As quite possibly Dunedin’s nonevent of 2013, Re-O-Week has been a constant disappointment for anyone with a brain stem. Only through a haze of excess alcohol consumption and synthetic cannabinoid smoke will people be led to believe they had a mean time. Too bad most of North Dunedin’s dairies agreed to cease selling legal highs during the inter-semester break.
The week is not quite over as Critic goes to press. But one can presume that the Carnivàle of mediocrity that is Re-Orientation won’t be able to redeem itself in two meager nights. The flaccid music of a Shapeshifter concert on Saturday will do little to help.
The most enduring of the week’s events will undeniably be the Illuminate Paint Party. Despite the party’s close phonetic resemblance to the dreaded Illuminati, it appears that paranoid bogans from every nook and cranny of the university swallowed their pride and took part in the world record attempt. Enthusiastically ignored was the lack of precedence for the record; nobody has before bothered to pretend that a paint rave is a feat worthy of a Guinness World Record.
A smaller scale mini paint party was held on Wednesday afternoon outside Union Hall. A somewhat disturbing spectacle, the victims exchanged their presumably wounded dignity for a free ticket to the self-described “mind boggling” main event.
A sort of fluoro-bukkake scene ensued, with the very last free ticket giveaway encapsulating everything that was wrong with Illuminate’s marketing. A girl, obviously a fresher, was subjected to a humiliating scenario that even the most hardened Japanese pervert would consider depraved. Whimpering as the cold, toxic sludge was squeezed over her, she did not look in the least bit enthused by the situation. In contrast, her tormenters were enjoying the shit out of it and pulling thumbs up to the camera, with nauseating grins all round.
Such borderline sexual humiliation signaled a trend that has persisted throughout the week, beginning with a wet t-shirt contest that took place at Starters Bar on Monday night. The bar actually closed its doors prematurely in anticipation of the inevitable wave of cantankerous first year males, in the process making the contest a pseudo-VIP event. Predictably the Undie-Run 500 did not go ahead, but whether its cancellation was OUSA’s doing is still unclear.
The looming spectre of The Cook still haunts the streets of Dunedin during Re-Orientation, though Starters Bar has largely absorbed the Cook’s fresher clientele. The Cook’s absence is at least partially responsible for Re-Orientation’s somewhat muted reception; the diseased aorta of Dunedin’s nightlife has finally been surgically removed with a rusty scalpel.
Re-Orientation Week Happened | Opinion
