Critic Scandals: An Inexhaustive (Updated) Account

Posted 8:00pm Sunday 26th May 2024 by Adam Stitely

Taking Dunedin Old to new heights, Critic Te Ārohi has been around for ninety-nine years. For almost all of them, we have pissed off some groups of people, from our very own Uni, landlords, to students and non-students alike; something news-breaking or outright offensive has definitely been Read more...

Editorial: Popping My Capping Cherry

Posted 4:24pm Saturday 11th May 2024 by Nina Brown

Let’s get this out of the way: I’ve never been to the Capping Show. After talking to cappers for this issue, though, that’s something I really regret.  The Capping Show has been around for 130 years. It’s soldiered on through world wars, pandemics, and 33 seasons of Read more...

The Lecture Swap

Posted 8:52pm Friday 5th April 2024 by Adam Stitely, Gryffin Powell, Christopher Elder & Monty O’Rielly

Critic Te Ārohi sent two pairs of what we considered to be polar-opposite majors to go to each others’ lectures: History major Adam and Biochemistry & Genetics major Gryffin; Marketing major Christopher and Gender Studies major Monty. It’s like swinging, but with a bit more Read more...

Dunedin’s True Crime History

Posted 7:48pm Sunday 18th September 2022 by Ruby Werry

CW: murder, suicide, executions, poison The skyrocketing price of alcohol and the fact that McDonald’s doesn’t do hash browns past 11am both feel like terrible crimes, but these are only a smidgen of Dunedin’s illustrious true crime history. True crime fascination is not a new Read more...

From Gold Miners to Gold Diggers:

Posted 7:07pm Friday 2nd September 2022 by Denzel Chung and Lotto Ramsay

Ōtepoti was home to some of Aotearoa’s earliest non-pākehā tauiwi, with thousands of Chinese lured to seek their fortunes in Dunedin, a place they called San Gam Saan – the “New Gold Mountain”. While few intended to stay on, many were forced to, forming a Read more...

A Piss-tory of Dunedin Breweries

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 24th April 2022 by Thomas Rillstone

Alcohol, booze, grog… whatever you call it, Dunedinites just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. While the stereotype is often blown out of proportion, it’s certainly not without any basis in reality; Dunedin students are known to love a good drink or twelve. Thomas Rillstone, Read more...

Artists, Activists, Ambassadors: when Aramoana Declared Independence

Posted 6:03pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Sean Gourley

Over forty years ago, passionate residents of a small settlement, just 20km along the coast from North Dunedin, founded the Independent State Aramoana. While it never became anything close to an genuine independent nation, they fought tirelessly against the government to prevent an aluminium smelter Read more...

Bygone Gays: A Queer History of Otago University

Posted 3:11pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Asia Martusia King

CW: Homophobia. Students were a “driving generation” in queer liberation, says Chris Brickell, Professor of Gender Studies and LGBT historian. Otago University was no exception. Here’s an abridged history of our forebears and Read more...

Judging a Book by Its Cover: What Does Your Search History Say About You?

Posted 10:50pm Sunday 1st August 2021 by Fox Meyer

Critic collected eight stranger’s search histories and psychoanalyzed them, using an expert Geology student, to predict who searched for what. Then we checked the correct answers. Here’s how we did: (Our speculation in regular font, correct answers in bold) Looks like this Read more...

How Otago students got it on in the 19th century

Posted 5:41pm Sunday 25th July 2021 by Runze Liu

The lads and lasses of Dunedin have a few tricks up their sleeves when it comes to dating and hookups. But how did students do it back in the day, before the technological lubrication of Tinder and Snapchat? Critic did a deep dive into old school dating, circa the 1800s, and here’s what we Read more...