For legal purposes, I reject the term “conspiracy theorist”. It makes people think about ol’ Uncle Jack sitting on his front porch in a tinfoil hat with a rifle across his lap. That’s not me. I am a well-educated, highly suspicious, and arguably brave citizen, prepared to ask questions and uncover the truth.
I have spent two consecutive all-nighters conducting highly sophisticated research into the sinister forces behind the scenes, fuelled by a sick mixture of Red Bull and white Monster. And, as everyone knows, Instagram comments and Reddit posts never lie. Hot girls are, in fact, paranoid.
The same people who laughed at Galileo for suggesting that the Earth revolves around the sun may dismiss me too. Naturally, the lizard people who have infiltrated the government will do everything they can to suppress original thinkers like myself. But as the brave pioneer of Critic Te Ārohi, I am willing to put my life on the line for you, the students of Otago University, and expose the secrets hidden beneath the surface.
If I go missing after this article, you know who to blame.
1. The dehydrating food trend came at an awfully suspicious time.
Do we all remember the dark corner of TikTok where everyone suddenly owned a dehydrator? I still have nightmares about dehydrated honey. But has anyone ever stopped to ask why? Well, what else is aninfamous dehydrator? AI.
BigChat has been working behind the scenes to condition us into craving dehydrated foods.
Now you may be asking: “What is BigChat doing with the water?” Simple. Inside every dehydrator is a tiny portal transporting the water from our foods directly into AI data centres. They started small with prunes and raisins, but now we’re seeing increasingly dehydrated abominations hit our shelves.
Trigger warning: what I am about to say may open your eyes.
What else is approximately 70% water? Human bodies.
One day, giant flying dehydrators will roam the sky, sucking our bodies dry to feed the AI overlords. I reached out to several dehydrator manufacturers about this theory. Unsurprisingly, none responded.
The truth no one wants to accept: the government is trying to raisin-ify the human race.
2. Air New Zealand killed passenger trains.
This one isn't a conspiracy theory. It's just economics.
Railway tracks run all over New Zealand, including straight through Dunedin, yet the average Kiwi barely uses them. Why? Because if there were a convenient, eco-friendly and deeply romantic form of intercity transport available, no one would ever force themselves into cramped airplane seats, next to people who have yet to discover showers.
We are living in a country so small people often forget to put us on maps, yet the only feasible way to travel between most cities is by plane. Coincidence? I think not!
You would think all those railways in Dunedin might save us from relying solely on the chronically late and unreliable OrBus. But no. The trains are reserved for tourists and people willing to pay for the privilege of going nowhere useful.
Passenger trains are no longer a form of transportation but a "scenic tour" tourist trap. The best you can do is spend hundreds of dollars staring out a window at Central Otago. At that point, you may as well fly to Australia. And who is there waiting for you? Air New Zealand.
Sometime around the mid-1970s, romantic train rides disappeared from TV. Gone was the love interest running beside the train, and instead we were fed the idea of the "airport crush", because apparently being squashed into seat 28b behind a crying toddler just screams romance. Suddenly, every love story started ending at Gate 9 instead of Platform 2.
Follow the money.
When I tried to confront Air New Zealand, a flight attendant named Joo Dee told me that "there are no trains in Dunedin". I'm just saying, I have never seen Christopher Luxon and a passenger train in the same room.
The tracks didn't disappear. They were disappeared.
3. Lotto was invented to catch time travelers.
I am embarrassed to promote such a mainstream theory, but this one is undeniably true.
What's the first thing you would do if you could travel back in time? Obviously win Lotto. Memorise a few numbers and suddenly you're $40 million richer. Hell, win it a few times. What's the harm? Such sheep thoughts disgust me. The harm is that you've just identified yourself as a time traveller to the government.
Why do you think Lotto is run by the government, you ask? Do you really believe they created Powerball just because they were feeling generous? The same government that took away Fees Free? Don't be ridiculous. The Lotto isn't a prize. It's bait.
And why do we never hear about Lotto winners in real life? It's always "someone won $55 million and is keeping it private". A better explanation is that they were silenced, held in a room underneath the Beehive as Luxon interrogates them on whether the All Blacks will ever win another World Cup, and on how many days he has before the next coup.
If anyone reading this is some greedy bastard from 2092, this is your only warning.
Forget the numbers.
4. GSSD: Government Seagull Surveillance Drones.
Now, I'm not saying that all seagulls are surveillance drones. That would be ridiculous. But a good chunk of those fuckers have to be fake.
Have you ever seen a seagull dive for fish in the sea like other birds? They're always eating chips, pizza, chicken. I once had a seagull snatch a Night n' Day cookie right out of my hand. A goddamn cookie?! What kind of natural-born bird eats a cookie? The kind with a hungry agent sitting at the top of the Clocktower controlling it.
And let's not forget just how many of them there are. There's always about ten seagulls outside St Daves ready to assault any poor student they can get their claws on. I refuse to believe that nature intended that. Remember: real birds eat worms. Government engineered surveillance drones steal your KFC.
You never see a seagull chilling out in the forest or chilling alone at an empty beach. Never! They're always prowling around the university, the mall, the Octagon - anywhere large groups of people gather. Why? Because they're collecting data.
Still don't believe me? I went up to ten seagulls for comment and they all flew away.
I rest my case.
5. There was evil intent behind those 2020 paper-thin masks.
I’m not saying that masks don’t work – that’s a whole other thing and Critic Te Ārohi isn’t going anywhere near it. I’m talking about those flimsy, disposable, paper thin masks sold in bulk back in 2020.
Think about it. If you were a mask company and suddenly everyone in the world needed your product, would you make the perfect mask that never needed replacing? Of course not. That’s bad business!
We've all heard about planned obsolescence: make something halfway decent, market the hell out of it, then programme it to crap out shortly after. Ahem, Apple.
Those masks weren’t flimsy by accident. They were designed to break at the slightest tussle. They couldn’t handle the supermarket toilet paper raids – and they weren’t meant to.
And why were they always white or blue? The colours symbolising surrender and compliance? Coincidence? Don’t be absurd. Classic subliminal brainwashing. You don’t make billions by being ethical.
My last words before I am silenced.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’ve either awakened to the sinister forces at play, or you’re a secret government spy trying to suppress the truth. There’s no in-between.
If Critic suddenly announces that this author is “taking a break from journalism”, or if this article disappears from the archives, you’ll know I have spoken the truth.
Until then, stay vigilant and question everything.
Especially seagulls.
