To celebrate the third season of Mr Robot coming exclusively to Lightbox today at 7pm, here are some of the ways you can protect yourself against the vigilante hacking groups coming for your double chin selfies. Today, after little more than a live E-Coin launch and a cryptic loaded tweet from the director to the … Read more
Victoria Crockford reflects on the way society has changed its view of our collective mothers and each other, and how that impacts all of society. Driving home at 10pm. It’s the coldest night of the year so far: -16°C by the reckoning of the car thermometer. I’m sitting in the passenger seat hugging my coat … Read more
It’s been touted as the new Black Mirror, but there’s a lot more to blockbuster anthology series Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams. Here’s our crash course ahead of the premiere episodes, arriving exclusively on Lightbox next Wednesday. This content, like all television coverage we do at The Spinoff, is brought to you thanks to the excellent … Read more
Welcome to Top of the Pile, a gaming series in which two idiots are forced to play a game at the top of the ‘just released’ list. This week the walls come crashing in and our small lived are revealed in the session with run and gun zombie shooter When It Hits The Fan. This … Read more
Craig Cliff finds the narrative elements within the latest installment of the popular 2K franchise don’t work, unless you resort to a radical reading of DJ’s story. I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons or Zelda or anything normally associated with role-playing or fantasy. Y’know, things you might expect a novelist-in-training might wallow in while waiting … Read more
Broadcaster and sometime TOP communications director Sean Plunket is back in the news thanks to a searingly bad Tweet on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which he later claimed was a ‘social experiment’. But it’s far from his first offence. The Spinoff’s editor Duncan Greive details his history with Plunket and asks if he’s the right … Read more
Social enterprises often operate as limited liability companies, but new legal structures to govern them have been introduced in a number of countries. Lawyer Steven Moe argues we need these options in New Zealand. In the classic children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen, an emperor is given new clothes which are invisible to those who … Read more
In our video series Kiwis of Snapchat, comedian Tom Sainsbury sources exclusive Snapchat footage of Kiwi citizens and luminaries making the news. Today: a report from inside the coalition talks. Click here for all our Kiwis of Snapchat videos
Being a woman in rock shouldn’t be something worth writing about, writes Emma Cameron of Christchurch band Decades. Yes, I am a woman and yes, I play rock music – but the truth is, I did not grow up being aware that I was different for being someone with breasts and a vulva playing a … Read more
Auckland’s newly refurbished Freyberg Place is a wonderful new public space, says Simon Wilson. Except for those times when it isn’t. I sat on one of the big concrete steps in the newly refurbished Freyberg Place on Tuesday evening, watching a man covered in tin cans beating sticks on a blue 44-gallon drum. A little … Read more
Migos performed in New Zealand for the first time at Spark Arena last night. Old soul Madeleine Chapman went along to see what the youths have been raving about. Walking towards Spark Arena for the Migos concert, my cousin Shanee and I ducked into a dimly lit doorway to prepare for the security checks that … Read more
One of the originators of ‘nudge’ theory – the idea that small prompts can have big effects on behaviour – was this week awarded the 2017 Nobel prize for economics. But not all nudges are created equal, argues the New Zealand Initiative’s Jenesa Jeram. What is the difference between automatically enrolling workers in KiwiSaver and … Read more
The year’s biggest literary prize, the Man Booker award, is announced on Wednesday morning, October 18 (NZ time). All week this week we review the six shortlisted titles. Today: Linda Burgess reviews Fiona Mozley’s Elmet, and History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund. At 29, Fiona Mozley is the youngest writer on the Man Booker Prize shortlist. … Read more
At the Spinoff Parents we talk a lot about mental illness among parents. Today editor Emily Writes shares a group post that outlines the many ways perinatal anxiety, depression, and psychosis have affected New Zealand parents. We hope that anyone who sees themselves or their loved ones in these stories will seek help. Content warning: … Read more
Joshua Hitchcock looks at the Māori Party initiatives most at risk from a new government: the Whānau Ora health programme and the Māori land law reforms. The votes are in, negotiations are underway, and while we enjoy the peaceful interregnum between the election and the formation of a new government, the election results have sent … Read more
Filmmaker Kath Akuhata-Brown looks at the unique challenges of making Waru, a film directed by eight Māori women. Beneath the yelling and screaming of our recent general election, as child poverty was being turned into a political platform, a group of Māori filmmakers quietly went about the task of drawing attention to the issue in … Read more
The second season of English drama Doctor Foster might be the best thriller on television, despite its everyday subject matter, writes Duncan Greive. Doctor Foster has headed upstairs from a party and is walking around a house in silence, picking up photos and smelling cosmetics. The stakes are not much higher than her being caught … Read more
Donald Trump’s increasingly bellicose threats against North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un are raising fears of all-out war. But if the worst happens, which way will New Zealand jump? Victoria University professor Robert Ayson considers the options. Many of us are thinking, or at least hoping, that Donald Trump is bluffing when he implies that violence is … Read more
The State of Victoria has just announced a raft of reforms aimed at strengthening the rights of tenants. NZ-born, Melbourne-based tenancy lawyer Joe Nunweek reviews the changes – and the chances of New Zealand following suit. For three years as of last month, I’ve been living in the State of Victoria. There’s living here, and … Read more
We’re back for month three of Congratulations, She’s a Boy, a monthly column following Felix Desmarais’ female-to-male (FTM) transition. I’m sorry I’m late, dear readers. I’m just continuing a long tradition of being a disappointing white man. Calm down, #notallmen. Eye roll emoji. Seriously though, September was a busy month so apologies to my niche … Read more
Duncan Garner’s recent column on immigration and K-Mart underpants has had the unfortunate – though highly predictable – effect of reigniting New Zealand’s often-poisonous ‘immigration debate’. But there’s a better way, writes Jess Berentson-Shaw. Immigration has never been an easy thing to talk about in New Zealand. When it gets raised in a public forum, … Read more
The year’s biggest literary prize – the Man Booker award – is announced on Wednesday morning, October 18 (NZ time). All week this week we review the six shortlisted titles. Today: Philip Matthews on Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1, and the favourite to win, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. What did Paul Auster … Read more
Sarah Watkeys and her playcentre whānau are grieving the loss of their community hub. Over the weekend, a fire destroyed the Belfast Playcentre in Christchurch completely. Here she writes about the pain she and local families are going through. We’ve just lost our playcentre. Fire. It has been a fixture in our lives since my … Read more
Kate Robertson talks to Americana singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle, who plays in Auckland this week, about music and survival. Justin Townes Earle is a complex character to unpack. Son of Steve Earle (who was singing about a Galway Girl long before Ed Sheeran), Townes Earle’s somewhat turbulent childhood has long served as a launch pad … Read more
They’re renowned hairdressers and A+ reality TV talent, but are Wellington couple Teal and Sophie any good at cooking? This week on My Kitchen Rules NZ, we find out. From Jaryd and Ben’s art deco-inspired Auckland instant restaurant we head to Wellington for the third meal of the series at Teal and Sophie’s Wellington… mansion? … Read more
Tara Ward counts down the top ten moments from ‘Freedom & Whiskey’, the fifth episode of Outlander season three. Contains major spoilers, obviously. Sing me a song of a lass that is gone and then rocks on up again, totes out of the blue, wearing a strange coat and humming the Batman theme song. Everyone join in, … Read more
A Sunday night in Ponsonby revives the Bashford Antiques saga, with revelations it’s still unlicensed and still clamping – now for a scarcely believable amount. David Farrier investigates. I was reminded of the Bashford Antiques Saga™ (you can find that here and here) when I was driving past Bashford Antiques at around 10pm on Sunday night. I … Read more
The election campaign saw more 120,000 visits to Policy, our tool for comparing parties’ positions, leaving behind an incredible trove of user data. So what can it tell us about the big coalition questions? The Policy team get out their calculators. With the special votes in, the phone is back on the hook. National has … Read more
All eyes are on Winston, but still there’s a clamour for a National-Greens coalition. Simon Wilson looks at why the idea has such appeal and what it might mean for politics in this country. It’s like when your parents say they really like your music. Only they wish the words were a little easier to … Read more