Friday 29th May 2026
Blog Page 3

Oxford SU to hold referendum on NUS membership

Hattie Simpson
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Oxford SU to hold referendum on NUS membership

At a Conference of Commons Room (CCR) vote concluding on 20th May, JCR and MCR presidents voted to hold a referendum on the Student Union’s (SU) membership of the National Union of Students (NUS). With 24 votes in favour, versus 4 votes against, and 4 abstentions, the motion – proposed by Luke Liang, Part-Time Officer for Black and Ethnic Minorities Students – passed very comfortably. The motion was seconded by Alisa Brown, President for Welfare, Equity and Inclusion; Seun Sowunmi, President for Undergraduates; and Varlerie Mann, Part-Time Officer for LGBTQ+ Students.

Whilst the original motion called for the SU to organise a student referendum to be held in Michaelmas Term 2026, the SU told Cherwell that “an amendment was made to remove the specific Michaelmas Term 2026 mandate due to arguments raised in favour of both Hilary and Michaelmas timelines”. Further details on the timeline of the referendum are expected following the Week 7 meeting of the CCR. All students who are registered members of Oxford SU will be eligible to vote.

Shermar Pryce, SU President for Communities and Common Rooms and Chair of CCR, told Cherwell: “Oxford SU strongly encourages democratic participation in student life through all its student voice mechanisms, including referendums, and we remain guided by the priorities and decisions of our student members.”

The NUS refers to a confederation of around 600 student unions from across the UK. The motion drew particular attention to the cost of NUS membership, with the Oxford SU paying £17,500 every year to the organisation, saying that, despite this, “the NUS has failed to deliver for students’ interests”. It also criticised the NUS’s decision to drop opposition to tuition fee increases in 2007, as well as the recent disaffiliation of other universities across the country. Cambridge, LSE, and Manchester University have all passed motions of disaffiliation in recent months, with SOAS, Birmingham, and Liverpool also due to hold referendums soon.

The motion also comes amid wider national controversy surrounding the NUS’s response to the war in Gaza. Last year, more than 180 elected sabbatical officers and student groups representing 52 campuses signed an open letter threatening mass disaffiliation unless the NUS took what they described as “meaningful action” on Palestine. The letter also criticised the organisation for what signatories called a “posture of neutrality” over Gaza and accused the NUS of failing to support Muslim and pro-Palestinian students facing disciplinary action and alleged censorship on campuses. The letter was not signed by the Oxford SU.

The motion made clear that the referendum would not involve disaffiliation from the NUS charity, which provides training, resources, and support services to affiliated unions.

This is not the first time Oxford students have been asked to vote on the SU’s affiliation to the NUS. Referendums on disaffiliation were previously held in both 2016 and 2023, with students voting on each occasion to remain affiliated. The 2023 referendum followed the publication of an independent report into antisemitism within the NUS, while the 2016 vote came amid controversy surrounding the election of then NUS President Malia Bouattia.

Almost 90% of Oxford bike thefts go unsolved

Stanley Arlidge
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Almost 90% of Oxford bike thefts go unsolved

Nearly nine in ten of Oxford’s reported bike thefts were unsolved with no suspect identified, according to data from Thames Valley Police.

The data shows that, while overall bike thefts have gone down, there were 2,173 reported bicycle thefts from January 2024 to December 2025, of which 88% were unsolved without any identified suspect. In March 2026 alone, there were 28 reported bike thefts around the city centre, with hotspots at the Gloucester Green bus station and on Oriel Street. Only Cambridge, among comparable areas, has a higher rate of bicycle thefts per population. 

These numbers are likely the tip of the iceberg. According to thebestbikelock.com, roughly 56% of bike thefts go unreported to the police. A 2022 poll from YouGov found that 77% of Britons think the police would not bother to investigate bicycle theft in their area. Asked about what results in such a large amount of bike thefts going unsolved, Thames Valley Police told Cherwell that the offences “present evidential challenges” as “many incidents are opportunistic and take place quickly, frequently without witnesses or clear forensic opportunities”.

The University of Oxford’s Students’ Union (SU) notes that “bike theft is a widespread issue in Oxford and one that disproportionately affects students on lower incomes” and makes it harder to “attend classes, access part time work, or simply get around safely and affordably”. Ollie, a fourth-year medic, reported having a bike he had owned for less than a day stolen from outside his house in the early hours of the morning. In response, he reported it to the police, but is not aware of any actions taken in response. Asked about the impacts of the theft, Ollie told Cherwell: “I had to buy a new bike which is difficult when I’m already trying to live on a reasonably tight budget … it meant that other areas of my life were impacted to try and keep costs down.”

Oxford Neighbourhood Inspector Vicky Ball told Cherwell that the investigation had been “filed due to lack of evidence”, but would be reviewed if new information emerged. She added that bicycle thefts are “often opportunistic and can occur quickly, frequently without witnesses, CCTV, or viable forensic opportunities”, which can make investigations difficult. Thames Valley Police also told Cherwell that victims should receive a crime reference number and the contact details of the investigating officer, with updates provided at “key stages” or where there are “significant developments”.

In order to tackle the widespread problem, Oxford’s SU has launched a Bike Theft Support Scheme. Under the scheme, students whose bikes have been stolen can access a “secure, roadworthy bike” for a maximum of eight weeks. 
Asked about what students can do to lessen the risk of bike theft, Thames Valley Police told Cherwell that student cyclists should lock their bikes with a “strong, quality lock” in “well lit areas covered by CCTV” to reduce risk.

Wadham second-year accommodation rent to rise by 10.63% to £9470

Beatrix Arnold
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Wadham second-year accommodation rent to rise by 10.63% to £9470

Proposed rent at Wadham College for the 2026/27 academic year will see the cost of second-year accommodation for Wadham students rise by 10.63% from 2025/26, to a total of £9470 for a nine-month contract. Negotiations between Wadham College Student Union (Wadham SU) and the College, which began in Michaelmas Term, have so far failed to reach an agreement on a rent deal for the next academic year.

In addition to its main site, Wadham offers offsite accommodation at the Dorothy Wadham Building (DWB) on Iffley Road, primarily for second-year students, and at Merifield in Summertown, primarily for third and fourth-year students, as well as visiting students. 

The proposed rates, opposed by Wadham SU, will lead to greater rent disparity between the College’s various accommodation sites. Whereas rent agreements in previous years aimed at more even rates across year groups, the new rent scenario will see the price of a nine-month contract increase by 3.5% for main site accommodation, by 3.74% for accommodation at Merifield, and by 10.63% for accommodation at DWB. 

The rent increases come within the context of a freeze to the graduate repayment threshold, announced in the November budget last year, despite annual increases in tuition fees at English universities. The proposed rent scenario for DWB would reach 87.44% of the maximum student maintenance loan for the 2026/27 academic year, leaving a sum of money insufficient to cover the costs of day-to-day student life. Moreover, the minimum maintenance loan would cover only 53.31% of the proposed yearly rent. 

A first-year student at Wadham College told Cherwell: “If I had known [about the proposed rent increase], I would have rented privately for next year. I feel like I’ve been trapped into an agreement I have no control over. It’s ridiculous to demand this much money for student accommodation, especially when everything else is so expensive as well.”

The cost of accommodation for Wadham students has long been a subject of controversy. The Oxford University Student Union’s College Disparities Report in 2024 showed that Wadham College has the seventh-highest accommodation costs, positioning it in the highest quartile for rent among colleges at the University. 

Between the 2015/16 and 2025/26 academic years, the mean rent for a termly contract on the College’s main site has increased by 101.2%, 2.6 times faster than the national rate of inflation (CPI) over the same period, which is estimated at 39%. 

A student who previously held a role on Wadham SU told Cherwell: “This change to the rent structure reverses the changes fought for by the SU leadership of 2023/24, who sought to make rents across the three Wadham sites more equal. Student representatives have pointed out year after year that these rent rises are the result of a broken funding model, to little avail.

“We need central OUSU action, co-ordinating long-term opposition among the undergraduate and graduate population so that stratospheric rent rises like Wadham’s can’t happen.”

The University of Oxford’s estimated living costs for 2026/27, published on their website as a guide for prospective students, lists £8,910 as the upper range total for nine months of accommodation. The proposed rate for DWB will exceed this upper range by £560. 

In an email circulated to students at Wadham, the Wadham SU President attached a paper detailing the case against the proposed rent increases. Wadham SU intends to present this document to Wadham’s Governing Body and to the Equalities and Liaison Committee on Wednesday, 27th May. 

The document condemns the proposed rent scenario, claiming that it “is detrimental to Wadham students, will be unsustainable, and undermines equal access to education.” Wadham SU further asserts that “the rising rents are making Wadham increasingly financially inaccessible”, and demands “a fair and reasonable framework for setting the rent rates in the future that will commit to not unfairly increasing the burden on students.”

The paper contains information gathered from a survey of current students at Wadham, conducted by Wadham SU, concerning their financial situation, which recorded the responses from 91 students. The survey found that for 38% of these students, expenditure is greater than income. The proponents of the paper argue that increased rent will exacerbate financial challenges faced by students, particularly within the context of the rising cost of living.

A student at Wadham told Cherwell that because of increased costs, “I’ve had to work more hours over the vac, which has really impacted my academic work. Even with the maximum student loan, I’ve been really struggling with the cost of living in such an expensive city.”

The response of Wadham SU after the prolonged period of rent negotiations has incurred disapprobation. A student at Wadham told Cherwell: “Negotiating rent on behalf of students is arguably the most important duty Wadham SU have. Yet they’ve been in rent negotiations for far too long with no tangible results. When they finally produced something, the documents drawn up by the committee were poorly written and contained numerous errors. I no longer have confidence that Wadham SU can represent my interests to the College, and I don’t have trust in them as an institution.”

The president of Wadham SU, Isaac Gavaghan, told Cherwell: “The issue facing students at Wadham is not that the proposed increase negotiated by the hard work of the current SU executive is too high, but that a decade of above-inflation rent increases have resulted in unaffordable living costs at Wadham. Wadham SU would note that the rent increase we have negotiated this year averages out at between three and four percent across Wadham’s sites and bursary levels. This increase is below many other colleges rent rises as well as being in line with the rises in University of Oxford’s living cost estimates for the 2026/27 academic year.”

Wadham SU has urged members of Wadham JCR and MCR to contact their tutors, who form the College’s Governing Body, in order to raise awareness around the rent increases and cultivate support for Wadham SU’s position in the negotiation process. 

Wadham College was contacted for comment. 

‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ in review

Elizabeth Bourn
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‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ in review

The Harris Manchester Players immersed Oxford’s inhabitants in the delightful world of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest this May. I was fortunate enough to be invited to their dress rehearsal, ahead of their debut, and spoke with director Sara Rourke about the creative vision behind the production. 

As I arrived in Harris Manchester, I was immediately enamoured with the College’s gardens, visible from the lodge. Sunshine filtered through the trees onto the carefully-placed armchairs and lampshades, a waiting set, and I met with Rourke just before the dress rehearsal began. We settled in the College’s JCR, where we discussed the role of director and how the production had come to be. When asked why Wilde’s comedy had been chosen for this term’s performance, Rourke responded that “Wilde’s wit feels like the perfect antidote” to “the stress of the term”. 

Certainly, as I took my seat in the gardens, I felt the immediate camaraderie of Jack and Algernon, and couldn’t help but feel relieved of worries, eager to be transported to this unfamiliar world of white lies and sweet reconciliations. The characters, their quick exchanges and humorous rebuttals, establish the tone of the production from the first line, a warm, convincing performance that leaves the audience hoping the interval isn’t too long. At Gwendolen’s entrance, and the introduction of her iconic fascination with the name ‘Ernest’, the audience feels a certain companionship with the characters, rooting for their respective successes. 

The magic of the production is certainly amplified by its surroundings; throughout the play I found myself entranced by the natural beauty of the College’s gardens. Purple florals hang from the back wall, forming a natural curtain across the outdoor scene. The enclosed quad makes for an intimate stage, but the College keeps moving amidst the performance. A piano is heard echoing from the open hallway, out of sight, creating the impression that the notes are held by the wind, and various College members pause to watch as the actors move across the garden. In the play’s second act, Gwendolen and Cecily can be seen peering through the windows of the first floor, overlooking the scene below as the men pace and ponder. There is a beating heart to the set of this production, as Rourke ensures not only that the audience is immersed in the play, but that the play is immersed within the College setting itself.

The beautiful costuming certainly aids the production in its captivation of the audience. There are sweeping plum dresses, intricately-designed waistcoats, flowing black cloaks, and more that truly convince the audience they have been transported. The actors hold the attention of the audience in every scene, in every movement or handling of a certain prop. Sam Bishton (Jack) and Ben Phillips (Algernon) possess a dynamic so convincing, mirrored by that of Elouise Wills (Gwendolen) and Maisie Thorn (Cecily). The quartet move in synchronicity, often speaking in unison, effectively relaying the complexity of the formed dynamics. The comedic climax of the play comes when Jack discovers his true mother, and is finally able to marry Gwendolen without interference. A dance sequence ensues as the happy couples move in circular motion, to the tune of the cornet playing in the centre. There is a real sense of satisfaction as an audience member witnessing this cheerful conclusion, the resolving of multiple miscommunications always eliciting a contented sigh from any onlooker.

There is a tender joyfulness achieved in Rourke’s production that is much needed in the middle of Trinity term, in Gwendolen and Cecily’s found friendship, and Jack and Algernon’s delicious banter. All members of the cast and crew contribute to an earnest relaying of Wilde’s classic.

A plate for everyone: Food restrictions at formals

Sophia Yvonne Hall
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A plate for everyone: Food restrictions at formals

Having a hazelnut allergy is one of the most oddly inconvenient afflictions. Beyond the typical teasing for being an adult with a nut allergy, I’ve found that it is not even a particularly relevant allergy to have. Hazelnuts are not as ubiquitous as dairy or gluten. Nor are they rare, appearing just often enough, unpredictably, to demand constant vigilance. At Oxford, this vigilance surrounding hazelnuts is especially present at formal hall.

I am not alone. Food allergy diagnoses in the UK have doubled in a decade, as have hospital admissions for severe allergic reactions in the last twenty years. 

Formal is one of Oxford’s most cherished rituals: a carefully choreographed, multi-course dinner where students don oversized gowns (though absent at some of the more progressive colleges), Latin grace is mumbled with varying degrees of confidence, and candlelight flickers beneath the watchful gaze of portraits whose subjects might seem faintly disapproving of your conversation. Yet, for those with food allergies or dietary restrictions, the theatrical excitement of attending a formal can be overshadowed by the anxiety and pre-planned negotiation that our presence demands.

If you have never had a dietary restriction, you have probably never given much thought to what happens after you submit one. For those of us who have, it is something we think about every time we attend a formal. 

Dietary restrictions must be submitted in advance. Sometimes via a dining portal, sometimes by email, and sometimes just by tracking down the right person. The processes of submitting dietary information, nor the accommodations offered, are standardised across colleges.

As a student with an allergy, the accurate communication of that information is not a minor administrative detail – it is a matter of safety and belonging. Recently, I found myself curious about the behind-the-scenes process: how colleges receive dietary information, where and how it travels, and what care is taken to ensure that, by the time a plate lands in front of you, it is the right one.

Behind the scenes 

Alicia Gardiner, Events & Bookings Systems Manager for Kellogg College, shared that their system begins long before any student sets foot in the dining hall. Guests book and pay for formals through UPay, a platform which many – but not all – Oxford colleges use. The dietary requirements section on Kellogg’s UPay is mandatory to complete the booking. Diners must either specify a restriction or explicitly state that they have none before they can complete the booking.

According to Alicia, this small design choice has transformed the process. “If you were talking to me two years ago when I could not make that box mandatory, I found it much more stressful”, she said. Previously, guests would click past the field and then email at the last minute with a sudden recollection of a shellfish allergy or a newly observed Lent. 

From there, the process is an exercise in mindful redundancy. Two weeks before a dinner, Kellogg sends a confirmation email inviting students to update guest names or dietary requirements if needed. A few days before the meal, Alicia pulls a booking report and compiles a dietary requirement spreadsheet, which she shares with the kitchen and restaurant teams. 

It is the next step that distinguishes Kellogg’s system from other colleges: they use pre-assigned seating, plotted in a program called Perfect Table Plan. 

As Alicia explained: “It’s really easy to make mistakes if you don’t know where people are sitting in advance.”

Each diner with a dietary requirement is marked on the table with a colour-coded dot, signalling a different requirement to the service team. The diner’s place card will feature the dot but will not outwardly indicate the specific restriction a student has. As Alicia explained, dietary information is treated as personal information, and Kellogg has deliberately chosen not to publicise it. For example, pregnant guests may not want a card announcing this in front of their plate.  

For guest night formals, the restaurant manager designates what Alicia calls an “allergy champion” – a member of the service team responsible for every guest with a dietary requirement that evening. While the rest of the team serves the standard courses, the allergy champion moves through the hall with the seating plan in hand, locating each coloured dot, and delivering the correct plate to the right person.

On any given formal evening, Alicia estimates that somewhere between 10 and 30% of guests will have some form of dietary restriction. Some are simple, some are complex. Alicia recalled one diner who submitted a three-page Word document detailing her restrictions. However complex the requirement, Alicia was proud to share that no one leaves the hall without the right meal.

Sarah Davidson, the Communications and Events Manager at Reuben College, explained that Reuben College operates on a similar system: guests register online, dietary information is compiled into a shared spreadsheet, and place cards are marked with a yellow dot to flag modifications. The specific restriction is also noted on the place card. The key difference is seating. At Reuben, students choose their own seats on the day of the formal. As such, events staff make note at the start of each formal of where any guest with a modification is sitting, so that the kitchen can ensure they receive the correct plate. 

Sarah shared that her team is receptive to changing procedures to better accommodate the needs of any student. “If a student raises something, an issue from their side, we will see what we can do.”  One change her team is currently considering concerns the place cards themselves: “We are looking into whether on the place card, we put the dietary restrictions only on the side facing the student [with the restriction].” This would make the information not visible to the person across from the student, as it currently is. The team is considering this not because students have raised it as a concern, but as a proactive measure to further improve the experience of those with dietary restrictions. 

Of the kitchen’s ability to meet whatever request comes through, Sarah was confident: “I’ve seen a whole range of different dietary requirements or dietary preferences, and they’ve [the kitchen] never not been able to accommodate those.” 

Richard Murphy, Catering Services Manager at Exeter College, echoed the value of UPay as an organising tool. “UPay is really good. Probably about half the colleges use it”, he noted. “As far as dietary requirements and allergies [it] does a lot of the work for us.” Exeter uses a free-text box for more unusual or complex requirements – Richard used a celery allergy as an example. This ensures that nothing falls through the cracks for students with less common restrictions.

When a student with a restriction arrives at formal at Exeter, their requirements are flagged automatically by the UPay system upon check-in, and they collect a ‘dietary card’ from the Hall supervisor. On most evenings, the system runs effectively from here. “If something does happen on the night of, we can then adjust.” Richard explained that this might look like a student clicking the wrong allergen box or misreading a menu. He notes, however, that this is rare. 

Richard closed by stating: “The main point is that as long as students are upfront and honest about their requirements, most things can be achieved.” 

At Queen’s College, Sean Ducie, Head Chef, shared that “accommodating dietary requirements is a major priority for us, and we work hard to ensure that our formal hall menus are inclusive, safe, and enjoyable for all students.” 

At the menu design stage itself, the College takes a proactive approach. Sean explained: “When designing our menus, we focus on seasonal, local produce, and work closely with Good Food Oxfordshire and OxFarmtoFork to bring in produce directly from market gardens and small city farms. This allows us to offer fresh, diverse dishes while supporting local growers,” Sean noted, “alongside this, we aim to keep menus as naturally low‑allergen as possible.” The goal, he added, is to provide “an allergen‑free version of a dish that feels as close as possible to the original, so that no student feels like their meal is an afterthought.”

The other side of the place card 

The systems colleges put in place tell part of the story. The students with yellow dots on their place cards tell the rest. 

Psychologists and allergists have identified two primary types of anxiety that food allergy sufferers experience: anxiety about eating the allergen, and anxiety related to the social experience of having one. In the highly ritualised and formalised context of an Oxford formal, these pressures are amplified. Questioning a server mid-course can draw attention and disrupt the choreography of a meal. The anxiety is not merely about what is on the plate, but about what it means to be the one to have to ask.

Green Templeton College is frequently described as having one of Oxford’s best (and most expensive) formals. That cost, some students argue, buys a more considered approach to dietary accommodations.

During Michaelmas term, I was surprised to receive an email from Green Templeton’s dining staff asking me to clarify which nuts I could eat, as chestnuts were on the menu for a Christmas formal I was attending. The gesture was small, but it surprised me. It did not feel like an exercise in compliance. Instead, I felt confident that someone had actually read what I had submitted and taken the time to respond with care and precision. When I walked into the formal, I was confident that I could enjoy good food and company without anxiety or embarrassment.  

Nandini, a vegetarian student at Green Templeton, found the college’s approach to accommodations generally impressive. She told Cherwell: “I genuinely find the vegetarian food at Green Templeton better than other colleges. For formals, since the expectation is just to have a nice meal, which doesn’t necessarily have to be healthy, I am usually more satisfied.”

Not all experiences at Green Templeton were as encouraging. Alina, a student who observes a halal diet, told Cherwell: “At Green Templeton, I’d say it’s pretty disappointing. I always put down halal, but normally get served a vegetarian meal, presumably that’s what happens if they aren’t going to do halal on a specific day. The only time I’ve had halal at Green Templeton is on a special guest night.”

Alina had a further concern: “I was served a vegetarian meal once, which the menu said had alcohol in it, which Muslims can’t have either. After a bit of back and forth, they confirmed that the version they served me was vegetarian and non-alcoholic, but that was a bit of a panic for me.”

Trinity College has also been reported as accommodating. Heewoon, a student at Trinity who does not eat fish, told Cherwell: “My college is very respectful about dietary requirements compared to other colleges, with multiple options.”

Abdullah, a Trinity student who observes a halal diet, told Cherwell his experience dining at Trinity has been “thoroughly pleasant,” praising the consistency, variety, and quality of halal options. He noted that even the vegan options proved generally agreeable, adding: “Trinity College strives to be inclusive of all students enrolled here. As a natural extension of that ethos, the dining experience reflects this commitment.”

At Balliol College, Alina found that although the alternative offered was a convincing vegan recreation of the meat dish served to others, the service itself revealed the system’s imperfections. After some initial confusion over which plate was hers, a server returned to confirm the dish was halal. Reflecting on the experience, Alina told Cherwell: “It was probably a reminder for them to pay a little more attention while they’re serving.” 

At Cambridge, Hannah Mawardi, a student at Pembroke College writing for Varsity in 2024, recounted being served sesame – her allergen – three times, despite notifying catering staff of her serious allergy. The third incident ended with her in A&E, still donning her gown. She noted that she had later learned that catering had received the wrong dietary information entirely. 

Whether at Oxford or Cambridge, the safety of participating in formal hall depends on the accurate communication of dietary requirements across multiple levels: when that transmission falters, the consequences can be life-threatening. 

The small print  

When contacted for comment, the University of Oxford stated that food allergy policies are set by the respective colleges rather than centrally and, therefore, the University does not provide university-wide guidance. 

Natasha’s Law requires UK businesses to label or inform customers about the top 14 allergens, and all Oxford colleges must adhere to this legislation. This information is often on clear display at lunches and in buffet formats, but can be harder to trace at formal hall, where menus are not always distributed in advance – especially not to guests from outside the college. 

Practical challenges compound this uncertainty. At colleges without assigned formal seating, students with allergies and dietary restrictions are often given simple place cards on arrival to place near their plate, indicating their needs. In theory, it is a simple system; in practice, when servers move quickly through a candlelit hall, plates arrive with little explanation. It can be remarkably difficult to tell whether the dish that has landed in front of you has been modified to your needs or is simply the standard meal. 

A seat at the table 

Some colleges are rising to this challenge: consider Kellogg’s allergy champions, Reuben’s proactive problem-solving, Green Templeton’s thoughtful emails, and Trinity’s consistent halal options. These are not novel innovations, but they make a real difference to diners with dietary restrictions. With food allergy policy set at college level, the problem is that such practices are not always shared or standardised.  

Food is more than just sustenance. It is connection. It is culture. At Oxford, it is a central part of student social life. Inclusion does not end at being allowed into the hall. It requires that, once inside, every student has the same opportunity to participate. For students with food allergies and restrictions like myself, this principle is tested three courses at a time.

Oxford is not an aesthetic

Elizabeth Millett
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Oxford is not an aesthetic

My social media algorithm has successfully tracked my profile closely enough to have figured out where I study. To my regret. For every now and then, I’ll be confronted with yet another bird’s-eye view of central Oxford glistening at sunset, or an edit of a glorified study session in Duke Humfrey’s library. 

I often find my feed accosted with these montages of Oxford life, with the formal dinner being a classic. A short clip will introduce a carefully crafted montage of a candle-lit dining hall, proudly gowned students, and the evening’s luxurious menu. A recent video featuring Keble Hall encouraged the viewer to “imagine walking into a hall so long you can barely see the end of it. Candles everywhere, everyone in black robes. The waiters looking like they’ve been doing this since 1887”. They are paired with statements such as ‘come with me to the fanciest dinner ever’, or worse yet, framed as a ‘POV’. “POV: you are studying at the world’s second oldest university” or “POV: Oxford students on a Wednesday night”. These captions are followed by the same sequence of an ornate room full of chatter, clinking glasses, and tailcoats, all set to a trending audio to polish off this curated atmosphere. It frames life in Oxford like a film reel, where every interaction is one of intellect and every evening one of extravagance.

I suppose it sounds enticing, especially to those who do not attend Oxford. Does it feel completely familiar? Not at all. These videos desperately lack any kind of nuance, especially in how they project student experience. They contain dregs of truth amongst what is mostly a fabricated existence, abandoning any personal insight in pursuit of the same generic presentation of Oxford’s ‘hallowed halls’. The content drools over the ‘aesthetic’ of academia or what it would feel like to be an esteemed guest at these exclusive dinners; they are snapshots that glorify opulence, venerating what they and the viewer romanticise as the peak of sophistication. 

This leads to a particular grievance of mine, which is the Oxford ‘influencers’ – those who create content that thrives and capitalises on a purely idealistic version of the institution they study at. Accounts such as @observingoxford chase after this ‘aesthetic’ in their endless snapshots of Radcliffe Square and the Bodleian Libraries, making out that every moment, every walk down the street, every study session is made of magic. These content creators participate in a strange kind of tourism of their own lives. When I see Meagan Loyst’s edit of Christ Church ball, I can’t help but feel that the 1.1 million people who have liked the post have been done an injustice. It presents an enchanting evening of ballgowns and bubbles, all set to Michael Bublé’s ‘Feeling Good’ for a little extra dose of (what is perceived to be) perfection. Yet there is something forced, and dare I say cringeworthy, about filming yourself and self-consciously documenting your experience for the viewer. Having attended this ball myself, I am again struck by how little personality or actual insight brought to these representations in favour of this imaginary world.

The effect of this illusion is confirmed by the awestruck comments that idealise Oxford as their dream university. I would go so far as to say that an injustice is done to the University itself, reduced to an image that compacts its wealth of history, beautiful architecture and impressive events (as well as the reality of admissions and its reputation as a world-class centre of teaching and research) into this ‘aesthetic’. These viral videos feed off this perceived perfection, and even assume the viewer’s desire to one day attend themselves. 

I do not mean to say that Oxford is not full of incredibly unique experiences, traditions and opportunities – it is an undeniably special place. Perhaps my sentiments stem from my impartiality towards my own experience of Oxford. I never romanticised Oxford when applying, and now that I’m here, I often find Oxford to be a beautiful yet self-satisfied and overwhelming city. As much as I’ve tried to feel at home here, I find it impossible to be constantly enamoured or consumed with wonder – if I were to be so, I would have to remove myself from my experience of the place. I feel guilty when people back in London question me about Oxford and assume it must be glorious. The reality, however, is that, at least for me, the city of Oxford is a place I’ve taken a long time to grow used to and still am not fully able to give my heart to. I greatly appreciate studying at Oxford, yet I have never found it to be a place where I feel at peace. I can’t, nor do I desire to, discard my personal preferences and blindly throw my affection towards where I end up studying; prestige changes nothing. Crucially, I don’t think a student’s experience should be one that buys into this generic ‘aesthetic’ or an expected all-encompassing love for Oxford, but rather a compromise between lived experience, individual personality and all that Oxford has to offer. 

Perhaps I’m too harsh. Perhaps these influencers merely perceive Oxford differently from me, and I should appreciate their apparent overwhelming adoration. Perhaps their experience is different to mine, given that most of these influencers are postgraduates. Yet I still can’t help but wince at the all-consuming My Oxford Year taint to it all. I would expect their attitude to be that of a tourist, or a film director – not of a student. Surely there’s more to their time here than this – how can one produce such unnuanced content of their own lived experience? Surely they don’t still see Christ Church as the “Harry Potter hall”, or gowned students matriculating as a fantastical procession – it does Oxford’s much more interesting reality an injustice. 

My stance is not one of pessimism, but actually a plea for the individuality of student experience, both in our own attitudes and social media content, to be championed. The holistic nature of one’s personal journey in Oxford is largely unspoken about. Students’ lives here should comprise both the individual and the institution: there is a beauty to this that is much more captivating than living in an ‘aesthetic’. In fact, if we play this game of stereotyping Oxford, surely the plethora of endlessly intellectual and individually minded students that it’s renowned for can do more than just generically idolise where they study.  Otherwise, there’s a danger of becoming just a faceless figure in a tailcoat, sipping champagne behind a phone screen. 

Inarticulacy in part and in whole: ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ in review

Freddie Lewis-Hedley
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Inarticulacy in part and in whole: ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ in review

When I heard that Jim Jarmusch had released a new anthology film, I fondly remembered watching Night on Earth (1991) some years ago. It’s a series of conversations between cab drivers and their eclectic customers, and each section contains its own kind of sentimentality, humour, or poignancy. Against the film’s still nighttime streets, one only has words and faces to focus on, and days after watching the film, I enjoyed comparing the feel and details of each neatly parcelled slice of life.

This time, in Father Mother Sister Brother, Jarmusch explores three visits of adult children to their parents. Instead of studying the nature of human contact through charming realist conversation as in Night on Earth, he dwells on the great dearth of things which family members – who ostensibly have known each other so long and well – often have to say to each other after time and distance have estranged them. 

For lack of words, images, and impressions convey the predicaments of the fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers. The opening ten minutes of the first short, Father, are taken up by Emily (Mayim Bialik) and Jeff’s (Adam Driver) drive through a snowy woodland to their reclusive, recovering addict father’s (Tom Waits as Tom Waits) house in New Jersey. I must admit, their conversation was so sparse and dull that I now realise I missed important exposition, but this cannot have communicated  as much as the lingering, meandering camera. Close-ups of Emily gazing pensively out the window; Jeff steering too quietly and steadily, and a too-monotonous winter landscape, simultaneously leave much to be imagined and signal entry to a slowed-down foreign world pervaded by their father’s memory.

However, all this calculated vagueness is made much less evocative than it should be by a frankly interminable tranche of kooky dialogue. Upon entry, “Great to see you” and other pleasantries are uttered by Jeff and Emily slowly and with pauses. The father pays a strained compliment to his daughter’s coat. Everyone is at a loss for something to say, a point to make or come to. Awkwardness thus established, the father issues a few sub-par quirked-up gags to fill the silence: “your mother always loved water”, “you were always my favourite son” (to Jeff, his only son). A few arthouse fiends in the seats near mine laughed at these bits, and I almost did too, for Jarmusch starves us of proper comic moments. We understand within a minute the absurdity of the family’s conversational vacuum; of the contrast between prim Jeff and Emily and their demented dad, and how we’ve all been through the kind of incidents which the short caricatures. Why then is the point so insisted on, made so bizarre in its urgency? 

Mother is the middle short and far more fun than Father. It is set in Dublin and the English family involved is of a similar eccentric, upper-middle-class milieu to that of Jeff, Emily, and their father The short  is enjoyably camped up, however,, by the sisters, Tim (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicki Krieps), and their mother (Charlotte Rampling) being vibrantly dressed arty types. We have by now adjusted to the aridness of the characters’ conversation, and the short’s rhetoric of contemporary clichés – the novelist mother glibly chats to her therapist before her daughters arrive, while Lilith loves to talk about her career as an influencer – is effectively offset by everyone’s strange demeanour, as well as our stronger sense of the group’s history and dynamics. The mother’s conversational stiltedness makes sense in light of her narcissism, manifest in her garishly sumptuous house.

Krieps’ performance does a lot to prop up Mother and is, by some margin, the most engaging of the whole film: spontaneously licking a cupcake or slighting her sister, she is both frivolous and vicious, and her deadpan lines are animated by her accent, a mix of German and posh English. We see that the mischievous and almost knowingly superficial Lilith is a chip off the old block, while Tim, though similar in outward style to her female relatives, has long felt their casual disdain. Obtuse Father left me cold, but I still ponder Mother’s intriguing tensions.

Unfortunately, the last short, Sister Brother, makes us forget the comedic edge of Mother. In Paris, siblings Skye and Billy (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) visit their late parents’ apartment before it is reclaimed. It seems like this would figure nicely as a coda; focus has turned from parents ageing to being grieved, and in the accompanying spirit of looseness and uncertainty, the action takes place in an open-top car and out on the streets, as opposed to the claustrophobic domestic settings  of Father and Mother. But not much else is made of Skye and Billy’s situation. Curious questions are posed about their parents’ past and identities, but it is vapid chatter that dominates: “each moment is each moment”, it occurs to Skye, and Billy is thankful he doesn’t “lead a conventional life”.

More egregious than this, though, is the bizarre schmalz of the siblings’ relationship. As if drugged, Skye comments on how “dependable” her brother is, and no siblingly banter whatsoever counterweighs this. In fact, what Matt Zoller-Seitz finds to be ‘warm, natural chemistry’, comes across, plainly and appallingly, as sexual tension: affectionate hands on thighs, Billy’s mock-incredulous “Nooo!” at Skye’s suggestion that another woman is hotter than her, and many warm, lingering looks besides, all make for queasy and confusing viewing.

Worst of all, though, the saccharine tone of Brother Sister – never mind the suggestions of incest – spoils any sense of coherence between the three sections of the film. For me, this extreme incongruity underscores the main issue with Father Mother Sister Brother: whether you like its style or not, it’s undeniable that it is ultimately inconsistent, both in content and in quality. This is why I find myself reviewing the shorts as if they were three different films. Perhaps  I missed an obscure through-line. In his defence,Jarmusch does try to tie things up by planting motifs – water, a Rolex watch, and colour-coordinated clothes – through the three segments. In spite of this,, I still far prefer the plain, pleasing fragmentation of Night on Earth.

On Geese and the Cult of the Fake Fan

Val Michael
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On Geese and the Cult of the Fake Fan

When I first planned to write about Geese, I was far more interested in their newly emerging influence upon the indie rock scene, especially the way they have skyrocketed in UK circles as much as they have in the US. Back in March, all five of the shows they played here sold out, even after being upgraded to larger venues as the fanfare accelerated. Their name has been on everybody’s lips. Great statistics could be drawn up about how often men in Oxford will want to talk to me about Geese. 

Of course, there were always detractors. While their fourth album, Getting Killed, was hailed by many as a year-defining sensation for the genre when it dropped last September, a decent number of people also couldn’t seem to get behind them for a variety of reasons. Claims of pretentiousness, “industry plants”, and, as is always classic, Cameron Winter as a “nepo baby” (for the record, his mother is a writer and his dad is a composer – well-off enough, but not famous) have been thrown around, honestly to death.

Winter is a charismatic frontman, that can be said with absolute certainty; on his solo album, Heavy Metal, released in 2024, it felt as though his lyricism was going through a period of experimentation, shifting into something dark and lamenting that can also be felt on the Geese record. His unique vocal abilities capture something both youthful and eternal, reminiscent of many of his rock predecessors. I think the Jim Morrison comparison is the most fun; ambiguous enough that it can be the highest praise or the greatest insult, usually the precise place one wants to sit as a good frontman. It can certainly be argued that an eagerness for something fresh and more musically interesting, when our palettes are simply aching for the unconventional, is part of Geese’s success. Their work feels surreal and astute, not something that would be fed to you by an algorithm. Which is why the controversy they’ve ended up in over the last month has been so fascinating.

At the end of March, Billboard interviewed Jesse Coren and Andrew Spelman, from the digital marketing company Chaotic Good, who revealed their methodology for making songs go viral in an age of short-form content. This involves studying previous examples of viral songs and “simulating a trend” by attempting to make the same thing work but for less palatable tracks. They also claim to focus on online “discourse” by creating narratives around the people they work with, essentially feeding off the natural desire for storytelling that weaves its way into artists’ campaigns. Part of this is about creating social media accounts that will post about the musicians and do their campaign work for them, as well as making TikToks or reels with the songs in the background, in order to simulate greater interest in the work. Geese are affiliated with this company, but so are Zara Larsson, Alex Warren, Sombr, Oklou, and Dijon. If you spend enough time online, none of these would be particularly surprising. 

This has led to significant controversy. The idea that people can rise to fame without even having any real initial backing, their fans only ghosts of the internet, is haunting stuff. This can especially seem inauthentic if an artist has “come out of nowhere” and suddenly amassed popularity. Somehow this has been particularly concentrated in the case of Geese, which seems odd, as they wouldn’t exactly be the shoo-in when it comes to obvious success on the basis of a singular song or narrative. Chaotic Good then took down any mention of the artists they are affiliated with off their website, which only fuelled the fire. Their statement was that they did this “so our artist partners don’t get wrapped up in false accusations or misconceptions about how their music was discovered”. Genuine or not, it could be useful to know who is reliant on fake fanbases to generate interest in their music. Though I err on the side that, normally, you can kind of tell? 

And, well, everything on the internet is fabricated, and music right now is running on viral marketing moments. We all already live and die by algorithms. People will form the entire basis of their being around content they’ve seen, to the point where everybody is just an amalgamation of their interests, the things they “endorse”. Is it so unreasonable that we would be at the point where musical hype would also be fabricated? Geese also seem like maybe the least egregious case, so why jump on this train with them in mind specifically? To a lot of people, their music was already inaccessible, and despite filling up spots at major festivals this summer, interest in the band still seems to be heavily concentrated in specific demographics. The rock fans who like them love them, and are the same people who would pay money to see them live, while most people probably won’t give them the time of day. Unlike some of the other clientele of Chaotic Good, they’re not exactly receiving radio play. They haven’t even cracked two million monthly listeners on Spotify; most “major” artists sit somewhere upwards of ten, and this isn’t even accounting for the biggest artists potentially inflating those streams. This still isn’t a massive band by any stretch of the imagination.

It is also undeniable that there is something alluring about the band, and about Winter more specifically. Is it so much of a reach to assume that a post-punk band of 24-year-old Brooklynites wanting to provoke and intrigue would be so successful among the exact demographic they belong to? 

Everything seems to live in extremes. Not only does everyone need to only love or hate something in the cultural imagination, but also invent a justification for that opinion. Sometimes, it is just enough to say that something isn’t for you and move on.

What are children really learning from their screens?

Saba Ahmadzadeh Noughani
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What are children really learning from their screens?

Today, when compared to my own childhood, screens dominate children’s lives more than ever, and it seems to me that the screens they are exposed to are worlds away from the ones I grew up on. When I look at some of my younger cousins’ favourite shows, it’s clear that the gap between our childhood experiences is much wider than I anticipated. I don’t recognise (nor like) any of their cartoons: they’re loud, rushed, flashy, so colourful they hurt my eyes, and the screen is simply too chaotic and cluttered to tolerate. 

The scenes are constantly changing and in motion, as if competing for attention. It’s almost aggressive. You get the impression that whoever makes these shows doesn’t even like, let alone understand, children. Instead, my childhood favourites like Come Outside and Mr Maker were always teaching me about the world. Charlie and Lola’s pastel colour palette was vibrant but not overpowering. Balamory was indeed colourful but not overstimulating.

Children’s television inevitably evolves, but as I look at the younger generation glued to their mini screens today, I no longer see the art of storytelling, but constant stimulation and noise. This doesn’t calm a child, but instead hooks them, their faces frozen to the screen, and makes them more anxious even after the device is switched off. It has been widely observed that fast-paced content triggers the “fight-or-flight” response in children, and hence makes them irritable, more prone to emotional meltdowns, and worse at self-regulation. 

It also makes me wonder what the point of children’s television is anymore. The shows I grew up with were educational and meaningful, but these shows seem to be just noise and colours. I can’t deny that it may engage children, and arguably that’s all that the media is meant to do. Yet, my concern remains. Research shows that environments, including screens, that are saturated with constant and fast-paced stimuli and sensory input can limit a child’s ability to concentrate and engage in deeper cognitive processing. 

And it’s hard not to notice. At the first sign of boredom, how often are children instantly shoved an iPad? How often do parents feed their children while they watch something on a phone? It seems that parents today depend on screens as a tool, like some bargaining chip, to get their children to do minor tasks.

I care because our children’s learning, attention spans, and concentration are at risk. I don’t want to see children, especially in their early years, glued to screens. I want to see them running around, playing imaginatively, expressing themselves loudly, and visiting all that there is to see. If circumstances don’t allow parents to provide this, and they prefer to occupy their children with a screen, then I beg of all parents, at least let the screen be a calm and pedagogical space. Even then, screens should only supplement play, not replace it.

Looking back on my own childhood, play meant puzzles, word searches, and dress-up. Cartoons were there to pass time or help me unwind from a long day of running around and exhausting my brain. But it seems that these overstimulating shows today would exhaust children even more. They’ve replaced their playtime, and it eats away at their childhoods.

These loud, fast, and flashy shows also condition children to expect constant stimulation, and consequently, make it much harder for them to engage with anything that demands their patience or reflection. My issue with these newer cartoons does not stem from taste or nostalgia, but rather, from awareness of how the media that children are exposed to in their formative years influences their attention, learning habits, and the development of independent, critical minds.

The cartoons I grew up on didn’t just entertain and educate, but were also how so many children understood routine. CBeebies aired bedtime stories, What’s on your plate? lunchtime shows, and in the mornings, I knew that it was time for me to leave the house for school after three shows had finished, always airing at the same time and order. They facilitated so many of my friendships. When my primary school friends would come over, we would watch CBeebies, and its cartoons were reference points in our lunchtime conversations. 

In my first year of university, when I was learning how to cook, I somehow came across a segment of an I Can Cook episode, and before feeling a rush of nostalgia, it saddened me that children today don’t have similar shows. When Mathew Baynton (who played Charles II in Horrible Histories) visited the Oxford Union in 2022, the entire chamber erupted in song. Everyone in that chamber knew the lyrics to ‘The King of Bling’. In today’s world of viral moments, trending sounds, and short-form content, what is it that will bring children that same sense of generational camaraderie in 20 years’ time?

When I see children watching Netflix shows, with personalised streaming, or scrolling through social media, I wonder if all children are actually engaging with the same content as one another, even if not at the exact same times. If not, does this mean they are experiencing different childhoods? What have they lost as a result? How many shared references, conversations, and even friendships will they now miss?

It’s clear that my childhood cartoons were a product of their time. Our children certainly won’t have what we had. Yet for something that was supposed to be a phase eventually outgrown, these cartoons have had a long-lasting effect on the way in which I perceive our changing and fast-paced world today, and I’m only just beginning to fully recognise and appreciate this when comparing them to the cartoons and media that the children of today engage with.

Booksmaxxing and the illusion of being “disgustingly educated”

Victoria Corfield
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Booksmaxxing and the illusion of being “disgustingly educated”

If you are as chronically online as I am, then it is more than likely that you will have come across the trend where people proclaim their desire to become “disgustingly educated” or “disgustingly well-read”. Content creators don their finest pair of reading glasses to affirm to their audience that they are indeed ‘intellectuals’ and display stacks of books to show off their seemingly never-ending academic reading lists. At a first glance there isn’t anything explicitly ‘wrong’ with this content. After all, wouldn’t we want to promote education in an age where school attendance, and young people’s interest in learning more generally, is in steady decline? 

However, once you’ve encountered a few videos of this type, a pattern emerges. This content presents the pursuit of knowledge as an identity rather than a practice, much like the speakers’ glasses. Beyond the parading of intimidating reading lists and displays of intricately annotated pages of classic novels, there is often little engagement with the intellectual substance of the works themselves. Education becomes something to perform rather than something to participate in, something which feels incredibly dangerous in an age where a reasonable attention span and deep thinking are coming to be our most valuable assets as humans. It is more aesthetic to simply have a perfectly organised reading list, than to read said works. 

Through this avoidance of actually doing the very work they promote, they ironically forgo the most important part of educating oneself: the act of learning. Learning itself is far less Instagrammable simply because learning any new skill comes with failure. Everyone will undoubtedly feel stupid at times (something which is only exacerbated in adulthood), but this is essential because learning requires mistakes. Hence, these displays of being “disgustingly educated” are less about the acquisition of knowledge than about the flaunting of interest; it is not about what the book means to you, but more what the book says about you.

This reduction of education to the superficial and the privileging of display over depth can perhaps be best observed in the world of BookTok, a popular sub-community on TikTok focused on literature, with creators often sharing reviews and recommendations. Notably, its emergence was one of the first instances in which a social media subculture had real-world impact, with BookTok heavily influencing real-world publishing trends and sales. However, in recent times the focus of BookTok appears to have shifted away from celebrating a love of reading, towards an approach to literature which casts reading as a competitive sport. 

There is an increasing amount of content in which people take on reading challenges, employing the use of timers and setting targets for how many books they aim to read. The most extreme form of this intellectual performance is a trend referred to as ‘Booksmaxxing’. This is an approach which centres on maximising personal growth and intellectual capital through reading an obscenely high volume of books. The very name of the trend establishes it as a response to the popular “Looksmaxxing” culture on social media, which prizes the pursuit of physical attractiveness, often through extreme measures. 

However, when the two trends are viewed in tandem, whilst their approaches and methodologies may vastly differ, the principle behind them is the same. They both centre on the performance or adoption of a particular characteristic as a means of social elevation. In the same way that ‘Looksmaxxing’ is about the improvement of physical appearance as a means of asserting superiority, in ‘Booksmaxxing’ this is translated into a performance of intellectual capital. It is less about reading for personal enjoyment and self-betterment than it is an imposition of a quantifiable framework onto personal intellect. In the same way that ‘Looksmaxxing’ marks a distinction between ‘high-’ and ‘low-value’ individuals on the basis of physical appearance, ‘Booksmaxxing’ enacts this through the display of how many books you’ve read, implicitly suggesting intelligence. In this sense ‘Booksmaxxing’ is not a rejection of shallow online culture but simply its intellectual rebranding.

A further dimension of this phenomenon becomes clear when we consider how easily it translates into comparison culture online. This ties in with the idea of being “disgustingly well-read” as a desirable characteristic. What we are seeing on social media is a glorification of a performative intellectualism in which attention becomes power and the apparent acquisition of knowledge becomes decoration. It becomes a means of asserting your superiority over others, which raises questions about privilege and access. It is crucial to explore the role which class and privilege play in discussions surrounding education and intellectual culture. Whilst we are fortunate enough to live in an age where education is universally accessible in this country, this performative intellectualism is inherently tied up with displays of privilege. 

If you are flaunting the fact you can read over 200 books each year as a means of social elevation, then what you are in fact saying is that you have the time and financial capital to devote to such endeavours. Furthermore, the subjects which are often foregrounded in these pursuits toward being “disgustingly educated” are often niche subjects that one wouldn’t typically encounter in a secondary school curriculum such as philosophy or art history. In an age of ever-rising university fees, where there is a regression in terms of who can access higher education, to be able to invest this level of time and money into such subjects is a privilege. 

I want to make it clear at this point that by no means am I seeking to devalue the arts. I am an English student myself and I believe that the decline of the arts in universities is a tragedy and that they are essential to our understanding of the world around us, however I simply mean that these degrees do not lead to the same kind of linear graduate career that studying a trade at college would. What is framed as intellectual ambition then begins to look less like the pursuit of knowledge and more like who can afford to have access to such education.

Ultimately, the central issue is not that people want to be ‘well-read’. After all, education is a key tool for self-betterment, as well as social mobility and liberation, and if trends such as BookTok or “Booksmaxxing” encourage more young people to pick up books and put down their phones then of course this is not without value. The danger arises when reading becomes something to be seen doing rather than something enriching in and of itself. Knowledge is not a costume you can put on for an audience, nor is it something quantifiable by stacks, timers, or yearly totals. 

Perhaps the more positive alternative lies, not in abandoning these online reading communities altogether, but rather in reshaping them into spaces that encourage genuine engagement with literature. A kind of digital book club culture so to speak, centred less on how many books you can consume and more on the experience of reading itself. A community that fosters ‘real’ learning, one which is rarely neat or aesthetically pleasing; the chapter you have to read three times, the definition you pause to Google mid-sentence. To read properly, in my view, is to misunderstand, to have to sit with a text, think about it and discuss it. If these online spaces can move beyond performance and towards discussion, they may ultimately succeed in doing something genuinely valuable: making reading feel exciting, accessible, and worth sharing.

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