After recent interactions with national media, I’ve grown a little tired of the way Dunedin students are stereotyped.
Bless them, they’re genuinely intrigued by the spectacle of students burning couches in the street, stealing cones by the thousands, and squatting in our mouldy flats. These stereotypes haven’t come from nowhere and they are true to a certain extent. Yes, many flats have had issues with rats, and yes, Critic has played its part in reinforcing these images: our aesthetic is defined by cones, rats, bongs. It’s too easy. It’s low-hanging fruit. But as co-Culture Editors Lotto and Jordan have pointed out in office discussions this year, the “haha breatha” thing becomes a little tiresome.
The issue is that Dunedin’s just so far removed from the rest of the country. To get anywhere besides the main centres of Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland is a two-flight journey. Because of this, we seem to be the only ones in the know about what actually goes on here. Not to throw anyone under the bus, but during a fifteen-minute phone interview with RNZ about couch burning I had to correct them numerous times over outdated facts about Dunedin. The “news” that couch burnings are out was old to me – as I’m sure it is to other students who haven’t identified with the term “scarfie” while they’ve been at Otago (except when watching Robert Sarkies'* Scarfies film and recognising your flat in the background).
I first encountered this in 2023 when, as News Editor at the time, I broke a story about cone-pinching. Among other bits and bobs, cone theft was costing the Dunedin City Council’s George Street renovation project $40k annually. We’d admittedly been stoked with the scoop, but it was also a run-of-the-mill news story I typed up during a lecture. Big Media went loopy over it. Within a week, I’d been interviewed by Stuff’s Newsable podcast, the Breakfast Show, and Seven Sharp. This was big. This was journalism. This was Dunedin students.
National media has tended to only pick up the negative aspects of student culture at Otago. When we publish a story about a paper mache Haast’s eagle named Gloria, they hit us up about road cone pinching for a prime time story on Seven Sharp. Where we’ll run a light-hearted quiz to find out what Countdown rat you are – deli or confectionary aisle? – the Breakfast Show will hit us up for a live cross to ask whether students could have been behind it all. Imagine their shock when I didn’t play ball and informed them that students live in North Dunedin, travel largely by foot, and would only borrow a mate’s car to drive out there for the Pak n’ Save bargains.
And when we launch a centenary book proposal, Critic is invited to speak on the “death of scarfie culture” after a couch-fire-free O-Week, with a brief mention of our most ambitious project tacked onto the end.
Again and again – as Critic runs columns on the student bands with a cult-following at Pint Night who haul band kit from flat parties to clubs events; as we report on student activist groups standing up for their beliefs and copping flack from the public; as we quote students struggling to make ends meet in a cost of living crisis – we’re fighting the pre-packaged Dunedin stereotype of piss-sinking degenerates with an appetite for arson. It’s a bit like someone insulting your sibling. It might be true to a certain extent, but only we’re allowed to say it – only we know the truth of it.
Critic promises to keep walking the talk of reflecting the reality of students back to themselves. As the Editor, that means publishing a whole range of content. Because even if I’m not the target audience, there’s someone reading who will be, someone who deserves to see themselves represented in the mag. There’s a mixed bag in this issue: Pint Night loyalists, queer frivollers, tauira Māori, movie nerds, flash mob enthusiasts, tarot girlies, bush doofers, student activists, IBS-sufferers, fans of The Onion, and Castle residents with a case of breathaffection.
Nau mai, haere mai kia koutou
*The online version of this editorial has been ammended to correct factual inaccuracies. The original read 'Taika Waititi's Scarfies film, not Robert Sarkies'.