Archive

What’s Up With Student Health?

Posted 1:45pm Saturday 24th September 2022 by Elliot Weir

Underfunded and understaffed, Student Health Services is buckling under the pressure. Students say they’re “rushed in and rushed out” and “feel like [they’re] going to get screwed over every time”. Many have given up on Student Health Services altogether. There Read more...

Why the cops aren’t chasing the biggest theft in the country

Posted 7:49pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Elliot Weir

What do you think of when you think of theft? Maybe you think of car theft. Maybe you think of an elderly woman having her purse snatched on the street. Maybe you think of someone shoplifting at a grocery store. Maybe your mind turns to the ram raids dominating headlines in recent months. Maybe Read more...

Dunedin’s True Crime History

Posted 7:48pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Ruby Werry

CW: murder, suicide, executions, poison The skyrocketing price of alcohol and the fact that McDonald’s doesn’t do hash browns past 11am both feel like terrible crimes, but these are only a smidgen of Dunedin’s illustrious true crime history. True crime fascination is not a new Read more...

Te Petihana Te Reo Māori

Posted 6:18pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by Rutene Rickard, Ngāti Porou, Ngā Puhi

Why do we, Critic Te Ārohi, release this annual te reo Māori issue, the one that you now hold in your hands? The surface-level answer is simple: because it is Māori Language Week, September 12-19th. Well, yes. But why is Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori marked out to be these specific Read more...

Tā Moko Now, Tā Moko Forever

Posted 6:10pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by A kōrero with Kiritea Smith (Ngāi te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Tainui), Te Ariki Mana-Wagner and Sky (Ngāti Hin

Every tā moko tells a story. Every line has a meaning, connecting the body to the tūpuna that came before it. But after the arrival of Pākehā settlers, and after the repression of Māori culture, tā moko saw a decline alongside te reo Māori. Some of the artistic Read more...

DCC Mayoral Candidates Debate: Critic’s vibe check

Posted 6:07pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

On the evening of August 23rd, 10 Ōtepoti mayoral hopefuls, all locals, congregated in Union Hall for a night of debate and discussion with students. Lured in with the appeal of free food and subsidised drinks, there was a decent sized crowd that came out for the evening, a mix of both students Read more...

F.U.: Facebook University

Posted 7:25pm Friday 2nd September 2022 by Nina Brown

It’s no secret that University is expensive as fuck. A dick-measuring competition of who can get deeper in debt, if you will. Fees-free only gets you so far, for those lucky enough to have qualified for it. After that, it’s around $35.75 per lecture for the average student – Read more...

Raw Power: Interests Clash over Aotearoa’s Whitewater Jewel

Posted 7:17pm Friday 2nd September 2022 by Kaia Kahurangi Jamieson and Fox Meyer

Science by Beth Wishart Photos by Whitewater NZ The Waitaha crushes through West Coast boulders like a churning blade. The awa (river) is an iconic, temperamental, visually stunning and ecologically significant part of the taiao (environment), admired by all who have seen it. It is home to Read more...

From Gold Miners to Gold Diggers:

Posted 7:07pm Friday 2nd September 2022 by Denzel Chung and Lotto Ramsay

Ōtepoti was home to some of Aotearoa’s earliest non-pākehā tauiwi, with thousands of Chinese lured to seek their fortunes in Dunedin, a place they called San Gam Saan – the “New Gold Mountain”. While few intended to stay on, many were forced to, forming a Read more...

AI Can See You Naked

Posted 4:32pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Fox Meyer

CW: Explicit discussion of sexual exploitation, rape Christchurch has produced many good things over the years. It has also produced Michael James Pratt, a fugitive sex trafficker on the FBI’s most wanted list with a $70,000 bounty on his head. A database of coerced nude photos and videos Read more...

The Computer Ate My Homework

Posted 4:20pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Arlo Hill and Fox Meyer

AI is getting better and better. It’s becoming more and more popular at the same time as online learning is booming in popularity. What's stopping students from using AI to do their assignments? Who would even be able to tell if they did? As AI continues to take over jobs, and as more and Read more...

Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh Why?

Posted 3:39pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Ruby Werry

In an alternate reality, flocks of emu can be seen on the Otago Peninsula. Breathas are regularly in the ER after getting into fist fights with kangaroos on a night out. The Otago University Tramping Club has to brief their members on the dangers of bear and wolf attacks before any trip. While Read more...

We went to every single Indian Restaurant in Ōtepoti (so you don’t have to)

Posted 2:20pm Monday 15th August 2022 by Naan-cy Drew and Aloo-wis Hamilton

The year was 2020. Over a meal of our usual takeaway curry order, an idea was cooked up: “What if we ordered this exact same order at every single Indian restaurant in Dunedin?” We all know that different Indian restaurants have different definitions of mild, medium, and hot, but we Read more...

Paganism, Patriotism and Piety: What ever happened to the American Pie?

Posted 7:21pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Fox Meyer

The reason America doesn’t have mince pie is as simple as it is completely absurd: it was banned, multiple times, by religious zealots. See, America did have mince pie. And they totally frothed it - mince pie was called “Unquestionably the monarch of pies”, an “American Read more...

The Best Uniflat Complex to Hook Up In: A Guide

Posted 7:18pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Keegan Wells

The international students are finally back, and so are the Jonas Brothers. What a time to be alive. The international complexes are famous for free power, Halloween parties, and the most Americans per square metre in all of Aotearoa (not verified). Who wouldn’t want to hang out there? With Read more...

The Immigration Recalibration: what's changed (and what hasn't) for international tauira

Posted 7:06pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Elliot Weir

From this month, international tauira (students) can once again move to Aotearoa to study, work, and host the best parties on campus. But with recent changes to immigration policies making it harder to stay after graduating, and with tough barriers for anyone with health needs, will the long flight Read more...

To pee or not TP: An Unhinged Bog Roll Review

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Buying toilet paper is never fun. The options are overwhelming, the strange metrics require 100-level calculus, and it’s always somehow a little embarrassing. What if someone sees you buying it and finds out that you shit? Critic Te Arohi decided to face the issue asshole-on, and subject one Read more...

Sold Down the River: What’s Going On With the ORC?

Posted 1:55pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Elliot Weir

Air quality breaching national standards, in towns where coal is still commonly burned in houses; a rabbit plague “as bad as it has ever been” after years of no rabbit control; an understaffed public transportation system, mired by reduced bus timetables and no-shows. The Otago Regional Read more...

Tips from The Tattoo Tour

Posted 1:54pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Ruby Werry

University is all about reinventing yourself, discovering who you really are, and the earth-shattering realisation that you ain’t shit compared to everyone else. Luckily, this particular existential dread has a remedy! Start altering your appearance, whether that’s dying your hair, Read more...

Sex Toy Review

Posted 6:15pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Critic

Sex toys can seem scary if you haven’t used them. To help us get over this fear, our friends at Adult Toy Mega Store sent us a full box of various sex toys to review - plus we’ve got a few listed here that people already owned. The office took their picks of the toys, took them home and Read more...

Sex on the Spectrum

Posted 6:07pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

“The first time me and Shayna were having sex, at one point they kinda looked up and said ‘Do you like porridge?’” Simply looking up the keywords “autism” and “sex” returns questions like “Can you consent to sex if you have autism?” and Read more...

Sober Sex and Why we Suck at it

Posted 6:04pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Anon

The modern Dunedin love story tends to follow the same arc, albeit with a few twists and turns along the way. You’ve swiped right on that guy and his big fish, or that girl with the huge… groups of friends. You exchange a few flirtatious messages on Tinder before one of you sends your Read more...

The Critic Te Arohi Census 2022

Posted 4:07pm Sunday 17th July 2022 by Elliot Weir

Who will students vote for in 2023? What’s the most popular vape flavour? Do women prefer Twitter or Reddit for porn? How do I find love? The answers to these questions and more are mere paragraphs away. This year's census gave us plenty of interesting demographic data on the student Read more...

Hangover Cures

Posted 2:16am Saturday 9th July 2022 by Critic

Over the break, some of our reporters decided to try a variety of purported hangover cures. Raw eggs, long runs, and black coffee: it’s all in here. What worked and what didn’t? We put our livers on the line to get to the truth. Black Coffee, Nicotine and a Cold Shower A Read more...

Hyde Street Party 2022:

Posted 2:12am Saturday 9th July 2022 by Keegan Wells and Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Boomers hate it, second years love it, and freshers are banished. May 28th marked Otago University’s most anticipated day of the year: the Hyde Street Party. Run by OUSA, Hyde Street is perhaps the one day out of the year where students are entirely justified in getting absolutely sloshed in Read more...

Putting the ‘Job’ in Blowjob: Post-Pandemic Sex Work in Dunedin

Posted 6:29pm Sunday 29th May 2022 by Elliot Weir

“Work is especially different when the going gets rough –  during the convoy protests, when fuel prices spiked, when society feels the pressure – we can really tell. We are the outlet for that. It’s 2022, if you beat on your wife she’ll leave you, so hire a hooker Read more...

2022’s Righteous Riceball Review

Posted 6:27pm Sunday 29th May 2022 by Keegan Wells and Critic Staff

Ah, the riceball. There is nothing intrinsically special about a riceball. It is but simple ingredients, tucked in a pod of rice shaped into the simplest possible shape. However, there is something special about the riceball at the same time. It’s a quick lunch you could grab on your way to Read more...

Overworked, Under Pressure:

Posted 6:23pm Sunday 29th May 2022 by Fox Meyer

Dunedin’s emergency services are like the roofs of Dunedin flats: they’re not built to support everyone at once.  Already short-staffed, overworked, and overwhelmed by the pressures of Covid, emergency responders and campus caretakers are buckling under the pressure of student Read more...

Menopause: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting

Posted 1:30pm Sunday 22nd May 2022 by Ruby Werry

Menopause: the last great frontier of female biology. Well, once we get past basic female anatomy, how medicine interacts with female bodies, and not to mention general knowledge of where the clit is. Menopause is sort of like the health equivalent of sidewalk petition canvassers: everyone’s Read more...

Transmasculine periods: Men bleed monthly, too

Posted 5:19pm Saturday 21st May 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

CW: Discussions of bottom dysphoria, period dysphoria, and medical transphobia  The landscape in which we consider periods is slowly changing. The taboo that has surrounded menstruation for centuries is lifting. More period care products are widely available, commercials show red blood, and Read more...

Could you take Dunedin's wildlife in battle?

Posted 5:14pm Saturday 21st May 2022 by Elliot Weir

Many of Dunedin’s wild critters can be found throughout your adventures at Otago. Some can be your allies, some will be your enemies, but all deserve your respect: both as opponents and as original residents of Ōtepoti. It’s dangerous to go alone, weary traveller. Take this guide to Read more...

A - Z of Dunedin Artists

Posted 12:17pm Monday 16th May 2022 by Critic

  Adelaide Cara  How Does This Sound? Bathysphere  Heaven is Other People CHAII Pineapple Pizza Dale Kerrigan Noise bitch Emy Belle  Venus Is Home Frog Power  tears in heaven (reggae Read more...

Doctors of Rock, Professors of Roll

Posted 8:15pm Sunday 15th May 2022 by Sean Gourley

When you were a kid, if you ever saw your teacher outside the classroom, it could be a bit jarring. “What are you doing in PAK‘nSAVE, Mrs Dickson? Shouldn’t you be in Room 9?” Things may have changed since primary school, but going to a gig and seeing your professor on the Read more...

Your Inalienable Right to Dance:

Posted 8:06pm Sunday 15th May 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan and Sebastian Rice Walsh

Dunedin is known for its music scene. The 1980s saw the rise of ‘the Dunedin Sound’ which inspired international acts like Pavement and R.E.M. The 2000s saw the emergence of the beloved surf rock genre, with acts such as Six60 dominating the New Zealand music industry. In its heyday, Read more...

Ōtepoti’s Street Art, according to Pokémon Go

Posted 2:56am Sunday 8th May 2022 by Ruby Werry

Pokémon Go will slingshot many back to the last time they were happy, full of purpose and with a sense of fulfilment: December 2016. Easily identifiable by portable chargers and narrowly avoided car crashes in their wake as they desperately tried to catch a Venusaur, most Pokémon Go Read more...

The Art of Science

Posted 2:51am Sunday 8th May 2022 by Fox Meyer

Art and science are usually displayed as two ends of a spectrum, but each field is incredibly important to the other. Being a good artist is an integral part of communicating your science accurately, and being a good scientist is key to creating the best art possible. Critic Te Arohi sat down with Read more...

Goth for Hire

Posted 2:48am Sunday 8th May 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

For such a wonderfully gloomy city, it’s surprising that Dunedin has less of a goth scene and more of a goth single frame. As a goth that crash landed in dunners I felt an immense sense of duty to my newfound home, as well as a burgeoning megalomania. In a sea of Glassons and Dickies, I made Read more...

Something Rotten in Aotearoa’s Supermarkets

Posted 2:24pm Sunday 1st May 2022 by Fox Meyer

Sanitarium is the company behind Up & Go, Weet-Bix and Marmite. They’re also owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, meaning that they get some special say when it comes to where their tax dollars go. For a company that made $10 million in profit in 2019, that’s quite the Read more...

Bush did 9/11?

Posted 2:21pm Sunday 1st May 2022 by Anonymous

Chances are, if you ask any parent, friend or relative over the age of 30, they can tell you exactly what they were doing and where they were when 9/11 happened. The impact of 9/11 still persists to this day, along with the mountains of conspiracy theories that came out of it. The conspiracies that Read more...

THE CLOUDS ARE FAKE ALSO CHEMTRAILS AND BILL GATES

Posted 2:19pm Sunday 1st May 2022 by Keegan Wells

‘Geoengineering Watch NZ’ is a Facebook group whose number one goal is “binging [sic] public awareness” about geoengineering. This includes the very real and important discussion around weather modification and chemtrails throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and the rest of the Read more...

From “e-cig” to lifestyle accessory: how Big Tobacco transformed the vape

Posted 2:14pm Sunday 1st May 2022 by Denzel Chung

It’s a rapid rebranding unlike any other in history: from clumsy, unwieldy and distinctly uncool “electronic cigarette” to sleek, ubiquitous, essential lifestyle accessory. Here’s how vapes got Aotearoa in a stranglehold: a story of powerful corporations, cheap manufacturing, Read more...

Shower? I Barely Know Her!

Posted 2:33pm Sunday 24th April 2022 by Keegan Wells

The shower in my flat is garbage.  Water pressure is flaccid at best and the temperature needs to be on mood-stabilisers drugs. So after stumbling upon the showers in Te Tumu, I wondered how many showers are around campus that myself and other shower-seeking students could to use. This led Read more...

A Piss-tory of Dunedin Breweries

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 24th April 2022 by Thomas Rillstone

Alcohol, booze, grog… whatever you call it, Dunedinites just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. While the stereotype is often blown out of proportion, it’s certainly not without any basis in reality; Dunedin students are known to love a good drink or twelve. Thomas Rillstone, Read more...

The Great Critic Te Arohi Flat Garden Competition

Posted 2:25pm Sunday 24th April 2022 by Sean Gourley

Most of Dunedin is a concrete and shattered-glass wasteland. The only crops that grow are a large quantity of substandard housing, liquor stores and fast food restaurants. However, there are a few green spaces that, against all odds, have managed to produce life from Dunedin’s inebriated Read more...

Golf in Dunedin: Par or Subpar?

Posted 1:39pm Saturday 9th April 2022 by Keegan Wells and Fox Meyer

Ah, golf. It’s got quite the reputation. Maybe you think of it as that thing that your mates do maybe once a week to feel like they’re putting their business degrees to use. Or maybe it was your parents’ substitute for child care after they picked you up from Christ’s College Read more...

Hidden Barriers: Accessibility at Uni and across North Dunedin

Posted 1:38pm Saturday 9th April 2022 by Elliot Weir

Guy Fieri once said, "we're riding the bus to Flavortown". Except in this case, Flavortown is North Dunedin, and the bus we're meant to be riding didn’t even show up.  For many, barriers to accessibility make getting around Flav-, sorry, North Dunedin, more difficult Read more...

21st Annual Critic Fish n’ Chip Review

Posted 1:34pm Saturday 9th April 2022 by Ruby Werry & Critic Staff

We all know fish n’ chips is the meal of champions, if those champions were hungover and on their last $10. That sounds like you. So for all you champions, Critic is here with the annual Fish and Chip review to guide your next weekend feed. We reached out to the best and brightest minds for Read more...

A 4-Point Methodological Approach to Shoey Perfection

Posted 6:14pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Keegan G. Wells and Will R. Murrell

Abstract: A 4-point scale was used to determine the optimal foot vessel to utilise as a booze-funnelling device in what is known colloquially as a “shoey”. This metric indicated that a sockie is the least desirable vessel, while a dress shoe is the most desirable. Further field research Read more...

Artists, Activists, Ambassadors: when Aramoana Declared Independence

Posted 6:03pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Sean Gourley

Over forty years ago, passionate residents of a small settlement, just 20km along the coast from North Dunedin, founded the Independent State Aramoana. While it never became anything close to an genuine independent nation, they fought tirelessly against the government to prevent an aluminium smelter Read more...

The Great White: Students in Antarctica

Posted 6:01pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Fox Meyer

Will was soaking in a 250 litre drum filled with hot water. Hundreds of metres away, in a tent, someone was watching Derry Girls. In this moment, to Will, the audio coming from that TV show was the only sound in the entire world. Will was in Antarctica, at New Zealand’s Scott Base. A Read more...

Capital Gains: The Great Critic 24-Hour Trade-Up

Posted 5:46pm Sunday 27th March 2022 by Keegan Wells

I love getting shit for free. So, when I was able to swap a half-empty Billy Mav for an (obviously superior) blue lighter, I was hooked. I gave myself 24 hours to upgrade that half-empty can of shite to whatever glory awaited me. One man even offered me his children at one point, which I figured Read more...

Apps, if they were your ex-lovers

Posted 5:44pm Sunday 27th March 2022 by Fox Meyer

Ever wanted to fuck a smartphone app? Me neither, but that doesn’t mean you’ve never been curious about how loving of a partner they’d be. Critic set up an artificial intelligence to court and report on a bunch of apps, and the resulting “heartbreak index” was used to Read more...

Urbex: Exploring the abandoned world around us

Posted 5:40pm Sunday 27th March 2022 by Zak Rudin

Broken glass, dark corridors, and no electricity are all big red flags when it comes to looking for a flat, but for the students seeking an adventurous trespass onto abandoned properties, these signs are as good as gold. Urban exploration (often shortened to urbex) involves exploring human-made Read more...

Deal or No Deal

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Justina King

From sketchy drops and Tinder swindlers to based grandmas and roleplaying dealers, buying drugs is an experience that can go a lot of ways.  Figures from the NZ Drug Foundation show that 80% of New Zealanders have tried the ol’ Wacky Tobacky by the age of 21, and 44% of adults will Read more...

The Best and Worst Hypothetical Places to Do Hypothetical Drugs in Dunedin

Posted 2:23pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Keegan Wells, hypothetically

If anyone were to take this list seriously and try any of these things, just test your stuff, know your limits, and be safe. Also do not try crack, it will never be as fun as you think.  Weed  Best: Butterfly Exhibit at the Museum  The butterfly room is an incredible place. Read more...

ADHD Part 2: The highs and lows of prescription stimulants

Posted 2:18pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

“We were on a bit of an MD bender and someone said that they had some Ritalin we could do”, Alex told Critic. “We cut up some lines and snorted it – I think we had two or three lines each – and afterwards everyone else was hyper and talking at like three hundred words a Read more...

ADHD Part 1: The Long Road to Diagnosis

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Fox Meyer

Last week, we sent out two reporters to interview students about getting diagnosed with ADHD. Apparently they met a really, really interesting group of students with great takes on the situation, but our reporters - both of whom have diagnosed ADHD - were so excited about the interview that they Read more...

Bop or flop? Your One Stop Op Shop Opinion Drop

Posted 1:06pm Sunday 13th March 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Need a wardrobe makeover on a budget? Are you craving a whiff of that specific, musty, secondhand smell? Have your bootstraps gotten worn out from all that pulling-up you’ve been doing? A solution is never far away. Critic Te Arohi visited seven secondhand clothing stores north of the Octagon Read more...

Shaken, not Stirred: The Critic Te Arohi Milkshake Review

Posted 12:56pm Sunday 13th March 2022 by Sean Gourley

Who the fuck invented milkshakes? They may seem like a good idea, but after you’ve chugged several litres of milk on a boiling Thursday afternoon, they really start to feel like a terrible idea. And this was the predicament we found ourselves in. With rumbly, bubbly tummies and rapidly Read more...

Dunedin Housing and Flat-tening the Curve: Why Omicron Loves your Home

Posted 12:49pm Sunday 13th March 2022 by Fox Meyer

We all know that Dunedin student housing is not exactly the best. So what happens when you introduce a highly transmissible virus to a population that lives in cold, damp flats? Critic wanted to know how our unique housing situation would affect the spread of Omicron in our community, so we reached Read more...

The Moral Alignment of OUSA’s Clubs and Socs

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 6th March 2022 by Elliot Weir

Clubs day couldn’t be held this year, so we thought we’d help you out by sorting all the clubs in one convenient table. Whether you’re trying to fit in, trying to find friends, or trying to join the froth, there’s a club for you. All participating clubs have supplied their Read more...

The Online World of Fake Psychics

Posted 3:51pm Sunday 6th March 2022 by Ruby Werry

As I’m sure we all know, the internet is a lawless wasteland, and of that lawless wasteland, Facebook is undoubtedly the Wild West. Traders on Marketplace asking for used diapers; updates from unhinged family members; more scammers than you can wave a stick at. Not only are these scammers Read more...

Fringe Sports for a Fringe Town

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 6th March 2022 by Elliot Weir

Many students have grown tired of dragging themselves to Unipol and have instead taken up one of the many “new” sports that have become increasingly popular and accessible in the last two years. Critic talked to people involved in these rising stars of the Dunedin sports scene to find Read more...

Goops, I did it again! An idiot’s guide to stain removal

Posted 3:32pm Sunday 27th February 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Happiness is fleeting, we all die, and nothing is truly permanent. Nothing, that is, except for stains that you don’t get out in time (fuck you especially, red wine). O week is full of shenanigans that can ruin your clothes, soft furnishings, and possibly your future. Luckily, Critic is no Read more...

What They Don't Teach You About Saving Money in a Flat

Posted 3:21pm Sunday 27th February 2022 by Oscar Moriarty

With each new year at Uni comes a new crop of students, all trying to navigate the potentially treacherous world of flatting for the first time. Flatting is expensive, as my grandchildren always tell me as they beg for handouts. As a third-generational stock broker on the NZX, I feel it is my Read more...

From Communes to Councils: Sitting Down With Mayor Tim

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 27th February 2022 by Elliot Weir

Sir Tim Shadbolt, Mayor of Invercargill, celebrated his 75th birthday last week. Critic Te Arohi travelled to the mighty city down South to interview the man who has been a mayor longer than anyone else in New Zealand history. From a legacy steeped in parties, protests, and poems to council Read more...

What's it actually like to have Covid?

Posted 7:20pm Friday 11th February 2022 by Keegan Wells

For me, it was the shift from “prevent” to “prepare”. The 15-second unskippable YouTube ads had stopped telling me to prevent the spread and were now asking me to brace myself. It felt like an admission of defeat. After two years of watching the Covid burn through the rest of Read more...

Scamming the Spammers: The Friends, Money, and Contracts I Made While Replying to Spam Emails

Posted 2:18pm Sunday 10th October 2021 by Erin Gourley

For months, Mr Manuel Franco has been emailing me from different accounts, telling me I’ve won three million USD in the email address lottery. I get one email a day from him from various different email accounts. It always goes straight to my spam folder. I started replying to my spam Read more...

Slice of Heaven? Your summer guide to the shit towns of Otago and South Canterbury

Posted 9:33am Sunday 10th October 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

Shit towns are the pride of our nation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept of a “shit town”, it’s a town where literally everything is shit. But visiting a shit town is a cultural experience to find out how the other half live, so it’s a must Read more...

Why Aren’t We There Yet? Understanding Barriers to Getting Aotearoa Vaccinated

Posted 9:17am Sunday 10th October 2021 by Elliot Weir

The government is putting on the pressure for New Zealanders to get vaccinated. But many people are not vaccinated yet. The reason why is a mix of policy, inequality, and misinformation from friends, family and far-right conspiracy theorists. Up until recently, we’ve enjoyed relative Read more...

You Gotta Cheat It to Win It: Is trivial cheating slowly killing pub quizzes?

Posted 12:06am Saturday 2nd October 2021 by Sean Gourley

Pub quizzes are one of the more wholesome sides of student drinking culture. With pubs back open in Level 2, there’s nothing like testing your knowledge and your friendships by battling other teams for a bar tab or some Speights tees. However, in recent years cheating has reportedly become Read more...

Housing is Hell: Are we ever going to get to own houses?

Posted 12:04am Saturday 2nd October 2021 by Oscar Francis

“Don’t wait, just go,” is Bernard Hickey’s advice to students who want the security of owning their own home. Bernard is an economist. He is perhaps even more pessimistic about the prospects of home ownership for young generations than the doomers themselves. If you Read more...

Kmart Dunedin — Lost Legacy or Waste of Space?

Posted 12:02am Saturday 2nd October 2021 by Denzel Chung

It used to be a rite of passage for students in the new year: the big flat furnishing shop at Kmart in Meridian Mall. Lines of students would hike piles of everything from duvets to dish racks to toasters and toilet roll holders down George Street. Cars overflowing with pillows and vacuum cleaners Read more...

The Great Critic Pizza Review

Posted 3:13pm Sunday 26th September 2021 by Critic

It’s about time that Critic did a pizza review. But how could we possibly judge the multitude of flavours, styles, and techniques that can be found in pizza? How can we best capture the rich tapestry of gastronomical history that pizza represents? These are all questions that we mulled over Read more...

The Kiwi Who Admins an International Bestiality Group

Posted 3:10pm Sunday 26th September 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Content warning: Graphic descriptions of bestiality. Jessica* is my new friend. She loves cooking, podcasts, gaming, and dogs. Here’s the caveat: She really loves dogs. She admins an online international bestiality server of 11,000 people, united by their desire to fuck Read more...

International Students: Far From Home

Posted 3:02pm Sunday 26th September 2021 by Keegan Wells

While it’s been a rough couple of years for all of us, international students, or as the University probably refers to them, ‘our largest source of income’, have had a particularly tough pandemic. Otago Uni reports that out of the 20,700 students in 2020, international students Read more...

The Ultimate Guide to a Dunedin Summer Body

Posted 2:00pm Monday 20th September 2021 by Sean Gourley

Spring in Dunedin has arrived. It is the time of the year to drag our pasty bodies and damaged livers back from the brink of collapse and get them ready for the joys of the summer season. With Unipol restricted and many sports winding up, it can be a struggle to find a routine in these uncertain Read more...

Post-glad or Post-sad? What postgrads wish they knew before starting

Posted 1:58pm Monday 20th September 2021 by Susana Jones

It’s the second half of semester two and the countdown to graduation for some of you undergrads is well and truly on. You might be thinking, what comes after graduation? Will you go straight into the workforce and hustle your way up capitalist ladders? Maybe you’ll make some serious bank Read more...

Behind the Counter: Employment Law Breaches, Bullying, and Sexual Harassment in Uni Hall Kitchens

Posted 1:56pm Monday 20th September 2021 by Elliot Weir

CW: sexual harassment, homophobia, sexism, and racism. Kitchen staff are a key part of the first-year experience in residential colleges. They dish up mashed potatoes and chicken cordon bleu for hundreds of already-drunk freshers on a Thursday night, and take their dishes from them afterwards. Read more...

Kūmara: How One Word Crossed the Pacific

Posted 3:02pm Sunday 12th September 2021 by Karamea Pēwhairangi, Te Āwhina Pounamu Waikaramihi, and Fox Meyer

About 1,000 years ago, a Polynesian navigator made a historic trade. Goods from the Pacific were exchanged for a stubby, brownish root vegetable from the foothills of Peru. There, on a presumably sunny day on the South American coast, kūmara was introduced to Polynesia. It’s called Read more...

Te Reo Māori: Tōku Hononga Ki Te Whaiao, Ki Te Ao Marama

Posted 1:43am Saturday 11th September 2021 by Madison Chambers-Coll

Kei āku whetū, kei āku manu taki, kei āku hunga tiaki, ko koutou ngā pou, ngā kaitohutohu o tōku ao. Kei āku toka tū i te moana, tē mutu te aroha i a koutou rā. Nei rā āku mihi. Ko te reo Māori, koinei te reo e Read more...

The Epidemic of Virus Video Games

Posted 1:38am Saturday 11th September 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Video games are a lovely form of escapism. You can forget about the worldwide pandemic and disappear into a virtual world for a few hours, before waking up pizza-stained and bleary-eyed in your mum’s basement again. It’s an odd phenomenon, in that sense, to see how pandemic-themed Read more...

Lockdown Leisure: Games to Play During Lockdown

Posted 3:17pm Sunday 5th September 2021 by Runze Liu

By Runze Liu, Citizen of The Island of Club Penguin, Member of the Club Penguin Elite Penguin Force (EPFM), Fellow of the Royal Club Penguin College of Tour Guiding (FRCPCTG), Club Penguin First Party List Member of The Club Penguin Parliament (MP) based in Iceberg South, Club Penguin First Party Read more...

Do You Believe in Love After Lockdown?

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 5th September 2021 by Asia Martusia King

The pandemic has had its moments. Other than the hallowed launch of Pokémon Go in 2016, I’ve never experienced such a sense of community before — which is odd considering we aren’t allowed to physically hang out. A lot of us formed socially distanced friendships with Read more...

Tales from the Road: A Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Hitch-Hiking

Posted 3:09pm Sunday 5th September 2021 by Callum Finn Reason

Hitchhiking is a noble art. To immerse myself in the hitchhiking spirit — putting Jack Kerouac’s dilapidated shoes on my feet and Arthur Dent’s soggy towel round my waist — a friend and I took to the South Island roads with our heads held high and our thumbs turgid. Our Read more...

Liminal Spaces of Dunedin

Posted 3:13pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Sophia Carter Peters

I have lived in Dunedin for long enough to be bored by Castle Street (AKA more than one year), and in that time, I’ve realized this town has some weird-ass buildings. Anyone who has set foot inside Archway Lecture theatres knows what I mean. Why are there so many entrances, but so few Read more...

Bygone Gays: A Queer History of Otago University

Posted 3:11pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Asia Martusia King

CW: Homophobia. Students were a “driving generation” in queer liberation, says Chris Brickell, Professor of Gender Studies and LGBT historian. Otago University was no exception. Here’s an abridged history of our forebears and Read more...

Is Noise Control Out of Control?

Posted 3:08pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Sean Gourley

Picture this: you’re in your third year of uni. It’s the end of February and you’re fizzing for a year of 21sts, grad celebrations and general piss ups. You move into your new flat on George Street, with an outdoor area perfectly suited for gigs. For pres on your first night you Read more...

Spotlight on Student Artists

Posted 1:46pm Monday 16th August 2021 by Erin Gourley

Untitled by Dave’s Flat Dave’s Flat are the elusive artist behind last week’s centrefold in Critic. Like Banksy, they do not want their identity to be widely known. The work is as mysterious as its creators; an egg in an eggcup, with the word ‘Dave’ written Read more...

The Art of Opshopping: How to buy less and buy better

Posted 1:43pm Monday 16th August 2021 by Molly Willis

Why buy new? was the motto in our house when I was growing up.  Whether it was inheriting my cousin’s old pair of ski pants, a bag of clothing from that lady at mum’s work’s eldest daughter, or Sunday shopping for vintage homeware at the Crow’s Nest (the best junk shop Read more...

Top Ten Paintings I’d Like to be Trapped Inside at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Posted 1:39pm Monday 16th August 2021 by Asia Martusia King

If you can’t jump into paintings, that’s embarrassing for you. I do it all the time. One day, my hubris will get the better of me and I will be trapped in one forever. If I get to choose which painting that is, it’ll be one of these. I’ve excluded any landscape paintings of Read more...

Dunedin’s Best Late Night Kebabs

Posted 1:42am Monday 9th August 2021 by Assorted Critic Staff

Late-night kebab missions are a hallmark of Dunedin culture. And while there are about a dozen places to order a kebab, only a handful may be open for you as you stumble home from town. Heck, not even all of these make the cut, but they were the ones our staff were most familiar with. We ordered all Read more...

Fascism 2.0: Lessons from six months in New Zealand’s largest white supremacist group

Posted 12:52am Monday 9th August 2021 by Elliot Weir

A note on aliases: Members of Action Zealandia use aliases to obscure their identities, even from other group members. In the article aliases are signalled by the use of single quote marks the first time a name is mentioned, e.g. ‘Marc’.  Read the companion news article Read more...

Judging a Book by Its Cover: What Does Your Search History Say About You?

Posted 10:50pm Sunday 1st August 2021 by Fox Meyer

Critic collected eight stranger’s search histories and psychoanalyzed them, using an expert Geology student, to predict who searched for what. Then we checked the correct answers. Here’s how we did: (Our speculation in regular font, correct answers in bold) Looks like this Read more...

Campus Smackdown: Rating The Best Places on Campus to Throw Hands

Posted 4:13pm Sunday 1st August 2021 by Runze Liu

Do you live in a society that places unhealthy and unrealistic expectations of masculinity upon you? Are you torn between the increasing pressure to be emotionally articulate and in touch with your feelings, in a context where men are only valued for their achievements and ability to assert Read more...

How an Otago Study Is Enabling Transphobia in Media and Sports

Posted 4:04pm Sunday 1st August 2021 by Elliot Weir

The following article contains the author's opinion. We rely on science to separate fact from fiction when it comes to contentious issues, but it can be politicised by groups to spread fear and misinformation. A 2019 publication by researchers from Otago has been used in exactly Read more...

Sexual Awakenings and The On-Screen Characters That Inspired Them

Posted 5:25pm Sunday 25th July 2021 by Fox Meyer

Embarrassing to some, enlightening to many, the moment of sexual awakening is an almost universal experience. For many of us, our first crush was from a show or a film, and often defied logic in every way. Some people were turned on by turtles. Some by women old enough to be their mum. Critic Read more...

The Wack, The Cringe, and The Wholesome: Your best and worst Tinder stories, compiled

Posted 5:19pm Sunday 25th July 2021 by Critic

From a big bowl of minestrone to two cases of tonsillitis, Critic Te Arohi has collated the wackiest, cringiest, and most wholesome stories from Otago students on dating apps for your enjoyment. Let’s be honest though. More often than not stories we hear from these apps, and dating in general, Read more...

Take My Breath Away: The normalisation of choking during sex

Posted 5:01pm Sunday 25th July 2021 by Erin Gourley

Marie’s* boyfriend didn’t ask before choking her during sex. She was 18 at the time. “Looking back that was a red flag,” she said. “At the time I went along with it and he kept doing it [whenever they had sex] so I thought, huh, this must be normal. I didn’t Read more...

Decensoring Sex Work

Posted 4:32pm Sunday 25th July 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Content warning: Sexual violence. Vixen Temple should terrify you. She is an unstoppable force. She’s a performance artist, an activist, a writer, a podcaster, a sex worker, and a self-proclaimed Satanic sex witch. She’s single-handedly founded an online community for sex workers and Read more...