Archive

Where the Fuck the Function?!

Posted 10:49pm Sunday 28th September 2025 by Lily Jane

There is no feeling more rewarding than waking up at 11:45am, with no thoughts in your dusty brain other than “ouch, my head hurts,” followed by: “Did we just host the party of the century?”. Hosting isn't just about shoving every person you know into a room with a JBL Read more...

Stock Your Flat For Free

Posted 10:46pm Sunday 28th September 2025 by Molly Smith-Soppet

Disclaimer (because someone will ask): This is satire but also probably some good advice. Use your critical thinking skills to determine which is which.   So, you’ve blown your last $20 on a hungover Hunger Buster. Fear not, Dunedin is a magical place filled with many Read more...

Everything I know About Hate

Posted 7:50pm Sunday 28th September 2025 by Tristan Shand

It was my first year at university when I read Dolly Alderton’s book Everything I Know About Love. Going into it, I wanted to understand what love meant. For Dolly, it was platonic friendships with women where she finally understood what that pesky little word signified. For me it was a little Read more...

New Zealand Young Writers Fest: A Review

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 21st September 2025 by Stella Weston

Disclaimer: I’m really super biased — this was one of the coolest things I’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of.  The New Zealand Young Writers Festival celebrated its eleventh year in 2025. Beyond promoting the voices of young writers aged 15-35 over the weekend of Read more...

The Road to Te Huinga Tauira

Posted 6:06pm Sunday 21st September 2025 by Heeni Koero Te Rerenoa (Sky)

Porourangi Templeton-Reedy – Ngāti Porou, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tainui Jacqueline Te Kani-Nankivell – Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāpuhi Every year, tauira Māori (students) from across the motu (country) gather under one roof Read more...

The 24th Annual Critic Fish & Chip Review

Posted 5:44pm Sunday 21st September 2025 by Hugh Askerud

In many ways, fish and chips embody the ideal student: well-cooked, sopping with grease, and wrapped in paper. Well…maybe we’re not directly comparable, but there is something studenty about fish and chips, trust. More importantly, fish and chips are one of the few ways students have a Read more...

Flaunt Your Fashion

Posted 1:50pm Monday 15th September 2025 by Gemella Reynolds-Hatem (Ngāi Tahu: Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Ngāti Waewae, Ngāti Hāteatea)

Open my whakapapa and you won’t find a tidy capsule collection, but a wardrobe crowded with pieces that refuse a singular aesthetic. Among the Jordans, arab silks sit beside pounamu pieces; between the stacks of NFL jerseys, a hijab folds next to Māori-made designer. It’s messy and Read more...

From Ūawa to the Unknown: Six Weeks Across Taiwan

Posted 1:45pm Monday 15th September 2025 by Tenaya Brown (Te Aitanga a Hauiti ki Ūawa)

My journey started back home in Ūawa, with my whānau helping me gear up for my first-ever trip abroad – beyond Aussie, at least. From Christchurch, across to Hong Kong and finally over to Taiwan, it took five months of prep before we were even ready to step on that plane. Leaving Read more...

Champion One Day, Crumbling the Next

Posted 1:40pm Monday 15th September 2025 by Jessie-Jade Witeri (Ngāti Whakāue, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Whanaunga)

You probably know the entire menu at Burger N Beast off by heart, but couldn’t explain where your degree comes from without citing another white guy. Brutal? Maybe. True? Definitely. And before you clutch your pearls, name one Māori scholar without opening Google. Thought so. Let’s Read more...

Microwave Meals for the Maniacal Masses

Posted 9:10am Monday 8th September 2025 by Via Hooks

Need to prep for an all-day study sesh? Want to eat a hot meal on campus instead of in your cold flat? Keen to push the edges of culinary possibility and ethics? I (might) have the solution for you. A few weeks ago – armed with several microwave-safe containers, a lack of sleep, and one Read more...

Material Māori Gewl

Posted 5:50pm Sunday 7th September 2025 by Heeni Koero Te Rerenoa (Sky)

Apparently, 2016 is trending, and it’s an aesthetic. But my 2016 wasn’t all Tumblr edits, Musical.lys, or Kylie Lip Kits. While the internet’s version of that year was selling girls a pastel-filtered summer of promise, mine was very different. I’d been dragged back up to my Read more...

Why You Should Give A Shit About Local Body Elections

Posted 10:33am Sunday 7th September 2025 by Molly Smith-Soppet

If you're into trawling local Facebook groups then you've probably seen the words “Dunedin City Council” floating around somewhere. But what even is the DCC, and why should you, an ordinary student just trying to survive the dog-eat-dog world of academia, care? While it is Read more...

Campus Cryptids

Posted 10:06am Monday 25th August 2025 by Via Hooks

Cryptozoology is part of a long line of various pseudosciences, promising to reveal hidden worlds that traditional sciences fail to properly comprehend. You may have heard of many ‘cryptids’, like mothman, bigfoot and the chupacabra. We at Critic Te Ārohi believe that Dunedin is Read more...

I Fucking LOVE Mosgiel

Posted 3:17pm Sunday 24th August 2025 by Gryffin Blockley

Powering over the steep hill of the Southern Motorway, your eyes are blessed by scenery so beautiful it may force you to pull over. As the sun beams on the broad expanses of the Taieri Plains, a magical town sits in your eyeline. With just under 15,000 residents, the quaint town is not too busy like Read more...

“Waste of Money": Sexy Garfield vs the world

Posted 11:53pm Sunday 17th August 2025 by Jonathan McCabe

Sexy, erotic, and throbbing. That is the best way to describe Emily Davidson's 2017 magnum opus entitled Lasagnerie. Exhibited in the OUSA reception for all to see, entrenched within a gilded frame, is the portrait depicting a seductive cartoon of Garfield dressed in lingerie, stockings, and Read more...

The Great Ōtepoti Flag Referendum

Posted 11:03pm Sunday 17th August 2025 by Molly Smith-Soppet

Flags are a way for communities to display their collective pride and patriotism. Currently, Dunedin does not have a cohesive identity. As the story goes with university towns, every three years there is a whole new batch of students, and therefore a whole new identity. A flag would give students Read more...

Diary of a Tortured Artist

Posted 10:53pm Sunday 17th August 2025 by Ellie Bennett

7am  My alarm goes off at 7, like it does every morning (except for Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Tuesdays, which are my designated days of rest). I let it ring for a while, contemplating staying in bed. Artists are an amalgamation of feelings. I feel Read more...

Get the look — lecturer edition

Posted 10:08pm Sunday 10th August 2025 by Stella Weston

Disclaimer: I mean no offence, please don’t fail me. Nothing but respect for academics <3 Law Starting strong, law lecturers have known who they are from a young age. Law school was such a war for them that they have harboured that pain within them – determined to take it out on Read more...

Romanticising Getting Dressed

Posted 9:00pm Sunday 10th August 2025 by Grace Hards

Every morning I look at myself in the mirror and ask the world’s most terrifying question: Who do I want to be today? It’s not just about putting on pants one leg at a time. It’s a full-blown existential crisis, performed in front of a bathroom mirror, under fluorescent Read more...

Popping Cherries: Virginity Horror Stories

Posted 7:58pm Sunday 3rd August 2025 by Stella Weston

Over the last three months I’ve been asking my friends, friends of friends, distant associates, and girls I’d met ten minutes ago in the bathroom how they lost their virginity. I was surprised at how many women were open about it and happy to yap – some with nice wholesome Read more...