Aotearoa technically isn’t in a recession anymore, but this is what I have seen and things I expect to see in the near future as signs of economic backsliding.
- Full buses
- Home hair cuts and choppy bangs
- U-Bar pintflation (alongside the death)
- The rise of platonic room-sharing
- PAK’nSAVE introduces a one-in, one-out system
- English majors drinking instant coffee
- Campus scones shrink
- The University leaves a slice of cheese on the side of a building for almost a year
- Not just gym bros eating chicken and rice and intermittent fasting
- ED stomach-pumps homebrew alcohol
- Four dollar lunch becomes ‘lunch for a fiver’ (OUSA must give credit to me when this inevitably becomes the tag line)
- Briscoes no longer has a sale on
- Critic starts pay-walling articles
- Pint Night becomes a pint-less room with a band playing
- UniPol charges $2 per visit, $1 for ball hires
- Students actually apply for Community Services cards
- Neighbouring flats go in on a WiFi plan together
- Salvation Army empties of hot water bottles and containers
- The Dumpling Lady goes out of business
- People still hang out in the Link during semester breaks (for the warmth duh)
- Paper disappears from the university printer trays
- Campus bathroom signs limit students to one sheet per pee, two for a poo
- Everyone sells their laptops and relies on Central Lib monitors
- Stealing toilet paper at parties (anything is better than 2 ply)
- Stealing eggs at parties
- Stealing bread at parties
- A hiss on a vape will cost you $5
- OUSA Clubs and Socs showers form queues
- Campus Watch suspends students for squatting in St Dave’s
- A local election happens but no one has a good campaign other than mediocre Facebook posts begging for campaign funding
- Second-years break into their old halls to do washing and snatch butter sachets
- Liam White gets a second job
- Students start stripping the copper from around University buildings
- Brawls over Re:Ori’ giveaways
- There’s a case of scurvy at Otago