Archive

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...

The Critic Te Arohi Census 2021: who are Otago students, really?

Posted 5:19pm Sunday 18th July 2021 by Elliot Weir

Out of interest, curiosity, and an effort to understand our audience and the wider student body, Critic Te Arohi conducted a survey over the mid-semester break, asking 50 questions that covered a wide range of topics from academics to politics to demographics to drugs. 439 people completed the Read more...

Breatha’s Fables

Posted 4:11pm Sunday 18th July 2021 by Erin Gourley

Breatha was a storyteller thousands of years ago. Not much is known about their life, aside from the fact that they were the first homo sapien to burn a piece of lounge furniture while intoxicated. All we have left today are their stories, which historians believe were usually told around a burning Read more...

Something’s Amish: I became Amish to see whether it is possible for Amish people to study at Otago

Posted 1:15pm Tuesday 13th July 2021 by Asia Martusia King

I have always admired the Amish. When I made bread in lockdown, it ignited a pastoral flame within my loins. I began to dream of sheep and buggies, of giant beards and shucking corn. With these scenes of a simple life in mind, I decided to try following the Ordnung — the set of rules for Amish Read more...

Booze Tycoons: The Otago students who started their own RTD companies

Posted 12:49pm Tuesday 13th July 2021 by Denzel Chung

Gone are the days when chugging back an RTD meant looking like a 14-year-old aching for a scrap at a Palmerston North skatepark. Ye olde Codys and Cruisers have been well and truly swept away by a tidal wave of new, hip, and rather tasty competitors.  It is only right that Otago students Read more...

How to Home Alone Your Flat: Prevent burglars with these tips from a psychopathic kid

Posted 11:18am Tuesday 13th July 2021 by Sean Gourley

Flat break-ins in North Dunedin are almost more common than chlamydia. Insurance is expensive and when landlords don’t pay for basic kitchen repairs, they sure as shit aren’t going to pay for any decent home security system. So what can you do to prevent burglars taking your most prized Read more...

The Royal Treatment

Posted 1:33am Monday 31st May 2021 by Elliot Weir

Critic Te Arohi offered to treat two lucky flats like the British Royal Family. Instead of providing them with billions in inherited wealth and a sense of ownership over entire countries, we followed them like paparazzi for a few days and made wild and problematically intrusive speculations about Read more...

The Ultimate Guide to Looking Sexy, Gorgeous and Totally Wig in your ID Photo

Posted 6:26pm Sunday 30th May 2021 by The Critic Te Arohi Fab Fashion Team

Ew. Honey, you are so un-fleek right now. How do you get into Unipol looking like that? No, don’t answer. Of course you don’t go to Unipol. Your ID photo is in shambles. Don’t fret, though — we’ll turn you from “naasss queen” into “yaaasss Read more...

“Our Marriage Was A Sham!”: BOMBSHELL interview reveals SHOCKING details of Bill and Bill’s messy divorce

Posted 5:24pm Sunday 30th May 2021 by Elliot Weir

The Bills have divorced, Critic Te Arohi can reveal. When first contacted for comment, Bill insisted the divorce was amicable, but a later interview shows that the truth is far more complicated. We sat both ducks down for an exclusive tell-all interview. Shit hit the fan, and the truth finally came Read more...

The Alpha Uterus: Is Period Syncing Real?

Posted 10:58pm Sunday 23rd May 2021 by Asia Martusia King

The Alpha Uterus. A uterus so formidable, brimming with such sheer hormonal force that it annexes the uteri around it, pulling them into orbit and causing them to sync up. Does such a legendary power really exist? Period syncing is based on the idea that when a bunch of menstruating folk live Read more...

There Will Be Blood: The good, the bad, and the messy of period sex

Posted 9:04pm Sunday 23rd May 2021 by Erin Gourley

Most humans swap a lot of bodily fluids to show that we’re attracted to each other, but for some reason we don’t put period blood in that category. There’s a longstanding belief that periods are unclean or gross, with no evidence to back that up. And contrary to what a lot of Read more...

The Pill: The untold truth about the most common form of contraception

Posted 8:47pm Sunday 23rd May 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

Anxiety, depression, migraines, nausea and weight gain are just a few of the side effects which your body is susceptible to on the oral contraceptive pill. Colloquially known as the pill, the oral contraceptive is one of the most commonly prescribed forms of birth control. It can be used for a range Read more...

Dunedin Pint Review

Posted 4:21pm Sunday 16th May 2021 by Chug Norris

In recent years many of Dunedin’s most treasured and iconic pubs, such as Gardies and Monkey Bar have closed up shop. In wake of this, I decided to visit five popular Dunedin pubs to assess the quality of their pints.    The Method The perfect pint is a magical and elusive Read more...

Halloumi Hunt: The Best Halloumi Bagels in Dunedin

Posted 4:18pm Sunday 16th May 2021 by Fox Meyer

If you’ve ever met a vegetarian you’ve heard about halloumi. It’s a thick, grillable cheese that you imagine fairies using as a trampoline. The popularity of halloumi, along with Dunedin’s inexplicably thriving bagel scene has provided us with several variants of the halloumi Read more...

Delectable Specimens: The tastiest creatures in Otago Museum’s nature galleries

Posted 4:15pm Sunday 16th May 2021 by Denzel Chung

For most children, a trip to the aquarium was a source of wide-eyed wonder. Great shoals of fish swarming left and right, majestic ocean creatures dancing a delicate underwater ballet despite being the size of a large car, the brightness and vibrancy of swaying sea plants.  I was not one of Read more...

The Lost Generation of ADHD: The women and non-binary people who missed being diagnosed as children

Posted 4:12pm Sunday 16th May 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Esmerelda* was 36 when she was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. She isn’t the zoomy young boy most people associate with ADHD, a stereotype that leads to countless young girls and non-binary children going undiagnosed. These children grow up battling with their own Read more...

#NoFap: Why some guys refuse to do the five finger shuffle

Posted 3:28pm Sunday 9th May 2021 by Sean Gourley

Masturbating, fapping, wanking, marching the penguin, or making the bald man cry. Palm Sunday is a ritual for many a dusty Dunedin dude.  Most people don’t notice any negative consequences beyond the occasional wave of soul-crushing shame. But no-fappers believe masturbation creates Read more...

Nuclear Expeditions and Communist Plots: Inside the Secret Government Hunt for Uranium in Fiordland

Posted 3:25pm Sunday 9th May 2021 by Elliot Weir

There was a secret government expedition to Fiordland in 1944 to search for uranium for nuclear weaponry. I went down a rabbit-hole of archives, obituaries, and letters that took me from Fiordland, to Nigeria, to Norway — to find answers to the questions I had.  I was reading an Read more...

“I Can’t Be Fucked Trying to Convert Him”: When Your Family Members Are Conspiracy Theorists

Posted 3:10pm Sunday 9th May 2021 by Denzel Chung

Extensive “research” during lockdown revealed a terrible secret to Carlos’* uncle. “The sun is sending diseases into our atmosphere because it’s losing energy and going out.”  It seems everyone has that uncle or kuia, gong gong or tita: one moment, Read more...

Chunder, Challenges, and Controversy: A look back at Otago’s debaucherous Capping Week

Posted 6:16pm Sunday 2nd May 2021 by Sean Gourley

Not so long ago, in the 1950s, students at Otago would have been in the middle of intense party preparations at this time of year. Throughout most of the 20th Century, May graduations (known as Capping) were celebrated with a week of festivities including social events, stunts, and extreme binge Read more...

Small Fish In A Big Stream: Local Artists On the Problem With Spotify

Posted 5:35pm Sunday 2nd May 2021 by Denzel Chung

Statistics New Zealand thinks the average Kiwi household spends $29.40 per week on “alcoholic beverages, tobacco and illicit drugs”. Even at this ridiculously low-balled estimate, Spotify’s own figures show just 2.6% of their 7 million musicians made enough money in a year to pay Read more...

Under Pressure: When competitive entry programmes take a toll on mental health

Posted 5:22pm Sunday 2nd May 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

Every year, hundreds of students enrol in competitive entry programmes hoping to get a prestigious degree and achieve their big dreams. But the stress of these courses, which loom large in students’ futures, can take a toll on student mental health. Competitive entry is not the cause of mental Read more...

Baldwin Street: A Journey to Thickness (in the Heart and Soul)

Posted 3:02pm Monday 26th April 2021 by Susana Jones

Ah Baldwin Street, a Dunedin icon and the disputed steepest street in the world.  Upon recently turning 21, I asked myself a bunch of questions, as any true Pisces would. Who am I and what am I doing? What is life? And am I making the most of it? Most importantly, how can I get triple caked Read more...

Netflix and Chill: Films reviewed by people who watched them as foreplay

Posted 2:54pm Monday 26th April 2021 by Fox Meyer

Here are some reviews of movies and TV by people who watched them before or during sexy times. The attention they gave to the film varies based on the performance of their partner. Some were clearly more captivating or capable than others, but the sweet spot for a Netflix and chill seems to be about Read more...

24 Hours on Hyde: Before and After Dunedin’s Biggest Day Out

Posted 2:45pm Monday 26th April 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

Friday, April 16, 5pm 'Twas the night before Hyde, when all through the street No sounds could be heard, not even a yeet. Everyone seemed to be tucked away in their flats, gearing up for the annual Hyde Street Keg Party. This year’s party was highly anticipated, with many hoping Read more...

The Phone Games You Haven’t Thought About Since 2013: A Review

Posted 11:32pm Sunday 18th April 2021 by Denzel Chung

The year was 2012. The Prime Minister was everyone’s favourite blokey Uncle John (just your average BBQing, beer-drinking multi-millionaire investment banker with a Hawaiian holiday home). “Going into debt” meant a $5 loan from my parents for Maccas in town. Lunchtimes seemed to Read more...

The Wheel Slim Shady: Getting Around the Walk Your Wheels Policy

Posted 11:13pm Sunday 18th April 2021 by Asia Martusia King

The day that Otago University implemented its “Walk Your Wheels” policy was a dark time for all. I’ll never forget cycling into Uni in 2019 and being met with that hideous, mocking sign.  I’m a self-confessed pavement cyclist, the bane of Dunedin News. I like to go Read more...

Shaky At Best: The New Zealand Earthquake Forecasting Page With Links to Pseudoscience

Posted 10:09pm Sunday 18th April 2021 by Acasta Gneiss

At first glance, NZ Earthquake Community is a reputable Facebook page. It’s filled with content from GeoNet and advice about earthquake safety. It’s also only six clicks away from a crackpot’s RV in New Mexico.  Information on the page comes from two sources. If you follow Read more...

Dunedin’s Vegan Food Review

Posted 2:04pm Sunday 11th April 2021 by Keegan Wells

Jitsu I tried out the spicy tofu pirikara and the spicy katsu vegan meat bento. The spicy tofu, although not all that spicy, was great due to the sheer size of the ‘fu. It was a A slab of pressed soy you could build a shithouse out of.  To say my life was changed forever after the Read more...

The Committee: A Tale of Cash, Cocktails, and Conspiracy

Posted 12:10am Sunday 11th April 2021 by Elliot Weir

It’s August 2018. You’re in Year 13. You’re covered in pimples, you don’t know how to blowdry your hair, and your fashion sense is what can only be described as preppy-grunge. Your on-and-off high school girlfriend has just broken up with you because you had a Skype call with Read more...

Locked In: what happened when RAs were locked down in residential colleges

Posted 10:41pm Saturday 10th April 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

Lockdown exposed problems with residential colleges. Residential assistants (RAs, this year known as Sub-wardens) had heavy expectations placed on them. Whether it was managing first years’ mental health or fighting for fair pay, lockdown placed a spotlight on conditions of work in residential Read more...

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Field Trips of Otago Uni

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 28th March 2021 by Sean Gourley

Critic asked students about the highs and lows of their University field trips over the years. We sorted through the field trips, past and present, and compiled this choose your own adventure, so students with boring degrees that don’t involve field trips can find out what life is like outside Read more...

Feathery Friends & Funky Fiends: A guide to finding wildlife in and around Dunedin

Posted 4:16pm Sunday 28th March 2021 by Elliot Weir

Friends, it’s time to see some wildlife other than the stray cats on Leith Street and the cockroaches in your bathroom. Leave North Dunedin, and experience the natural world at its finest. Even David Attenborough reckons you should.  We are surrounded by some incredible ecosystems in Read more...

Mythbusting: Academics take a crack at misconceptions in their field

Posted 3:58pm Sunday 28th March 2021 by Fox Meyer

It’s really easy to pretend that you know what you’re talking about. We know this because at Critic we’ve been calling ourselves “journalists” for nearly 100 years. Not being a scientist doesn’t stop people from getting on TV and filling a scientist’s Read more...

How to Get a Refund From Your Drug Dealer

Posted 2:41pm Sunday 21st March 2021 by Fox Meyer

A surprising number of students have been able to get refunds from their drug dealers, after buying what they thought was MDMA. Sales of ‘MDMA’ are still common in New Zealand despite the fact that there’s very little pure MDMA in the country. It’s all getting stuck at the Read more...

Female Viagra vs Catholic Guilt

Posted 12:32pm Sunday 21st March 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Men have Viagra. I have years of repressed Catholic guilt. This is incredibly unfair, and I decided to fix it by testing out all the female-libido drugs I could get my hands on.  Catholic guilt might sound bizarre to anyone who isn’t Catholic or recovered, considering Catholicism is Read more...

The One Who Didn’t Get Away: Talking about drugs with a drug dealer who got caught

Posted 12:24pm Sunday 21st March 2021 by Erin Gourley

Daniel* was in his third year at the University of Otago, studying computer science, when the police came to his flat to search for drugs. “By the time the police actually came to search my house, I expected it,” he said. “I did care whether I was being investigated, but I Read more...

Why Are There So Many Shit Drugs in Dunedin This Year?

Posted 12:15pm Sunday 21st March 2021 by Sean Gourley

Molly took one and a half Red Bull pressies at Electric Avenue. She couldn’t sleep for 36 hours. In the following days she had one of the worst come-downs of her life.  “I'd spent the money so I took it. I would not have paid for it if I’d known it wasn’t Read more...

Forbidden Fruits Around Campus: What They Are and Where to Find Them

Posted 12:46am Sunday 14th March 2021 by Susana Jones

If you’re anything like me, you’re perpetually hungry, but you’re also a hopelessly broke student. You don’t have enough time to prepare anything to eat between meals, and are too broke to simply run to the local New World or dairy and grab something quick without it putting Read more...