricant. Ex: “I forgot to charge my Satisfyer so I had to go acoustic last night.” Synonyms: Acapella, cavemanning.  Analogue: adjective. Hand-rolled cigarettes, as opposed to pre-rolled. Battler: noun. Read more...

A Guide to the Night Sky: Existential Crises Have Never Been So Accessible

Posted 6:47pm Sunday 9th October 2022 by Keegan Wells

The night sky is like your lectures: you catch yourself saying “I should go look at that sometime” and rarely actually follow up. However, this article is not here to tell you to watch your lectures. Lectures cost around a box and a half ($35) apiece if you’re a domestic student, Read more...