Welcome to the Tabloid Issue! This one is always the best. Tabloid lets us be silly, dramatic, nosy, and unserious in the way that student journalism is made for.
My first exposure to the wonderful world of print magazines was through my Nana’s Women’s Weekly, Women's Day, and Home & Gardens. Sure, the content is what I now fondly call “slop”. But it was fun slop. The kind of thing left in the bathroom for guests to peruse at their own leisure. Celebrity divorces, garden makeovers, calorie-devoid diets – it felt like being gifted the secrets to succeed as a ‘modern’ woman.
My first exposure to a Critic Tabloid Issue was less of a sacred experience. In my first year, I lived and died by the Critic delivery cycle. Copies would arrive at my hall late Sunday night and I’d be in the foyer at 8:30pm sharp to read my horoscope, flip through the quizzes, and scan the news to see if anyone I knew was mentioned. Then the Tabloid Issue arrived.
I was confused. It didn't look like the Critic I knew and loved. It looked less like an artsy student mag and more like something my mum would pick up in line at the supermarket checkout. I couldn’t believe this silly magazine was even bolder, sillier, and slightly more unbelievable than usual.
Now, having been around the Critic block a few times, I get it. The Tabloid Issue might be the best thing we do. It allows us to break free from needing to look polished and cool all the time. It’s the one week we can blissfully ignore golden rules such as “show don’t tell”. Here, we can embrace gossip, satire, quizzes, and sport the kind of content you’re shocked that gets the approval to have 3000 copies printed.
As Culture Editor, I have the privilege of not having to deal with huge investigations (sorry Matilda), or the constant fear of defamation (sorry Stella), or every comma and capital letter (sorry Gryffin), or all of that at once (sorry Hanna). I sit in a nice little sphere of the mag where, as long as students are interested in stuff, I have content. Luckily, Otago tauira are frothers and there never seems to be a shortage of topics to write about.
In my research to learn what an editorial actually contains – because I have a bit of a reputation for not reading them – I turned to Cosmopolitan. A mag I dreamt of subscribing to throughout high school, but never did after taking the financial hit called ‘moving out of home’. Flicking through the different international versions, I was enamoured how magazines reflect the places they come from. The UK cover featured Maisie Peters. The Italian version had Bebe Vio, an Italian wheelchair fencing champ. India had Sharvari Wagh, a Hindi film star. The US had Sydney Sweeney – rack out, of course.
Every version was glossy, gorgeous, and insanely curated. But each one reflected a slightly different world back at itself. Art imitates life, sure – but tabloids do too. They exaggerate, distort, sexualise, stairise, and occasionally make the world look even more fucked than it already is. And sometimes, when the world is that cooked, the only honest option is to make something equally ridiculous.
So here it is: our Tabloid Issue. Our love letter to slop, scandal, satire, student culture, and the sacred art of reading something you absolutely did not need to know. This is the issue that honours our readers who get a rush from rumours, and live for the morning-after debriefs.
Take it home. Put it on your coffee table just like your Nana would. Let a guest peruse at their own leisure; prepare for the gasps from the shocking headlines inside.
