Archive
The True Cost of Ethical Consumption: A Trial R
Posted 10:17pm Sunday 27th April 2025 by Adam Stitely
Inspired by a rewatch of Food, Inc. (2009), the god-given right to shit on Nestlé, and an attempt to offset years of Fatty Lane-sponsored staff meals, Critic Te Ārohi spent five days living as an Ethical Consumer – cutting out anything even vaguely unethically sourced. Despite our Read more...
Locally Produced David Attenboroughs: A Guide
Posted 10:06pm Sunday 27th April 2025 by Jodie Evans
Looking for your next Attenborough fix but want something local? Check out the babies of Otago Science Communication grads and alumni. With a cheeky behind-the-scenes “brought to you by” to let you in on the highs and lows of bringing science to the people. If Nina’s editorial is a Read more...
ANIMALS?!?!?!? How to have pets as a student. Kind of.
Posted 9:14pm Sunday 27th April 2025 by Tilly Rumball-Smith
Kiwis own more pets per household than almost anyone else in the world, so it comes as a bit of a culture shock to leave that behind for studenthood. Many of us grew up with household pets who, unfortunately, remained in the household when we moved out. Without us realising, our final year of high Read more...
Life Lessons from my Dead Pet Snail
Posted 9:12pm Sunday 27th April 2025 by Lotto Ramsay
This is a story about one Snegma “Sneg” Ramsay (Snegory to my parents). Once a snail fell from the sky and it taught me about love. “Fell from the sky” is a fanciful way of saying that I dropped him by mistake when I found him in my kitchen sink. I thought that he Read more...
Backyard Ecology: A Semi-Scientific Journey into the World of Moss
Posted 9:06pm Sunday 27th April 2025 by Isabella Simoni
Bryology: The study of mosses and liverworts Did you know that camels have three testicles? Well, if you did, you’d be wrong – and anyway, this article is about moss. That green stuff that grows on trees, rocks, and those trolls from Frozen. The stuff that goes unnoticed most of the Read more...
Flat Authoritarianism
Posted 11:43pm Sunday 13th April 2025 by Ellie Bennett
Flatting is a delicate balance of personalities, habits, and passive aggressiveness. For the first time, you get to experience life free from the watchful eye of parents or RAs – and that usually means 2-minute noodles for every second meal, putting off your washing to the last minute, and, Read more...
The Castle Street Baby
Posted 11:33pm Sunday 13th April 2025 by Tilly Rumball-Smith
CW: Violence Critic Te Ārohi gave a (fake) baby to a five man Castle Street flat to take care of from Thursday to Sunday. There were only three rules: Don’t lose the baby. You must bring the baby with you everywhere. You must keep a diary of your adventures Read more...
The Great Cone Game
Posted 10:40pm Sunday 13th April 2025 by Connor Moffat
You may have heard of the Chicken Chase, a daring drinking game involving a horde of bros and baes drinking their way along the rainbow (pubs) to find the pot of gold (a mate dressed as a chicken in an undisclosed pub, drinking their way through a collective tab). Critic Te Ārohi played our own Read more...
Tell Us How You Really Feel: 100 Years of Hate Mail
Posted 10:25pm Sunday 6th April 2025 by Critic
Critic’s had haters in our inbox right from day dot. Within the first few issues in 1925 there were letters predicting Critic’s downfall. Now in our 100th year, let’s have a toast for the douchebags, assholes, scumbags and jerk-offs who’ve penned objectively hilarious and Read more...
Te Ārohi: A “Critic” in Name Only
Posted 10:05pm Sunday 6th April 2025 by Nā Heeni Koero Te Rerenoa (Sky)
This piece was pitched as ‘100 years of Critic’s Māori coverage’. That would’ve been disingenuous. It’s not a centenary for all of us, because for most of that time, we weren’t here. One hundred years of Critic, and only twenty-nine of Te Ārohi. Read more...
40 Ways Critic is the Worst Student Magazine in the World
Posted 9:40pm Sunday 6th April 2025 by Critic
40 Ways was Critic’s weekly listicle, popular in the early 2000s and maybe even the 1990s – the halcyon days when men were men, women were women, men were also women, women were also gender constructs, and introductory blurbs were worth reading. Critic is the school lunch programme Read more...
Opinion: Chlöe Swarbrick is still a politician
Posted 10:40pm Sunday 23rd March 2025 by Jordan Irvine
As a child, my parents were Labour voters and to me that seemed like the moral choice. John Key’s National government at the time did not have their best interests at heart as they prioritised wealth over wellbeing. New Zealand First, headed at the time by an old Winston Peters, appealed more Read more...
Tall Etiquette: Reaching new heights in allyship at concerts
Posted 9:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2025 by Jonathan McCabe
If you’ve attended Electric Ave, Six60 or one of the first few Pint Nights, you would have noticed some pretty appalling crowd etiquette. You don’t need to part a friend group like the Red Sea to get to the front. In a mosh situation, tall people must act very carefully. Sometimes you Read more...
Lecture Theatre Bingo
Posted 9:25pm Sunday 23rd March 2025 by Zoe Eckhoff
Lectures can be fucking boring. This could be because you’re doing a degree you hate, your lecturer has the worst voice in the world or says “um” too much. Or it could just be a ceebs that day. Critic Te Ārohi has now invented a solution for when you have run out of Cool Maths Read more...
$40, 14 Arcade Games, Weeded-Up
Posted 5:46pm Sunday 16th March 2025 by Zoe Eckhoff
Dolphins get high off pufferfish and wallabies ransack opium from the poppy fields. So what did we do? We tapped into our innate animalistic tendencies and got high to play arcade games. Sober or no, the arcade is an iconic spot. For the purposes of this article and accurate retelling, Read more...
Withdrawing from Yourself
Posted 4:58pm Sunday 16th March 2025 by Jordan Irvine
Content warning: Mentions of suicidal thoughts I have been taking antidepressants for nearly five years now, and though they’re infamous for their side effects there is just one thing I can’t get over. Weirdly enough, I’ve made my peace with the weight gain, mood swings and Read more...
Weird Cones 2: Electric Bongaloo
Posted 4:52pm Sunday 16th March 2025 by Critic Staff
The idea of doing a sequel to one of our favourite articles ever, ‘I tried to rip bongs through household ingredients’, has been floating around the writers’ room for years now like a cloud of questionable smoke. The original included bongs of raw eggs, sardines, and instant Read more...
Reviewing Literal Shitholes: The Best Places to Shit on Campus
Posted 11:52pm Sunday 9th March 2025 by Gryffin Blockley
Stomach churning, palms sweating, panic creeping in. You’re sitting in a lecture, when suddenly *that* feeling hits. Guaranteed to get you down in the dumps for the rest of the day, it’s a fight that you know you can’t win: You have to take a shit on campus, outside the safety of Read more...
Whebruary Wrapped
Posted 11:47pm Sunday 9th March 2025 by Nā Heeni Koero Te Rerenoa (Sky)
While the world recovers from New Year’s sluggishness, Māoridom hits the ground running – protesting, performing, protecting, and proving that mana Māori is as relentless as ever. For Māori, February isn’t just the second month of the year; it’s a battleground, Read more...
The Call of The Wild: A Bush Doof Epic
Posted 11:00pm Sunday 9th March 2025 by Ella Grayson
I had always heard of bush doofs, and honestly, it sounded like some proper hippy shit. But when my name spawned in a mysterious meta server promoting an addy-to-be-confirmed neck-of-the-woods DNB-electro-psych doof to end all doofs, I knew something temptingly chaotic was on the horizon. My native Read more...
We Snuck Into Toga Party as 4th and 5th Years and Had The Best Night of Our Lives
Posted 8:28pm Sunday 2nd March 2025 by Abby Wallace
At a certain point of your university life, you stop feeling like a student and start feeling like an anthropologist observing student behaviour in the wild. The only time you set foot on Castle Street is to cut through to the Botans. The only people you recognise in Central are the librarians. You Read more...
The Critic Pie Review
Posted 8:14pm Sunday 2nd March 2025 by Adam Stitely
The pie. It’s simple, it’s working class. Like L&P and DIY, it’s in our DNA, and just like pavlova, Aussies just don't do it the same. The pie is the go-to meal from any petrol station, dairy or else any other place the marginally cooked food gives you a 50-50 chance of Read more...
Breatha’s Got Talent
Posted 7:46pm Sunday 2nd March 2025 by Bianca Prujean
There’s hardly anything more alluring than a free box on a night out. But nothing worthwhile comes easy. To earn such a coveted prize, members of the crowd gathered on Castle and Howe for Frat Night at Feisty Goat would have to prove that their talents lay beyond sinking piss. And they’d Read more...
The Green Solo Alternative
Posted 8:31pm Sunday 23rd February 2025 by Zoe Eckhoff
The Dunedin slander is something I’ve grown used to as one of the few Otago Uni students actually from here. I’m used to the complaints from outsiders and locals about this city and its apparent lack of interesting activities outside of getting pissed on Castle Street. With such a strong Read more...
Fresher Checklist
Posted 6:53pm Sunday 23rd February 2025 by Stella Weston
Meet a minimum of nine aspiring DJs (they’re actually the real deal – they played at Carousel) Trek to Night n’ Day viciously hungover and wearing pajamas, purchase a steak and cheese pie and a purple Powerade, realise you can, in fact, be observed in this state Beg a Read more...
As Good as Mould
Posted 11:22pm Monday 17th February 2025 by Jodie Evans
From flocks of seagulls to herds of freshers, beautiful North Dunedin boasts a variety of unique flora and fauna – the most abundant and furtive of which can be found in your very own flat. You guessed it: mould. Your white-toothed suit-wearing landlord only wants you to live amidst the most Read more...
Long Live the King: Critic Te Ārohi's Beer Pong Rules
Posted 11:20pm Monday 17th February 2025 by Fox Meyer
According to over 150 Critic readers, these are the definitive King’s Cup rules for Otago students: 2: You, with 93.6%. Nominate a drink. 3: Me, with 93.6%. You must drink. 4: Whores, with 61.8%. People identifying as female must Read more...
The Critic Te Ārohi Guide to Second Hand Stores
Posted 11:16pm Monday 17th February 2025 by Phoebe Lea
Whether you're a fellow thrifter fresh to Dunedin or a third-year who never leaves North D, this is the guide for you. Critic sent our bona-fide fashionista Phoebe to scour the streets, sift through the racks, and explore every nook and cranny to bring you the inside scoop on the best op shops Read more...
Firecracker Airfryer Edibles
Posted 11:14pm Monday 17th February 2025 by Lotto Ramsay
Firecrackers are a classic stoner treat, typically made with graham crackers and peanut butter. But due to the exodus of our American staff (good riddance) Critic does not know what graham crackers are – and does not wish to learn. Here they are with biscuits and nutella instead. The weed Read more...
How to know if you’re a breatha (and how you can come to accept it)
Posted 11:12pm Monday 17th February 2025 by Hugh Askerud
Part 1: Develop self-awareness 1 Oh, the breatha. The absolute epitome of what people think of when they think “student”. Like the scarfie of yesteryear, the breatha is everywhere: lurking in your lecture halls, downing Monsters in the library, sifting on your mates. You know Read more...
Outgoing Presidential Address
Posted 8:25pm Sunday 13th October 2024 by Keegan Wells
Tēnā koutou, Wow! What a year! We laughed, we cried, we paddled the flooded Leith, we got a new plinth, and had a lot of $4 lunch along the way. In one of my final acts of dictatorship, I am stealing these two pages of Critic Te Ārohi. I have lived many different Read more...
Choose Your Own Adventure: Exam Procrastination Edition
Posted 7:39pm Sunday 13th October 2024 by Nicky Patterson
1. The end of the year has rolled around once again and there’s nothing you’d rather be doing right now than studying for your 60% exam. But before you do, what’s the harm in just taking a little preemptive brain break? As you look around from your freshly obtained perch in Read more...
The Game of Life, But It’s Just Your Summer 24/25
Posted 6:28pm Sunday 13th October 2024 by Molly Smith-Soppet
Answer these questions and we’ll tell you what you will spend your summer doing. 1. What is the best Campus Shop pie? Mince & Cheese Steak & Cheese Butter Chicken Pepper Steak Veggie Korma Spinach & Feta Roll 2. What is your go-to music genre for Read more...
The Game of Love
Posted 7:29pm Sunday 6th October 2024 by Molly Smith-Soppet
Everything I Know About (Platonic) Love
Posted 7:16pm Sunday 6th October 2024 by Ellie Bennett
I came to university thinking I’d find The One. I was obsessed with the idea that I’d lock eyes with someone across the lecture theatre and be swept into this great, all-consuming romance; that I’d leave here after three years with not only a degree, but a soulmate. That’s Read more...
Homo-geneous
Posted 9:27am Sunday 6th October 2024 by Monty O’Rielly
I don’t even let Georgie get a word out. “It happened again.” They blink, trying to catch up with what I said. “What happened again?” “It. It happened again.” Georgie sighs, “You really have to be more clear.” “She had been fucking Read more...
The Official Dunner Lover Test
Posted 8:31am Sunday 6th October 2024 by Nina Brown
Find out where you rate on the scale from loveless hermit to hopeless romantic. In the pursuit of a crush or during a courtship, have you ever… Used dating apps? Deleted dating apps for them? Stalked their mum's Facebook for pictures of them? Gone through their tagged Read more...
Opinion: She’s Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl(friend), She Has ADHD
Posted 11:16am Saturday 5th October 2024 by Jodie Evans
The manic pixie dream girl doesn’t do small talk, only enigmatic discussions about the universe and its infinite possibilities. She stargazes from abandoned rooftops, sings out loud in the supermarket, and writes poetry on bathroom stalls. Her love language is dancing barefoot in the rain. She Read more...
More Gum Than a Wrigley’s Factory: Southern Sounds Reviewed
Posted 5:38pm Saturday 28th September 2024 by Hanna Varrs
Start to finish, baby. Critic Te Ārohi set off to review Southern Sounds from 2pm to 10pm – the full ride. This review was collated from a series of voice memos, videos, photos, and interviews with the few punters we convinced to speak to us. “Buckle up Dunners,” Read more...
Will It Frisbee: A Critic Te Ārohi Experiment
Posted 4:38pm Saturday 28th September 2024 by Sam Smith-Soppet
Abstract Ever found yourself zoning out staring at an object, wondering how far you could throw it? Yeah, that. Welcome to Critic Does Sport: Frisbee Edition. Introduction We assembled the Uni’s best and brightest (your bona fide ranga reporter and our only friend who can throw Read more...
Run Club Tinder
Posted 4:34pm Saturday 28th September 2024 by Jodie Evans
If your Instagram feed is full of Lulu-clad twenty-somethings dashing around Dunedin’s streets at the crack of fucking dawn, you’re not the only one. Run clubs are cropping up everywhere. Hailed by loyalists as an energising route to meeting others in the running community, there are now Read more...
Flat Fungi: Peziza? Do you mean pizza?
Posted 8:22pm Sunday 22nd September 2024 by Imogen Harris
A second-year 6-man Dundas flat has made the alarming discovery of a large rubbery mushroom sprouting from their carpet. What is it? Is it delicious or poisonous? Friend or foe? And what does it mean for the state of their flat? Critic Te Ārohi consults a Botany student to find Read more...
The Great Annual Critic Bar Review
Posted 8:18pm Sunday 22nd September 2024 by Nina Brown
Critic Te Ārohi once again pitted local bars against each other in our annual review. We chose sixteen heavy-hitters and put them to a vote in four rounds of polls on Critic’s Instagram story – democracy at its finest. After a nail-biting semi-final between last year’s champ Read more...
OUSA Student Support: Asking for a Friend
Posted 8:15pm Sunday 22nd September 2024 by OUSA Student Support
Student life isn’t always easy. For OUSA Mental Health and Well-being Week, Student Support answers your questions with advice on everything from how to deal with loneliness to giving a woman an orgasm. You can find OUSA Student Support at 262 Leith Walk behind the purple door for Read more...
Ngā Wai-hono-i-te-pō and the Kīngitanga Movement
Posted 4:26am Monday 16th September 2024 by Molly Smith-Soppet
Shockwaves reverberated through the motu on Friday, August 30th, as Aotearoa learned of the passing of Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatou Te Wherowhero VII, the Māori King. Less than a week later, the Kīngitanga named its new leader: Te Arikinui Kuīni Ngā Read more...
The Plastics: “So if you’re Māori, why are you white?”
Posted 4:06am Monday 16th September 2024 by Jack Ruddenklau
White Māori. Fake Māori. Plastic Māori. If you’re Māori, chances are you’ve heard these labels thrown around at some point – whether it’s a poke at your pale skin, your lack of fluency in te reo Māori, or even an aversion to kaimoana. You may have Read more...
Opinion: What the Fuck Happens Post Panic Masters?
Posted 5:20pm Saturday 7th September 2024 by Madeline O’Leary
For the first 24 years of my life, school was the centre of my universe. First it was primary, then settling (somewhat) into high school, working hard to get into uni, and being set free upon Dunedin as a fresh-faced 18-year-old. Well, as free as St Marg’s allowed anyway. My entire life had Read more...
New Zealand Young Writers Fest: Nau Mai, Haere Mai
Posted 5:16pm Saturday 7th September 2024 by Jamiema Lorimer
Young writers from across Aotearoa, of all writing forms and backgrounds, are coming together in Ōtepoti this weekend for the New Zealand Young Writers Festival. With accessibility at the core of the festival’s kaupapa, all events are free to attend. These events showcase talent and Read more...
Ethical Gossiping: A guide to keeping it clean and not too mean
Posted 4:57pm Saturday 7th September 2024 by Molly Smith-Soppet
Gossip gets a bad rap. It’s often seen as hurtful, harmful and unnecessary. And sure, sometimes a simple “Did you hear…” turns a flatmate into your new campus opp or sends a relationship to its early grave. But not all gossip was created equal and there’s a right and Read more...
Queer Eye for the Gym (Non)Guy: A Beginner’s Guide to the Gym
Posted 7:30pm Sunday 25th August 2024 by Madeline O’Leary
The gym used to fucking terrify me as a gender non-conforming AFAB (assigned female at birth) and proudly masc lesbian. The weights room is every aspect of heteronormative, patriarchal society funnelled into one space: sweaty men, an open space where you can be perceived from every angle, and even Read more...
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