OxYou

Editors: Jen Jackson, Susie Barrows, Milo Dennison, Jonah Poulard

Oxford Students’ Toxic Traits

Susie Barrows

Everyone at Oxford has a toxic trait or two. Whether it be the Union hack who just won’t leave your DMs, or the rower who manages to turn every conversation into rowing (even if you were only talking about the feminisation of nature in the poetry of William Wordsworth), here’s a definitive list of the most frequently observed around our humble university.

1. THE LATE-NIGHT LIBRARY-ER

Either you know one or you are one. By day, the student who annoyingly scrapes by despite seemingly doing no work. By night, the Oxford equivalent of Hermione Granger. The second the sun goes down, and everyone else is clocking off for the night, ready to head to the college bar and inevitably get peer pressured into ending up at Park End, your day is just beginning. When you actually sleep is a mystery unbeknownst to everyone (including yourself).

2. THE UNION HACK

You don’t have friends. You have potential voters. Your days are spent buying coffees for people who you discover don’t even have Union membership when you just casually drop in to the conversation that oh, there’s an election at the Union this weekend!. Your Facebook is filled with you tagging the people who you actually really dislike but who wanted to run on the same slate as you and there’s not much you can do about it your best friends in posts where you gush about how much you love them and are so honoured to run for [weirdly named role] on #INSERTIMPERATIVEVERBHERE with them! Just one message notification from you sparks fear in every acquaintance you have.

3. THE DEDICATED STUDENT

You actually (gasp) enjoy your degree. Everyone is a little weirded out when you start talking about how much you have loved writing your essay this week and the 18-hour library sessions you did for four days straight to complete it. Maybe just keep it to yourself.

4. THE NOT REMOTELY DEDICATED STUDENT

You seem to have completely forgotten why you applied to this university in the first place. To you, the degree is just the excuse for all of the formals and gowns and nice buildings and pretentious stash. You might be found in the library at 2am with No. 1 as you desperately do just enough to be allowed to remain at the university: the difference is they work hard, just nocturnally. You work only when absolutely necessary. You’re a master of calculating precisely the bare minimum.

5. THE DRAMA PERSON

Your profile picture changes on Facebook more frequently than you remind everyone of how busy you are because you’re just in so many plays. Which is saying a lot.

6. THE STUDENT JOURNALIST

Your Instagram story is purely just you plugging your newest articles that probably two, or three at maximum, of your followers will actually read. You spend too much time talking about editing and laying-in and how you just don’t think X newspaper is as good as the one you have sworn allegiance to (because apparently writing for an Oxford newspaper is the same as being born into a blood feud). It’s all worth it for the dopamine rush when once in a blue moon someone says ‘oh, I read your article!’. It must have made a lasting impact on their life and changed their mindset forever! It didn’t. It was just a review of Florence and the Machine’s new album.

7. THE ROWER

Everyone knows you have rowing in the morning. No one cares.

Rordon Gamsay BEST OF THE SUNDAY ROAST

It’s fifth week, but Rordon’s back to beat the blues – no, he’s not condoning scrapping with any university sports team members (even if that would at least stop them dropping the fact that they’re in a university sports team into every conversation), he means that wonderful Oxford phenomenon, the fifth week blues. When there’s no origami and Mario Kart to hand, this will have to do. Bon appétit.

SHOCK: ROWERS TALK ABOUT ROWING

Rordon has sadly remained distant from the college rowing community during his time at Oxford, having not set foot on Boathouse Island since an unfortunate incident involving Pimms, an oar and a swan in freshers’ week.

Normally, this has meant Rordon has little to no idea of what is going on down at the river: rowers are, after all, a quiet bunch. Yet this week, something incredible happened. A seemingly normal conversation suddenly veered sharply into an in depth conversation about 3 seat in M2. Rordon was so shocked that rowers were actually talking about rowing that he failed to grasp the context of the conversation, but his limited understanding is that 3 M2 was a grid reference for the rowing version of Battleships (bumping is the same as sinking, right?).

It is unclear whether rowers will ever talk about rowing again, but Rordon waits in nervous anticipation.

NO WAY: STUDENT’S MENTAL ILLNESS CURED BY STROKING ALPACA

Rordon interviewed a student to whom a miracle occurred this week. The student in question has been a long-time sufferer of depression and anxiety and, having finally asked for help from his college, was offered a bewildering opportunity – the welfare officer invited an alpaca petting zoo to the grounds of the college. While at first, the student was baffled by this proposition – “I just don’t know how an alpaca is going to solve my deep-rooted trauma that has only been exacerbated by the intense workload of this university,” he told Rordon – he reluctantly agreed to attend said petting zoo. To his, and indeed everyone’s (except the college welfare officer’s) surprise, just one touch of this fluffy horse-like creature was enough to rid the student of any and all mental illness (including some that had yet to be diagnosed!). “I’ve never felt so free,” the student said, when asked about his new life as a mentally stable human being. “I am hugely indebted to the college welfare support system for bringing this petting zoo into college. I can’t imagine where I would be if they had just, say, paid for me to have therapy.”

Rordon wonders whether more colleges will follow suit for this most depressing of Oxford weeks – the powers of a petting zoo are clearly not to be underestimated.

STUDENT NEWSPAPER SAYS OH WELL TO SATIRE

One of our esteemed rival papers has decided that rather than compete with Rordon, it might as well just say ‘oh well…’ to its satire section. Rordon understands that the section editors have said ‘never mind’ and come to an agreement with the editors in chief that they ‘aren’t to worry about it’. According to sources within said newspaper who spoke to OxYou, they’ve adopted the strategy of sticking every joke about Oxford students under the sun into every article in the hope that one sticks. Rordon has been given exclusive access to their next article, which he can now share with you: ‘Union, Rower, PPE, SU, Alpacas, Oxfess, Prelims, BNOCs, Stash, hahahahahahah’.