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Words by: Elyshia Bedwell (she/her) I remember the day so clearly, it’s something that I think about way too often… Even though the day was over three months ago now I still think about it, about the news that my doctor gave me that day. The weight of the diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome still weighs heavily on me in everyday life. How will it affect my grades at uni? Will it affect my ability to work a 9-5 job? What will my future look like?  What is PCOS?  Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS is a chronic illness that affects the hormonal functions of the ovaries of a person who is assigned female at birth (AFAB). The illness is highly complex and involves the body's metabolic, reproductive and physiological systems. PCOS is quickly becoming an urgent public health crisis, confirmed by  World Health Organisation s tats . It’s estimated that 8%-13% of the world's AFAB population are diagnosed, and a further 70% are undiagnosed. PCOS, as a chronic illness, has no known cure.  The most common symptom is irregular or long periods; these could be periods that occur very irregularly, that are long (more than seven days), or that don’t come at all. Other symptoms are excess hair growth, bad acne, unexplained rapid weight gain, and trouble losing weight. PCOS also causes hormone imbalances. All this affects the body's metabolic functions, meaning that a person with PCOS is not able to break down nutrients that are needed to help build and repair the body. These symptoms can have major effects on a person’s mental health, leaving sufferers feeling helpless.  Where my journey all started…  Unfortunately for my young self, I was blessed with my first period at nine years old. When I first got it I knew what a period was, but I wasn’t prepared; I was terrified. I now look back and see why I got my period at such a young age, as I was always more physically developed than kids my age. One thing that getting it so young brought me was a very bad body image. For me it was a time of constant worry about how my body looked or if I’d accidentally bleed through my pad with my heavy periods. This then meant that when I had bad periods I would have to miss out on things like school swimming, or PE.  My struggles with the NZ health system (and finding a doctor who cared enough ) Regardless of whether you have PCOS or not, anyone with a chronic illness will understand how hard it can be to get a diagnosis. I always denied that something was wrong with my periods as I thought having painful long periods was normal. Shock horror they aren’t meant to be either of those things.  During my last year of high school, I started to suspect that I may have either PCOS or Endometriosis. So I booked a doctor's appointment to talk with my GP and see what she thought. When speaking with her she was super supportive and understanding of my concerns, which led to her suggesting I try the dreaded oral combined birth control pill. This was recommended to help regulate the flow of my period and hopefully make it less awful for me.  Fast forward a year to 2023. I moved to Welly for uni, which meant that I had to enrol into a new GP practice. I got a completely new doctor, and hoped this would get me somewhere. Armed with my optimism and shitty periods I talked to my new GP about all my concerns. His reply to my issues was “Just don’t have a period, keep taking the active pills”. After this appointment, I went home feeling pretty defeated. Why would a doctor completely shut down my concerns like it was nothing?! It was from this very evident to me that my new GP had ZERO clue about anything to do with periods.  After this appointment, I then rang up my GP and requested to change doctors to one that my best friend was with as she was experiencing some similar issues to me at the time. Let me tell you the difference between the doctors was like night and day. Upon telling her that I had just noticed that I had gained 25 kgs in the space of six months and that it could not be explained she told me that she’d like to run some tests. Finally, some hope. Now every time I walk out of her office I feel reassured that I am being listened to, taken seriously and being looked after to the highest standard.  My eventual diagnosis  In November last year, my new GP told me that to do the next stage of testing I must come off birth control. After being off the meds for four months she sent me for ultrasounds to help determine what exactly was going on with my uterus and ovaries. As horrible as it was to get them both types of ultrasounds done I knew that it was necessary to help me get answers. After the ultrasounds for the next two weeks before my follow-up appointment, I kept worrying about what could have possibly been found. When the day of the appointment came and my doctor told me “You’ve got PCOS” I felt numb. Finally getting answers was what I had longed for for so many years but also something that I didn’t wanna hear. For the rest of the appointment, I zoned out hoping that I’d be able to go home soon. When I eventually got home the first thing I did was cry my eyes out. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear five days before my 20th birthday. It was meant to be a happy time; instead, I was mourning the loss of my ‘healthy body’.  What happened next  After my diagnosis, I then began to experience several long bleeding periods. Especially the one that went on for 45 days! During this specific bleeding episode, I experienced some bad symptoms like stabbing cramps, dizziness, nausea and constant headaches. When I finally got to see my GP she immediately prescribed me stronger meds to help stop the abnormal bleeding and got the nurse to draw urgent bloods. Turns out I was borderline anemic and because of this I am now stuck taking iron tablets every couple of days as my body doesn’t produce enough to cope.  Coming to terms with having PCOS  Coming to terms with having a chronic illness changed my whole outlook on life, and made me more empathetic towards others. It’s forced me to think about how you never truly know what someone is going through inside. The invisible pains and struggles that they face that others will not recognise.  Lastly, if you are reading this and you have PCOS I want to tell you that your body is amazing. While it may not seem right it has been coping with PCOS in the best way it can, so don’t be angry at your body. Instead, embrace it and take care of it. Your body is where you live, it's your home, don’t judge it. I also want you to know that you are not alone in your struggles. While it may seem hard to find light at the end of the tunnel right now I promise it does get better. Of course, I can’t promise that you won’t have bad days—but you will also start having good days. Listen to your body as you know it best, and always keep fighting! You are so incredibly strong and brave for doing what you do despite having a chronic illness.  - Much love Elyshia xx

DAN MOSKOVITZ (HE/HIM) Greater Wellington Regional Council is looking at scrapping its pledge to be climate-neutral by 2030 and climate-positive by 2035.  The council is instead investigating replacing these commitments with a pledge to be at net zero emissions by 2050 , as decided at their recent Climate committee meeting. There are two main reasons for this—a lack of central government support, and things not progressing as quickly as hoped.  For example, in 2019 the council had budgeted on electric utes being widely available by 2030 to replace its fleet—they are not. Similarly, the council’s main reforestation project is proving both slower and more costly than expected. In addition, the Auditor-General, one of the chief crown watchdogs, has recently taken a stricter view on agencies claiming to be “carbon positive,” meaning crown entities now have stricter standards to adhere to.  “Experience since 2019 has revealed that we should continually monitor what we can achieve and in what timeframe,” said GWRC’s strategy group manager Luke Troy in a statement.  “We need to adjust our targets and timeframes to take into account the progress and benefits of reafforestation.  “Navigating the way forward on emissions target setting is challenging but necessary in a changing environment.” The major contributor to the council’s emissions however is the Metlink public transport network. According to deputy chair of the Climate Committee, councilor Yadana Saw, decarbonization of the bus and train fleet—which makes up roughly 1% of the Wellington region’s entire emissions—was going well until central government pulled its support.  “$134 million across three years has been cut from our funding,” said Saw. “That's a significant amount of money which isn't going towards decarbonizing.”  “We’ve had to slow things down because the only other [financial] mechanism we have is to increase rates and we’ve already gone out with a 20.5% rate increase. And those were based on the assumption we’d have funding for public transport projects.”  Both Saw and Troy mention wanting to pivot from the council’s previous targets which were about net emissions, to looking towards gross emissions. Council's new proposed headline target is net-zero by 2050.  Net emissions include offsetting. This is essentially paying someone else to plant some trees and offset your carbon. The climate committee noted the offset market was in “disarray” after most offsets were found to be “hot air.” Gross emissions by contrast are the sum total of all emissions. So a reduction to these can’t include offsetting.  “The best solution remains to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses that we create,” says Saw.  “So we’ll be looking at energy transitions, such as how we can utilize solar arrays around our Greater Wellington facilities.” Saw also said Metlink’s buses would continue to be replaced with EVs, but that without central government support, it would be at a slower rate.  Notably, Greater Wellington released no press release regarding the committee’s decision to investigate dropping its climate-positive pledge.

Meredith Ross-James  (she/him) Have you ever had a restrictive eating disorder? I have. Restrictive eating disorders (hereafter called REDs) are strange illnesses; it feels like society wants me to be this way. In my feminine upbringing I had it beat into me that being fat is the worst fate that could befall me, and that terror has steeped into me, so totally and completely, that it has permanently fucked my relationship to food and my body.  Michaela McSweeney is a philosopher. In 2022 she published “Maladjustment”, a paper arguing that the symptoms of PTSD don’t represent dysfunctions in the brain , but represent understandable and justified responses to injustice. Her paper spoke to me, as someone who also feels like the symptoms of my mental illness are the product of social injustice. Here, I will give you a brief overview of her argument, and show how REDs can be understood in the same light.  McSweeney says the ‘bits’ that make up mental illnesses are directed emotional states . Emotional states are ‘directed’ when they are about something, and they are responsive to facts in the world, just like beliefs. I can get angry about LAB increasing the price of their vegan muffin (my favourite campus safe food) from $4 to $5.50. On the other hand, sometimes I wake up and I’m mad for no reason—this is an emotional state that’s not directed. It’s not felt about, or in response to, anything in the world.  Since beliefs and directed emotional states are responsive to facts in the world, McSweeny reckons directed emotional states can also be, like beliefs, warranted or unwarranted. If LAB raised the price of their vegan muffins, and my reaction was uncontrollable mouth-frothing rage, most would say that is an unwarranted emotional reaction. If your best friend slept with your boyfriend, that emotional reaction would probably be warranted (in my opinion...).  Ok, we’re nearly at the point. Philosophy can be tedious. McSweeney says that the set of directed emotional states that psychiatrists label ‘PTSD’ can be understood as warranted emotional reactions to trauma caused by social injustice . She uses the example of a domestic violence survivor: if he has experienced some repeated abusive action, the PTSD-looking emotional states that respond to these triggers seem pretty warranted ; in other words, it’s not unreasonable or unjustified for him to react in that way.  She goes further, though. When we refuse to see these mental illnesses as warranted responses to injustices in the world, and insist on seeing them just as ‘chemical imbalances’, we completely erase the injustice the sufferer is responding to . If we think the domestic abuse survivor or war veteran’s PTSD is just a result of a chemical imbalance—just a problem in their brain —we totally erase the injustices that caused those reactions and we lose sight of the injustice inherent in domestic violence and war (for example).  I think the same thing happens with RED symptoms, and I think the trauma the directed emotional states of REDs respond to is western female socialisation . When I talk of people who have undergone female socialisation I mean anyone who has felt like or been treated as a woman or girl at any point in their lives—this includes cisgender women, trans women, trans men, enbies, etc. When I talk of western I mean the kind of white femininity that prioritises thinness and submission as cornerstones of femininity. Men, I will touch on your plight at the end. I haven’t forgotten about you.  Ok, so for you to agree with me, I need to convince you of three things. First, that western female socialisation can be traumatising. Second, that this experience is actually what the directed emotional states of REDs respond to. Third, that these responses are warranted, justified, or understandable, and REDs don’t just indicate a dysfunction in our brains.  The process of female socialisation can be fucking traumatising , and the philosophers agree. To be a woman in a westernised culture is to experience an oppression that is obsessively self-policing and inward-looking. Sandra Bartky wrote Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression about this issue. She says oppression controls your body : when you move, where you move, how you move. And she’s right. Girls often get scolded for having their bodies take up too much space: for not crossing our legs, for gesticulating too passionately, for being too fat . She invokes panopticon to talk about womanhood. The panopticon is a prison design where a guard stands in a tower and the prison cells are arranged in a circle around him. The prisoner never knows whether or not they are being watched, but they know they can be watched at any second . Since the prisoner can never know when the guard could look at them, they start following the rules all the time, even when the guard isn’t there to watch them. The guard is now inside their mind.  Bartky says femininity does this to us, too. We’re held to higher standards of beauty than boys are, because we always need to be ready to be inspected by a man. Never knowing when we’re being inspected, the man moves into our minds, and we feel compelled to look perfect all the time, for him. We become self-policing , obsessed with self-surveillance. I wish I could keep supporting this point, but I have limited space.  The directed emotional states that make up REDs are responses to this trauma: the trauma of 24/7 scrutiny, of having your movements policed, of being forced to be small. When you feel abject terror towards hot chips (or insert your fear-food here), it’s not that you’re having an unwarranted directed emotional state towards those chips, it’s that you’re having a very warranted directed emotional reaction to all the injustice that made you afraid of those chips. It’s not about the chips—it’s about the injustice. When REDs are seen as ‘brain problems’ alone, the injustices inherent in femininity and womanhood, the injustices that people like Sandra Bartky and Susan Bordo and Simone de Beauvoir talk about—the injustices you feel— are totally erased.  To see mental illness like this is liberating . People say people with REDs have something wrong with our brains, but I disagree. We’re responding in quite a reasonable and understandable way to long-term oppression and injustice. To ‘cure’ eating disorders, then, requires us to uncover the injustice our mental states respond to. It requires fighting for liberation from mandatory femininity, and a mass transformation of our ideas about how women and girls ‘should’ act. It also means everyone pushing this kind of oppressive femininity is implicated in perpetuating our suffering. Finally, on masculinity. It is very clear that men have lower rates of REDs, but they still get them. What I think this indicates is that thinness plays a much smaller role in masculinity than it does in western femininity . I could write this article all over again about ‘bigorexia’—a kind of body dysmorphia associated with one’s muscle size—and maybe I will, one day. Nonetheless, your REDs respond to injustice, too—an injustice we should recognise and overcome—but an injustice that comes from some place other than (western) female socialisation.

Words by Cassia Percival-Day (she/her) I feel like festivals, gigs and raving culture can seem like an intimidating and almost exclusionary space (hello geography degree). It is not perceived as suited to people living with a disability. However, anyone with lived experience of a disability knows that the ‘challenges’ are not about you inherently, but the limitations created by society. Everyone deserves the right to go out and have fun, and everyone can! It may just require some extra thinking and a bit more planning for those with experience of disability. These are my nuggets of wisdom that I have gathered from my personal lived experience.  Everyone has unique requirements and this will not be completely inclusive. I’m a Type 1 Diabetic which means I will face different challenges than someone with a different lived experience. Disability is a very broad umbrella term, so take the advice that serves you. That being said, I would like to think this advice is useful to anyone. Even if you don’t have lived experience, hopefully you will take on board something that can help you or a friend. This advice has come from my experiences of festivals, gigs & parties but could be applied to anything from one epic night to a multi-day festival. Go with good friends or people you trust They don’t have to know how to perform CPR or the intricate details of how your insulin pump continuously shoots insulin into your body. But if you say you need to chill for 10 minutes, they won’t abandon you because they really want to dance. It’s more about trust and loyalty than it is about medical capabilities. Don’t pass the point of no return (or try really really hard not to) One of the first things people ask me when they find out I’m diabetic is if I can still drink or do drugs. When I was 14 I vowed to never have a sip of alcohol as I had the perception it was too dangerous for me. Shortly after attending my first high school drinks and getting major FOMO, I realised it was going to be unrealistic to live by my previous rule. I also discovered I could still drink & get drunk as long as I don’t get black out—or ‘past the point of no return’. Basically, just don’t get so fucked up you don’t know whats going on. It’s about testing your boundaries. You will probably over do it at some point and it still happens sometimes when you think you know your limits. That’s why rule one, going with good people is of utmost importance. Eat good kai before you fly Universal rule, whether you have an insulin pump attached to you or not—never drink on an empty stomach! That also applies to any other drug, it’s always good to line the stomach and fuel up for the night. Doesn’t have to be anything crazy, but especially for drinking, some good carbs will set you up for a good night. Start slow and build up your experience No one became a master on day one. The most recent festival I went to was three nights long. That was made possible because I had been to a two day festival before that, a single night before that and a day festival before that. The Russian nesting doll strategy™. This year I’m doing four nights, but that’s only because I have put in the mahi to get here. Every time I go to a festival I learn more about myself, what worked, and what nearly sends you to the medic tent. Be prepared I’m pretty sure that was the Girl Guide motto (I was once a cookie mule). Talk to your medical professional and be transparent about your intentions. Even if they don’t really know themselves, listen to any advice they give you. If you’re travelling away from home base for an overnight situation, take everything you need and more. There is no Unichem at a bush doof. Check-in on yourself Sounds slightly hippie, but don’t under-estimate the power of lived experience and knowing your body. The spoon theory is about how people living with a chronic illness only have 12 spoons worth of energy per day. Being out till 2:30am will probably chew up 10 of them. Don’t be surprised if your amigos can last longer on the dance floor, bounce back quicker, or you feel more exhausted the next day. Remove avoidable risks Check your drugs e te whānau. There is a community that fought hard to bring you this discrete and free(!) service. There is no reason not to, and it might mean the difference between an epic night or winding up in hospital.  Take your own bag Fanny pack, man-purse or capacious pockets if your jorts allow. Keep your shit in it. Make sure it has a zip or a secured closing, and keep it on you. Put everything you might need & some more. Going out can be intense and it will mean you don’t have to leave early on account of something you need being at home. Be ready for a few questions Whether it be venue security, bag check or a bouncer, if you have something out of the ordinary in your bag be ready for a few questions. I usually carry a syringe with me, which can sometimes get a raised eyebrow. As long as you are prepared to explain it no one can be upset. And remember—they’re just doing their job. Approach festivals, gigs & raves like you’re doing some intense exercise I was 24 hours into my most recent festival and I couldn’t figure out why I was struggling so much to manage my blood sugar. It dawned on me I was doing the same amount of physical activity as I did for my Duke of Ed tramp (#trauma). I cut the amount of insulin I was using in half, like my nurse had advised me to do for the tramp many moons ago, and it worked perfectly. I prepare for a night out as if I’m going on a run or an intense walk—because our bodies can’t really tell the difference. Bonus! This one is a bit cheeky and maybe I shouldn’t say this, but medical equipment is a fabulous way to disguise and conceal things that aren’t supposed to be brought into a venue. There has to be one advantage to the slightly less than ideal cards that we have been dealt. Average Joe’s, this is not for you! Go have fun, enjoy yourselves & be safe xxxx

Words by Mouth Breather The World Health Organization lists over 200 symptoms for long Covid, with the most obvious ones being fatigue, breathing problems, and brain fog. But we're now learning that it affects entire organ systems, leading to issues like diabetes, autoimmunity, and reproductive problems—just to name a couple of the totally-not-terrifying side effects. Despite this, the New Zealand government still seems reluctant to fully acknowledge long Covid. There remains no dedicated funding for research, and the long Covid registry was initiated by independent researchers, not government officials. I first got Covid in 2021 after the initial overseas wave. I was boosted, wore masks in public, and followed all the rules, but I worked in hospitality, where it was difficult to avoid exposure. A few weeks before the virus swept through the workplace, I was in the unlucky middle group to catch it. By the end, only a handful of staff were left managing a venue that held over 200 people. But I wasn’t struggling at work; instead, I was in bed, writhing with chest pain so severe that the woman on Healthline thought I was having a heart attack (lol). Spoiler: I wasn’t. However, I did endure two miserable hospital visits in as many days. First, I was awkwardly fenced off behind a cone in the main area of the emergency room, having to announce my symptoms to anyone within earshot. The second time, they housed me in a bubble within the children’s section of the hospital, surrounded by other people coughing, clutching their chests, and presumably feeling just as miserable as I was. I’m grateful I didn’t need to use the bathroom, because that would’ve required my Covid-ridden self to shuffle out and awkwardly ask for help. The chest pain took about a month to subside, and my workplace kindly gave me an extra week off to recover. But it lingered. Even now, almost four years later, if I overexert myself—pushing myself at work, or walking home too quickly—the pain returns, sharp and jabbing. I’ve grown used to it. Since then, I’ve had Covid three times. I chalk it up to two factors: 1) continuing to work in large-scale hospitality, and 2) my body’s immune system was wrecked by the first infection. Now, even though I’m boosted, Covid still wipes me out. And it’s not just Covid. Any cold takes me longer to recover, cuts and bruises heal slowly, and when I got an infection a few years ago, it took over a month to recover from that, too. Despite all this, I’d still consider myself one of the luckier ones. I can (mostly) rely on walking around the city. My sense of taste is slowly coming back, though everything tastes sweeter now, to the point where chocolate is overwhelming. My sense of smell is creeping back, but I’m not convinced it’ll ever fully recover. I know several people who haven’t been as fortunate. They can’t walk for more than a few minutes without getting out of breath, they’re constantly fatigued, and brain fog makes it hard for them to work or study. The most frustrating part of all this is that the government still doesn’t take it seriously. I’ve been lucky that my GP has been supportive and believed my symptoms, but with limited research and resources, there’s not much she can do beyond offering generic advice: rest, don’t overexert yourself, and maybe take the bus instead of walking (RIP half-price fares for students). There’s more information about long Covid today than there was a year ago, and much more than two years ago, but what we’re learning is increasingly worrying. What do you mean long Covid might be causing nerve damage? Is that what the chest pain is? Sadly, answers are still in short supply. I wish this column could provide better advice, but it’s more of a reflection on my experience and a reminder that Covid is still having a massive impact on many of us. Over 200,000 Kiwis are registered in the long Covid registry. We’re out here—just mostly struggling in silence.  Long Covid isn’t something that just fades away after the virus is gone. It’s a chronic, often debilitating condition that many people, including myself, continue to deal with every day. It’s time the government took it seriously, funding research and providing real support for the thousands of Kiwis who are quietly battling its ongoing effects. Covid might be out of the headlines, but for many, it’s far from over.

By Em I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout New Vegas lately. I’m pretty fine at it.  When you’re playing New Vegas, sometimes you lose track of things. You’re run-walking through the wilds of Nevada, dodging faction assassins and giant mutated bugs, when suddenly your health bar starts dropping, and dropping, and dropping—and then you’re dead on the ground in a dustbowl, screen freezing before it boots you back to your last save.  You might not even have known why. That’s sort of how I explain the experience of living with a chronic health condition, or an invisible illness, to those who haven’t experienced it.  See, on the outside, my New Vegas character often looks just fine. Rugged, dirt-covered, and usually with bright pink hair, but, in general, fine. On the inside, though, they’re a hot mess of radiation poisoning, Cazador poisoning, and six different types of chems stacked on top of each other. They’re one bad knock from losing a leg. And you’d never know. On the outside, you might look fine, but underneath, many, many things could be going wrong. That’s how I live my real life.  My name is Emma. I’m a theatremaker here in Pōneke, and my body is a wasteland.  There’s not been a day in my life since I was about seven or eight years old when I haven’t been in pain. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. Some days I can’t walk due to chronic fatigue, others my chronic pain beats a samba through my head till I get on the good drugs, others still I’m doubled over, aching cause I’ve popped an ovarian cyst.  And you’d never know. Approximately one in four New Zealanders have a chronic illness or disability, and a lot of those aren’t visible. When you walk down the street each day, I guarantee someone you walk past is dealing with their own personal apocalypse, and just having to grin and bear it. And you’d never even know.  Sarah* is a close friend of mine, and appears to be possibly the most put-together person I know. She’s stunning and talented, and is always off on some new, exciting adventure. I love her and I envy her, and she’s also got chronic health conditions and neurodivergencies that constantly affect her life.  “I didn’t know I had ADHD until a family friend got diagnosed at 50, and helped both my brother and I get diagnosed aged 30 and 32,” she writes. “We didn’t understand why we struggled with everything in our lives.” Though her family tried many avenues to find some way to help her and her brother, it took a long time and a lot of money ($300 per prescription!) to find a medication that didn’t give her awful side effects. She finally completed this process only six months before she was also diagnosed with Chronic Pelvic Pain, which set her life off on another health struggle.  After so many challenges within the healthcare system, she’s come to a place of -not reconciliation- but understanding with her body. “There is still nothing that works for me now except adapting and trying to stay healthy and being kind to myself. My daily motto is, “I survived today.”” Sometimes survival is all we’ve got.  It’s tough when you look fine on the outside, but you’re crumbling inside. We’re in a culture where you just “soldier on” with Codrel, where your boss doesn’t care  if you’re sick, and if your illness drags on, you become a problem.   Doctors don’t take you seriously if you look too put together, but if you look too rough, they think you’re just after drugs. It always feels like you’re doing life wrong, like you’re stuck walking this path alone. Capitalism doesn’t care if you can’t keep up or if you look like you should be able to—but can’t. We’re not kind to folk who struggle with their KPIs, or find life a constant battle,  and we’re especially unkind to those who seem fine but aren’t.   “People describe the phase after getting diagnosed as experiencing grief.” Sarah writes. “I feel sorry for the little child that thought she wasn’t good enough, that knew what she could do and couldn’t do it.” It is an endless frustration to have to justify your intricacies, to explain the experience of walking in a wasteland others can’t see, especially when there’s no cure out there. And yet, we have to continue on. I will never be well again. That’s something I’ve had to reconcile with. No matter how things look on the outside, how well put-together I seem at events or in the office, I’m living in discomfort a lot of folks will never be able to understand. On some days, my HP is really, really low, and I’m suffering under debuffs most people won’t ever be able to imagine. The world, at times, really fucking hurts.  But yet, we continue. We have to.  One day it’ll feel less like surviving, and more like living. I promise. You just need to find your way there.  I’m hardly one to give advice for any other folk living with the weight of chronic health conditions, invisible illnesses or invisible disabilities, but know this. There are those out there who are there for you; who will listen and will hold your hand in the night.  The isolation that you feel isn’t real, and by speaking up and being honest about our limitations, we make the world better for others who are struggling through the same things. Kindness and empathy for others; at uni, at your job, with your hobbies, in your flats or relationships, goes a long way to alleviating the pains that medicine can’t solve.  You will find your community, you will find your people, and you will survive this wasteland.   *Name changed.

Words by : Fox Keane (he/him) Did Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek really make $345 million just last year—more than any artist has made on Spotify ever? Did Disney really try to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit because the victim’s family had signed up for a one-month Disney+ trial ~four years beforehand? Had Bandcamp, one of the last bastions of good music writing, been sold and gutted by Epic and given over to Songtradr, with only a day’s foreknowledge to founder Ethan Diamond?  For some of us, ethical concerns about art may feel secondary. Opinions, it seems, don’t come cheap: on top of rising living costs, a recession and a serious rise in unemployment since 2023, access to media is becoming a luxury. Headlines like the above should be very familiar to us now, and a dire warning: a warning about streaming.  Our ability to watch, read and listen is mediated almost entirely by corporations who follow the lone star of profit alone. Subscription fees climb faster than people can afford them, quality is paywalled like never before and only in recent years have people begun to seriously critique these platforms. According to NZ On Air’s 2023 Where Are the Audiences?  survey, 57% of Kiwis ages 15+ use video streaming services daily. Compared to only 6% reported in the 2014 survey, that’s one hell of an increase. NZOA’s chief executive Cameron Harland finds that “audiences on demand are growing”, and claims that “the future of media is clearly now on digital platforms”. This applies to music and audiobooks, too: currently, over 33% of Kiwis use Spotify alone, which is almost as much as radio (39%). According to The Infinite Dial 2022 findings, Spotify is the most used online audio brand in New Zealand by a whopping 55% majority.  Wellington’s own Vera Ellen put forth that music streaming sites are “completely unsustainable”. We got talking about Spotify: while for consumers it’s a dream, the service is utterly “terrible for artists, and could be way better.” Spotify isn’t even the worst of them: Amazon music pays a mere $0.00402 USD per stream, with Soundcloud even less at $0.0019 USD per stream. That’s not to say Spotify’s much better—there are plenty of other services that offer higher payouts to artists.  But even these are slim pickings. Take Vera’s latest album Ideal Home Noise , as a $27 CD at Flying Nun Records—to make that money from Tidal (at $0.021 NZD per stream), you would have to listen through the entire album roughly 1,285 times before her label sees the same return! It’s not just creators that lose out. Since COVID, streaming companies globally have changed a lot about their services: Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ both introduced premium plans that pushed the high quality customers used to have behind a higher fee, depriving them of the original service they subscribed to. Netflix’s infamous Basic plan offers shockingly poor quality—720p—for the price of $14.99 per month, while its Premium plan, offering 4K quality and priced at $27.99 a month, is far beyond an acceptable expense for most Kiwis. Outside of streaming however, this quality just doesn’t come cheap. Ownership of, rather than access to media is becoming increasingly uncommon for people all over the world. Gone are the days of the boxset, and the towers of CDs your parents mysteriously accumulated. Blockbuster is ancient history, and in this ailing economy, even the price tag of books is becoming harder to justify. So what? It’s cheaper to pay for Spotify Premium or Netflix now than buying copies of all the albums and movies and TV you’d ever want to watch or have done already. Indeed, ownership is expensive: do I pay around $100 NZD a year for Spotify Premium ($200 if not a student), or do I pay the same amount for four albums at best?  The same is true for video: do I spend little over $300 NZD a year for “unlimited” movies, or buy them directly? Usually, films can only be bought physically. Even when buying them online, you’re often only purchasing access for as long as the site is up—so you might as well bite the bullet, right? For most of us, subscriptions are simply more economical.  But digital streaming services reserve the right to change or remove content without notice. This is because these platforms are only buying temporary licences to show their products (unless made by the parent company, like Netflix Originals). So while owning the content personally is lossless, only having access is really rolling the dice as to what you’ll get to keep watching. A certain sense of institutional invulnerability seems to pervade these applications, too: there is nothing stopping a streaming platform from revoking or being forced to revoke content because they do not own the content. In other words, they set the terms; they are not beholden to give their customers specific media. If a platform were to shut down, you would have spent hundreds of dollars on nothing; in essence, by subscribing to these companies, you are gambling on both of your fortunes.  “But I can’t buy every song I listen to!” No one can, and no one should have to. There are plenty of good reasons to stream: it’s cheaper than cable, and on-demand in a way cable or buying media directly aren’t. Let’s not forget that buying video online is basically impossible, too. But the ethical considerations are becoming harder to ignore. Besides the fact streaming platforms show very little return to their contributors, these platforms often have you at their mercy when it comes to how much they want you to fork out. Despite Netflix seeing a $100 billion USD increase in company worth during COVID, and an increase of 26 million subscribers in the first financial quarter alone, the company increased their Standard and Premium plans by $1 and $2 US dollars respectively. This followed a long history of price hikes, and preceded a 2022 change, where they introduced ads to one of their plans for the first time. Vera said that “art should be for everyone”, a viewpoint extolled by streaming services—but it is growing increasingly clear that we are not their focus.  Though it would be difficult to entirely abandon streaming, there are alternative—and free—ways to find movies, books and music out there. And, if you’re looking for a better way to buy, we've got you covered.  There’s this weird misconception I keep hearing about libraries—that it’s a hard or long-winded process to get in that system. In Wellington, getting a card could not be easier. It’s not only free, it only takes 10 minutes. After that, you’ll have access to every audiobook, film and physical book the capital has to offer.  Not only that, Wellington public libraries and most others in Aotearoa have access to Beamafilm and Kanopy. These are video platforms with a ton of good, free content. A very similar site is Plex, except it isn’t run through the libraries: it’s an app that comes with a variety of content entirely for free, and acts as a library and sharing platform for all your personally-owned video. And finally, if you’re looking for ebooks, look no further than the admirable Project Gutenberg, where over 70,000 ebooks are freely available for download. If you love audiobooks, consider buying from the website Libro.fm ! Like CDs, vinyls and digital releases, you’d be maximising the amount of money you pay back to the author and audiobook publisher. But most importantly, you can support local bookstores: when you purchase an audiobook, you choose which bookstore you’d like your money to support! Additionally, audiobooks bought from Libro.fm come as downloadable MP3s, forever available on your phone or computer hard drive. Times are tough, especially for creatives. Single-minded devotion to profit and exponential growth are making life harder for artists, authors, filmmakers, musicians and more. While owning media is more expensive than ever, there are plenty of ways—including more not listed here—to access it, and thwart prohibitively-expensive streaming platforms. So get out there, and explore those alternatives!

Words by : anonymous  I have always known I had a voice  The vibrations shaking my throat  A cacophony of sounds causing aftershocks and spluttering coughs However detailed and descriptive my speech was it never quite made it to my ears.  So I learned to read  Lips  Tongue  Throat  Tied together with a ribbon of context  Understanding the big picture but never the finer details.  I find my language in a well lit room  In a semicircle of chairs  Slowly building  Babbling through crashing hands  I find my language through watching  Eavesdropping on conversations  I am so entranced by how smoothly they converse  How beautiful it is to finally understand  I find my voice  I find language  I find community  Placed in the palms of my hands

Words by : Emily Gambrill (she/her) Hello, my name is Emily and I recently deleted Tik Tok (cue applause, flowers, etc.). But the findings of my abstention have been less than promising. While it’s nice not to have mind-numbing dopamine vomit melt my brain each night before I sleep, I have somehow managed to keep the time spent on my phone exactly the same as before. As for my visions of intensive reading, writing and academic weaponry in my Tik Tok free life, I have nothing to offer. Instead, the realities include learning of Jojo Siwa dry humping stage corners from my friends as if it was medieval gossip, and a general feeling of confusion.  Most importantly though, the only reason that I can live happily without Tik Tok is because I am not really offline at all.  I got my first Instagram account in year five (?!?) and my handle was Funkymunkyunicorn. Life couldn’t get much better: I posted minion memes and photos of surfboards with filters and would get max three likes from my friends who also somehow managed to download Instagram without their parents’ consent (a notable mention being my friend Potatoyummy). But the time eventually came to shed my fun quirky handle and go with the eponymous. I have never been a serial Instagram poster, but now that I have had an account for almost half my life, the question of deleting it quickly becomes existential. In some dystopian digital age fear, deleting Instagram feels like at least a partial deletion of myself. Which part exactly is a tricky question, but regardless my own personal crisis has made me suddenly quite concerned with the way in which we use social media (for the purposes of this article, Instagram).  First and foremost, I can’t help but see social media as a modern-day social currency—and I am not talking just about influencers and celebrities; I mean this as applicable to basically every single Instagram user. As soon as we are, dare I say, ‘introduced’ to someone new online, we can almost immediately ascertain key information about them based on how many mutuals they have with you, who those mutuals are, how many followers they have, and just their general vibe. While such features enable us to figure out if we know a person, or if we would like to know this person, they also encourage us to make reductive judgements of people based on largely superficial presentations of themselves. Knowing that these judgements are constantly being made, we cannot help but create digital profiles that portray ourselves in the ways in which we would like to be understood. There is an immense pressure to curate one’s social media presence because, when our followers extend beyond our close friends and family, with each post there is the knowledge that this might be the sole way in which someone else perceives you. It is hard to deny the social value assigned to our digital identities—whether an individual chooses to embrace or reject this is up to them.  To understand if there was any academic basis to my feverish revelations, I talked to media and communications lecturer at Te Herenga Waka, Dr Alex Beattie. Having recently conducted research into how various groups of people in Aotearoa were disconnecting from the internet, Beattie offered significant insight into the challenges of disconnecting in the digital age. Beattie emphasised social media as redefining our social norms, changing expectations surrounding availability, and making the “previously invisible, visible”. Beattie highlighted that, while the social pressures that people might feel using social media have always existed, it is the constant connectivity encouraged by social media that makes them inescapable. While in social environments such as high school or work we can simply leave at the end of the day, the constant connection enabled by social media means we are not afforded such relief from pressure.  The pressure to “self-brand”, as Beattie calls it, however, is not simply a product of social media alone but rather a reflection of other aspects of our late-capitalist societies. With social media there is no limit to the extent to which our daily lives, personalities and ideas can be commodified—even if not for money specifically, then for cultural capital. Again, however, we must remember that humans have long attempted to control the way in which we present ourselves to others. The hyperconnectivity enabled by social media simply allows us to do so on an unprecedented scale.  In his research, Beattie has revealed varying experiences across different demographics in Aotearoa in the choice to disconnect. As expected, younger people (18-24) struggle to disconnect more than older people (75+). With differing relationships to connectivity however, Beattie highlights the limitations of older generations' ability to understand younger generations’ relationship to social media and the internet. With so much of our identity and existence now experienced digitally, solutions to disconnecting such as simply turning the WIFI off or banning phones in schools fail to understand the extent to which the digital world has become inseparable from the real. Therefore, the future of navigating disconnection cannot be understood in black and white, but rather by realising our online lives to be a feature of our existence.   With all this, it is essential to understand the value of social media as deeply personal. This is emphasised by Beattie, “Social media can be an amazing tool depending on who you are and who you talk to”. Using social media, people, who may be otherwise marginalised for their sexuality, ethnicity, or other reasons, are able to build their own online communities. Alternately, Beattie’s research revealed factors of ethnicity and gender norms to affect participants’ ability to disconnect: more women cited pressures to be available to friends and family as a reason for not disconnecting while Māori were more likely than Pākehā to disconnect due to concerns for safety in online environments. Clearly, our relationship to social media does not transcend reality but is rather deeply informed by who we are and our own life experiences. With this, sometimes I think I might just be a weakling in a world full of digital alphas (if so, natural selection will sort me out) and other times it’s just not that deep. This isn’t a call to boycott, rather a reminder that social media has radically altered the way in which we socialise. There is a digital aspect to our being that can no longer be denied. As the distinction between an online and offline world disappears, it’s important to remember the extent to which social media encourages us to curate our lives and identities. As always, people are complex and multi-faceted and possess a depth that cannot be conveyed in a post or profile alone. Don’t let the constant connectivity of social media trick you into thinking otherwise.

Words by Dylan Van Heerden (they/ them) THURSDAYS IN BLACK VUW CW : sexual violence, sexual exploitation and coercion, non-consensual sharing of intimate material, emotional distress. Sextortion, a form of online blackmail, is on the rise, affecting many students who are vulnerable to online threats. It involves perpetrators threatening to release intimate content unless demands are met. This can lead to immense emotional distress, leaving victims feeling isolated and helpless. Our university group, as part of a national campaign, aims to prevent sexual violence, including online exploitation. Though we aren't professionals, we advocate for safer environments by educating students, supporting victims, and holding institutions accountable, particularly for marginalized communities who are at increased risk. Understanding Sextortion Cybercriminals often manipulate individuals into sharing intimate material, which they later use to extort more content or money. University students, especially those in residence halls, are particularly at risk due to the interconnected digital nature of campus life. Protecting oneself online is crucial in avoiding these threats. Steps to Stay Safe Awareness : Sextortion can occur through fake profiles, phishing, or even hacked devices. Understand the warning signs and be cautious of who you engage with online. Privacy : Keep personal profiles locked and limit the amount of private information shared publicly. Regularly update your passwords and avoid accepting suspicious friend requests. Reporting : If sextortion occurs, report it immediately. Many platforms have tools to address inappropriate behavior, and Netsafe offers confidential support. University services can also guide students on handling these situations. Our Role in Prevention While we may not offer professional resources, our group works hard to raise awareness, educate, and ensure students can access support. We advocate for stronger institutional responses and call for improved policies to protect students, particularly those from marginalized or intersecting communities who face unique challenges. Building a Safer Community Our group is committed to providing ongoing support for victims of sexual violence. We work to empower students to speak up, report incidents, and seek help. By holding institutions accountable and pushing for proactive measures, we strive to create safer spaces—both online and offline—for all students. Together, we can combat sexual violence in all its forms and build a supportive, informed community. Ngā mihi nui Dylan Van Heerden (They/ Them) Co-President & Communications Officer  Thursdays in Black VUW

Words by : Ash Buick Sometimes it feels like social media has taken over our lives, but how often do we critically think about what we’re doom-scrolling through? These platforms hold so much power over us; it’s about time to take some of that power back. By knowing how these platforms work, we can gain some of the tools to stop ourselves from relying so much on social media. Here are some things to be aware of, so you can improve your experience online. Intentionally vague content Everything posted on social media has been created with a purpose. So when you come across something that’s super confusing and hard to understand, that might be on purpose. Algorithms on video-based platforms tend to push content that other people have spent lots of time watching. People try to game the system by making videos that you need to watch multiple times to feel like you understand them, or scour the comments for answers while the video loops in the background. These posts are a less-severe form of ‘engagement bait’, a type of post designed to maximise likes, views, comments, or shares.  Pipelines and echo chambers Divisive political content is often pushed by social media algorithms because it is something that everyone has strong opinions about. So when someone comes across a political post they are pretty likely to interact with it. Remember, liking a comment that disagrees with the main post is still engaging with the post. The more political content you engage with, the more likely you are to get sucked into fringe ideologies. Once you get sucked in, it’s hard to pull yourself back out again. Unfortunately echo chambers are just social media working as intended—since they make you dependent on it. The idea that the block button is a bad thing I’m going to show myself as a tumblerina for a second and say that the block button is a really useful tool for curating your online experience. That may seem contradictory to my previous point, however I believe there is a difference between preventing yourself from encountering things that you find harmful and building yourself an echo chamber. Many of us use social media as a form of escapism from the harsh reality of our world. So it is valid to want to get rid of content that detracts from that escapism. Being aware of how we engage with social media is the first step to understanding how it affects us personally. While we all know that using these platforms is bad for us, they are often our only way to connect with certain people and communities. So we should try our best to consciously mitigate the negative effects of social media.

Words by Emily Bull (she/her) Like many early 2010 gamers, I was invested in the worlds Club Penguin, Animal Jam (shout out Speaker of the House, Teddy) and Movie Star Planet. However, there is one forlorn soldier that I think we forget to thank for our upbringing—Poptropica.  Poptropica is an online roleplay-based game which was created by Jeff Kinney—author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. You would travel to different islands to complete a quest that subsequently rewarded your character with a medallion you could wear. It had a customisable character, riddles, action and more! The discontinuation of the Adobe Flash Drive brought death to many of our favourite islands. Modern Poptropica is now permanently hosted on coolmathgames, which brings its own issues. The difficulty of the game has drastically lowered and, when I attempted to play on my laptop, it was quite laggy. However, this could be fixed if you’re on a desktop.  I’d like to take a moment to reminisce on the golden days of Poptropica. Not all islands were created equal, but here are some of the very best ones and what degree I associate them with.  Time Tangled Island: Architecture  Time tangled island was my FAVOURITE island!! A quest about time travel and returning lost objects to the rightful owner. One would initially assume this was an island for all the historians out there, but you forget that there are many very cool structures on this island. God, don’t even get me started on how sick your house is at the end. Architecture students, this one was for you.   Reality TV Island: Law and Politics  This is an island that involves voting and is based on a game show with a literal jury. Need I say more?  Steamworks: Computer Science  I couldn’t solve this one and neither could you. That’s probably why you study computer science, in the hopes that one day you can code your way through this island.    Nabooti Island: Geography/Environmental degrees  Now, I won’t lie, I definitely forgot this island existed until I searched up chicken, fox and seed puzzle Poptropica. I’ve gotta say though, this is an island for all the geographers. You travel across a continent and witness a range of different biomes. Plus, you get to play mancala—a game which is almost as severely underrated as this degree. This, of course, coming from an unbiased source (a geography graduate).    Mythology Island: Classics  Percy Jackson fanatics were able to finally put their hours of reading to use in Mythology Island. I personally always had to ask my brother for the answers to the quiz. I’m willing to bet those who loved this island now study classics at this very University.    Shrink ray Island: Biology  All that time spent looking into a microscope finally caught up to you huh. Now you know how all those bacteria feel.    Mystery Train: History and Criminology  You get to meet celebrities such as Thomas Edison, Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony—and then accuse them of stealing! A story about solving a crime whilst surrounded by famous historical figures, how can I pick just one degree?    24 Carrot Island: Commerce  This may shock you, but I was inclined to not mention this island as I personally don’t like it very much. Like this island, I also don’t care about commerce. So here, have this stinky island. You visit a factory (aka a BUSINESS) to fight the boss (aka a CEO) who is exploiting the town (aka CONSUMERS). Mind control is just another form of marketing, right???