Archive

Te Roopū Māori 2023

Posted 5:03pm Sunday 2nd October 2022 by Critic

Tumuaki Clay McQueen Mauri ora e te whānau! ko Clay McQueen tōku ingoa he uri au nō Ngāpuhi, Otaua, Wainui, Mataraua anō hoki. I te taha o tōku pāpā he uri au nō Kawhia me Whaingaroa, he mangainga o Hoturoa. Ka mutu, i tipu ake au i Te pū o te Read more...

Reviewing the Law Revue

Posted 3:55pm Sunday 2nd October 2022 by Zak Rudin

Disclaimer: this article was written by a law student (cringe). Last Saturday night saw the return of the annual Law Revue, hosted in the first year law school chapel that is Castle 1. The theme: High (Law) School Musical. Critic Te Ārohi took one for the team and put their Saturday night in Read more...

An Indigenous Opinion on the Queen’s Death:

Posted 3:54pm Sunday 2nd October 2022 by Skyla o Ngāti Hine

As the world remembers Queen Elizabeth II, it is clear that for many, her 70-year-long reign symbolised great strength and familiarity. However, with the #RoyalFamily TikTok hashtag skyrocketing to 17.7 billion views, and Parliament’s recent declaration of September 26th as an official day of Read more...

What Houseplant Are You?

Posted 2:46pm Sunday 2nd October 2022 by Nina Brown

The frost-bitten landscape of Ōtepoti doesn’t exactly provide the ideal living environment for houseplants – or students, for that matter. But there’s nothing quite like a flat filled with withering houseplants at varying stages of mortality, and this quiz will help you Read more...

Liz Stokes of The Beths on ‘Expert In A Dying Field’:

Posted 1:55pm Saturday 24th September 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

Aotearoa indie darlings, The Beths, released their third album ‘Expert In A Dying Field’ mid-way through this month. To Critic’s surprise, the album is not actually about our humanities/marine science students and staff looking on in despair as their department is slowly snuffed Read more...

Unipol: Opioid of the masses?

Posted 1:52pm Saturday 24th September 2022 by Hugh Askerud

It’s a Saturday night. You’ve decided to do scrumpy hands and are midway through the second bottle feeling at the top of your game. Then it strikes you: that ‘what the fuck am I doing’ sort of feeling that inevitably leaves you in tears. Everyone has moments like this, where Read more...

BASK Vol. III: A Deep Dive into Ōtepoti’s Newest Creative Community

Posted 1:50pm Saturday 24th September 2022 by Kaia Kahurangi Jamieson

There’s something about this city. Something that made Chris Knox pick up a guitar, Taika Waititi envision a film set in his dingy student flat, and Steven Malkmus refer to us ‘home-baking Kiwis’ in Pavement’s recently blown-up TikTok hit Harness your Hopes. We come here and Read more...

Local Produce: Dunedin Dream Brokerage

Posted 10:16pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

If you’ve heard birdsong on George Street, or admired the rainbow lights adorning the street during Pride month, then you’ve experienced the mahi of Dunedin Dream Brokerage. We talked to Madison Kelly to learn more about this dynamic local organisation.  The focus of Dunedin Read more...

Quiz: How did you get arrested?

Posted 8:34pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Critic

Oof, things are a bit blurry this morning. You’ve ended up in the paddy wagon (again!) but this time, you’re not sure how. Let’s see if we can piece things together: how did you get arrested? You’ve got a big night coming up, so the first stop is the piss shop. What are Read more...

New Zealand FurCon (Furry Convicts)

Posted 8:27pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Arlo Hill

Max the Paddle Pop Lion: Suspect Description: Max the Lion, also known as Paddle Pop the Lion, is not only the Mascot of the flavoursome ice creams; he is also the star of his own nightmare-fuelling animated TV show/movies where his otherworldly agility and strength are demonstrated. Like, Read more...

Cone Stealing

Posted 8:17pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Keegan Wells

Ah, the road cone. The orange trumpet, the witch’s hat, the tradie’s funnel. Whatever you want to call it, it serves an important purpose within society: allowing drunk students to commit a (mostly) victimless crime and be creative with interior decorating. Except it’s mostly Read more...

Behind Bars:

Posted 7:53pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan (Ngāi Tahu)

We often look to the Treaty of Waitangi as the definitive turning point in New Zealand history. As the founding document and shared agreement between two peoples, many look at this early colonial era as a time of trade, survival and adapting to a new society. Pākehā immersed themselves in Read more...

Local Produce: Aidan Taira Geraghty

Posted 6:36pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

Ko Maukatere tōku mauka Ko Waimakarere tōku awa Ko Tākitimu tōku waka Ko Kāi Tahu tōku iwi Ko Ngāi Tūāhuriri tōku hapu Nō Ōtepoti ahau Ko Aidan tōku Ikoa Aidan (Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha, Kāi Tahu) is currently in his Read more...

MĀOR110 Should be Mandatory

Posted 6:27pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

The University’s decision to bar students with recognised experience in te reo Māori from taking MĀOR110 (Conversational Māori) was regrettable to be sure. It was undone after students pushed back. The second most regrettable decision the University has made was not making the Read more...

Torn Between Two Worlds:

Posted 6:23pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Navigating one’s identity at university can be a tricky task for many. You’re away from friends, family and the familiarity that comes with home. You’re finally off in the big wide world, free to experiment and figure out who you really are. But for Māori students, the Read more...

Māori, Pasifika and the N-word

Posted 6:20pm Sunday 11th September 2022 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

Black Americans have permeated Aotearoa with their culture for decades. We can hear them in our music, we can see them in our fashion. The likes of Michael Jackson, Tupac and NWA have left an indelible mark on global communities, particularly people of colour, who otherwise have been Read more...

Local Produce | TìMMY the FIRST

Posted 8:19pm Saturday 3rd September 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

TîMMY the FIRST is a rapper, songwriter and producer based here in Ōtepoti who has been creating music for years. Critic caught up with the graduated neuroscience student to chat about how he got involved in the music scene as well as his upcoming projects.  It all started when a Read more...

Opinion: Dunedin Desperately Needs a Queer Nightlife Scene

Posted 8:02pm Saturday 3rd September 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Dunedin’s queer scene for the most part consists of one bar, UniQ, a Facebook group, and the occasional drag queen or king. These folks are doing the absolute most, don’t get me wrong, but what we desperately need is queer nightlife aimed at students.  It’s no secret that Read more...

Gone Fishin’

Posted 7:53pm Saturday 3rd September 2022 by Hugh Askerud

With food prices skyrocketing over the past couple months, and student allowances increasing only ever so slightly, it seemed suspicious to see so many students with full bellies around central campus. With many others huddling around their open ovens, the presence of pot-bellied breathas around our Read more...

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch:

Posted 7:26pm Friday 2nd September 2022 by Ruby Werry

Picture this: it's the start of the semester, and you are once again reluctantly sitting in a packed lecture theatre for a paper you’re definitely not going to pay attention to. Your lecturer then begins the class by asking for a class rep. After a long awkward silence and a few glances Read more...

Local Produce | Jazz Club

Posted 5:02pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Zak Rudin

The student-led Otago University Jazz Club formed at the start of the year to perform weekly jam sessions to a live audience. The club describes itself as “a collection of students who are interested in playing and listening to jazz.” Jazz Club founder and pianist Matthew Tait, said, Read more...

What Shitty Student Car Do You Drive?

Posted 4:54pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Ruby Werry

There’s nothing that screams ‘student’ quite like the deafening, failing exhaust of a shitty car you love with all your heart, held together by nothing but duct tape and a dream. A key part of your personality, this quiz will determine what noble steed gets you from Burns A to B. Read more...

How Many Hats Would A Hat Guy Post If A Hat Guy Could Post Hats?

Posted 4:46pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Keegan Wells

Daniel [@end_my_lyth], a local student and self described “not really a hat guy” has been putting hats on his head and taking photos of them for the past 2,000 days and posting them to Instagram. Like all bad things, it began in high school with his acquaintance posting a photo of a Read more...

Opinion: Artificial Intelligence Creating Māori Designs is Basically Cultural Appropriation

Posted 4:39pm Friday 19th August 2022 by Nā Skyla from Ngāti Hine

We were supposed to have flying cars by 2022, but instead, we have bots that don’t know how to differentiate indigenous cultures from opposite sides of the globe. The day that artificial intelligence recognises tā moko on iPhones, automatically generates captions in te reo Māori, and Read more...

Local Produce | Spicy Paint Job

Posted 3:54pm Monday 15th August 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

In my favourite Spicy Paint Job piece, a demon girl balances a wineglass in her hand. “My art comes so easily when I’m absolutely horsed,” she is saying, an exact portrait of every Critic writer ever. You may already know Spicy’s work from Critic centrefolds past. This issue, Read more...

Opinion: Rural Communities Should be at the Heart of the Mental Health Discussion

Posted 2:55pm Monday 15th August 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

It’s no secret that Aotearoa faces a crippling and harrowing mental health crisis. From a young age, you’re told to ‘harden up’ or ‘suck it up’. Did you get hurt playing rugby? Toughen up and get back out there. Upset about something? Shut up and stop complaining, Read more...

Breathology 101: A Crash Course in Breathaism

Posted 2:52pm Monday 15th August 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Okay dudes, so hear me out: I’m in a bit of a bind over here, ‘cause I may or may not have just kidnapped a breatha, and I don’t have a lot of time until he figures out how to open the (unlocked) door and escape. From his cries of “Oi bros, watch this!” I think Read more...

Why Dunedin Boys Live in Shit Houses

Posted 2:50pm Monday 15th August 2022 by Anna Robertshawe

It’s a man’s world, and we’re all living in it. Unless, of course, you’re a Dunedin boy. Then there’s a chance you’re not living anywhere.  The flatting scene in Dunedin is one-of-a-kind. One could compare it to an episode of Survivor, where competing Read more...

Local Produce | Sunflower Scent

Posted 7:50pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

Sunflower Scent have been on the scene for a few years now, shooting thrashing riffs right into your ear canals. Critic caught up with two of the band members, Jamie and Liam, for a catch up on their latest projects and a bonus botany lesson. Jamie and Liam started making music together in 2019. Read more...

Opinion: International Students Deserve More Scholarships

Posted 7:48pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Keegan Wells

International students pay around five times as much as domestic students and don’t receive first year fees free. Yes, the government partially subsidises university fees, including fees free, and international students or their parents have not been paying taxes to the government, so it makes Read more...

Why did your student visa get revoked?

Posted 7:42pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Critic

You’ve made it across the border, into the airport and down to Dunedin. Now that you’re in the filthiest Uni town Aotearoa has to offer, there are plenty of ways to get yourself into trouble. So, tell us, how did you lose your visa? QUESTIONS: What’s your ideal night out? a. Read more...

Sex Education: Does single-sex schooling affect us more than we realise?

Posted 7:25pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

If you didn’t go to a single-sex school, then you probably know someone who did. Single-sex education is a socially accepted norm here compared to other countries, but over the past 30 years there has been plenty of debate about its efficacy. In Aotearoa, the argument is something like Read more...

Degenerate Delicacies:

Posted 7:23pm Friday 5th August 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Everyone is intimately familiar with some variation of broke student food, the sort you stumble through making after a night on the piss, or eat with your hands while crying in bed. There’s a certain comfort to its simplicity (toasted sandwich, anyone?), and it always manages to taste like Read more...

Local Produce | The Edmond Brothers

Posted 4:37pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

By the time you’re reading this, Edmond Brothers will have released their latest track ‘Waiting For A Sunday’ and will be gearing up for their Thursday night gig at U-Bar. Critic caught up with the literal bros on their new music, and on sussing your Thursday night plans. The Read more...

Immersing Myself in Dunedin’s Hidden Poetry Scene

Posted 4:28pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Hugh Askerud

What is possibly the most anti-Dunedin thing to ever exist in Dunedin? Poetry. While the shades of autumn may give rise to some compelling imagery, there really isn’t that much in the way of beautiful land or people to show off, or at least not in the sunless boglands of North D. Dunedin is Read more...

Which Dunedin-Filmed Movie Should You Watch?

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Elliot Weir

Not sure what it is about broken glass and burning vistas that attract film crews, but people sometimes decide to shoot their movie here. And that’s… certainly a decision they can make. While Wellington might be the film capital of the country, Dunedin has had its fair share of moments Read more...

Aotearoa’s Politicians if They were Your Flatmates

Posted 2:14pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Despite what they do now, many of Aotearoa’s politicians come from humble backgrounds, including being former Otago University students. Much like you and I, they were once flatting in cold houses, cooking shit meals, and bickering over power bills. Here, presented to you, are Aoteaora’s Read more...

How Reo Changes with Region

Posted 2:12pm Sunday 31st July 2022 by Skyla o Ngāti Hine

Te reo Māori is on the rise. Well actually, it has been for over forty years. Whether you’re from Dunedin or just here for the moment, you’re likely to have encountered the dialect of the Kāi Tahu iwi here in Ōtepoti. And while the mita is distinctly different from Read more...

Local Produce | Swooping Tūī

Posted 6:27pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Zak Rudin

Swooping Tūī is a brand new initiative designed to provide menstrual cups to people of lower socio-economic backgrounds in and outside of Aotearoa, through selling natural moisturising creams. Critic Te Arohi sat down with Mahina Walle, the second-year ecology student who started the Read more...

Vengeance Capitalist

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

Look, we all know that relationships are a give and take. It’s just that sometimes that might mean it’s a given to take your ex’s possessions and then sell them on campus for profit.  At the start of first semester I buried my teenage romance of two years, and I thought Read more...

Opinion: I’m Glad You Came

Posted 6:24pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Annabelle Parata Vaughan

Picture this: it’s late at night, and you’re tucked up in bed with your special someone. Maybe you’ve met up with your sneaky link to do the dirty deed, or you’ve pulled at a party. Maybe you’re one of those people who’s in a relationship, and have just come back Read more...

How to Take Tinder Photos

Posted 6:21pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Keegan Wells

North Dunedin Tinder is one of the nine circles of hell. If you manage to escape the aggressive post-hunt photos to the more left-wing side of Tinder, you end up with people describing their star-sign, Myers Briggs, and twenty other tests they’ve taken just to avoid reconciling with their own Read more...

Between a Cock and a Hard Place

Posted 6:17pm Monday 25th July 2022 by Kaia Kahurangi Jamieson

When you think ‘sexual dysfunction’, you probably imagine emergency room flyers for Viagra. The words ‘low sex drive’ might conjure up a dead-end marriage, two snotty children and a fold-out couch in the garage for dad. What you probably aren’t thinking of is your peers Read more...

Local Produce | Neive Strang and Band

Posted 5:11pm Sunday 17th July 2022 by Nina Brown

From winning the 2020 OUSA Bring the Noise competition, to opening for dreamy musician Mousey at Dive earlier this year, Neive Strang and her band have been making waves in the Ōtepoti music scene. Neive is the lyrical genius behind the operation, backed up by drummer Benny, guitarist Jack, and Read more...

Opinion: Roe v Wade Isn’t Just America’s Problem

Posted 5:07pm Sunday 17th July 2022 by Annabelle Vaughan

On June 24th, the conservative Catholic-dominated United States Supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 case which guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion. The decision was met with pushback and protest, and rightfully so. Solidarity protests are being held across the globe, Read more...

Where is Castle Street’s Pet Possum?

Posted 5:05pm Sunday 17th July 2022 by Keegan Wells

The conversation with Matt, James, and Peter was held through a layer of tears. We found the boys reminiscing over their pet possum, Possmate. Yes, you read it right: this group of breathas had “adopted” and “domesticated” a pet possum in their Castle street flat. However, Read more...

Make it 16:

Posted 4:12pm Sunday 17th July 2022 by Annabelle Vaughan

Young people face a plethora of existential issues, such as the housing crisis, climate change and student debt. But, if you’re under the age of 18, you can’t vote on the issues that will most impact your future. The crew of Make it 16, a non-partisan, youth-led campaign, want to lower Read more...

Local Produce | Jason Hart of Tutor4U

Posted 2:22am Saturday 9th July 2022 by Jamiema Lorimer

If spending two weeks of break relaxing, along with the introspection of Matariki, has got you thinking ‘new semester, new me?’ then we have some good news for you. Whether your resolution revolves around finding stability in your grades or your finances, Tutor4U, a marketplace for Read more...

Foul Player? More like FOWL PLAYA!

Posted 2:19am Saturday 9th July 2022 by Ruby Werry

For those unaware, the last time Critic had a chat with Ōtepoti’s famous gay ducks it ended with a show of epic proportions and an unexpected pregnancy. So, another tabloid issue and another year later, Critic launched a check-in with our favourite dysfunctional queer Read more...

The Great Annual Critic Bar Review 2022

Posted 2:18am Saturday 9th July 2022 by Fox Meyer

Last year, we trusted the Dunedin populace to pick out their favourite bar. The finals ended up between Woof! and DSC, with DSC very narrowly edging out Woof! for the top spot. This year, the two behemoths went head-to-head again in the finals, for a rematch of the ages. And, in a triumphant Read more...