A new term sees a new team of Cultures editors, and the return of The Great Cultures-Feed Quiz. Find out which team member you are most similar to!
When you’ve got an essay or problem sheet due soon, what’s your go-to form of procrastination?
1. I always find myself organising my Spotify playlists when I have a fast-approaching deadline.
2. Tracing back music samples is a great tactic for avoiding work. You wouldn’t believe how few modern hits are 100% original.
3. Usually going to eat in halls seems a great excuse for taking a break from work.
4. Detailed and colour-coordinated planning on how from the day after my deadline I’ll be super productive.
5. Grabbing an oat milk latte at Pret before wandering around Tescos for an obscene amount of time.
6. Either scrolling through Depop and looking at clothes I can’t afford, or knitting squares for a blanket I’ll hopefully one day get around to making. Sometimes putting on music and forcing friends to have a dance with me, which they love of course!
7. ‘Stress-knitting’ while watching the most random releases on Netflix (and missing up several stitches!) – or, alternatively, signing up for events will never have the time to attend…
Which is your favourite social media platform?
1. I spend waaaay too much time on Instagram, my feed now has the perfect balance of visual art and memes.
2. Probably Depop. I think there’s something really charming about curated, artistic social media content and as Depop is financially motivated it lacks most of instagram’s problematic traits.
3. Pinterest! It’s so calming to look at pretty pictures and organise mood boards.
4. For sure Pinterest. It’s definitely made me think that one day I’ll be able to make an aesthetically-pretty breakfast bowl if I manifest it enough.
5. Because I never seemed to have aged past the mentality of a 12 year old, I’d say Snapchat.
6. Ashamedly, it’s got to be TikTok. I have deleted the app many times in the hope of leaving behind the Sisyphean-like scrolling once and for all, but always end up downloading it again and being thoroughly entertained.
7. Probably Facebook, since I’m a dinosaur when it comes to technology – and feel the constant need to remain apace of the latest Oxloves.
You find yourself landing your dream theatre role, which character are you playing?
1. I don’t imagine I’d ever land a role in any production, but playing Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire would be fun (and challenging).
2. Perhaps Eddie Carbone in A View From the Bridge. I think his New York Italian accent makes him lovable enough to forgive the incestuous streak… and it steers clear of any singing.
3. If I could sing I would love a big Broadway production, maybe Sally Bowles from Cabaret.
4. I’d say Elvira from Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. I think I’d be quite fun to play an irritating and vengeful ghost in a comedy.
5. Probably Elphaba from Wicked, as she has some amazing songs. Though the green makeup everyday would be annoying.
6. Perhaps Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days – who wouldn’t want to be a relentlessly optimistic leading lady buried in a mound of ever-rising sand!
7. I’d be most comfortable and most myself behind the scenes, making sure everything runs smoothly.
If you could live in the world of any book, which would you choose?
1. As much as I didn’t enjoy reading The Great Gatsby, I’ve always been intrigued by the extreme life of luxury they had in the Roaring 20s.
2. Currently I’d pick Cannery Row. With Hilary Term fast approaching, the idea of living in a sunny flophouse and catching frogs on the beach sounds very appealing.
3. I think the Italian summer from The Talented Mr Ripley sounds incredible, minus the psychopaths.
4. Every countryside scene from Forster’s A Room With A View, whether in Italy or in Kent.
5. A bit basic, but the Harry Potter series, without all the bad stuff that happens.
6. Ever since I was little I’ve wished that Tove Jansson’s idyllic Moominvalley actually existed; I would love to relax in the world of the Moomin books.
7. Maybe this is kind of cheating, but Virginia Woolf’s Orlando! As a history student, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the world change over the centuries… and to live and meet people and change along with it.
The vacation is the perfect time to binge something on Netflix – what have you been loving recently?
1. I’m watching too many series right now. I recently finished Alice in Borderland, but I’m also watching Blue Period, and the new season of Queer Eye.
2. This vacation I finally broached the mammoth that is the American version of The Office and it hasn’t disappointed. The British original will always have a firm place in my heart so I was stubborn about giving Steve Carrell a chance but I guess some popular culture just really is worth the hype.
3. I was introduced to Arcane, based on League of Legends, by friends and although I hate video games I ended up really enjoying it. The art style is so cool, you can really tell the effort the animators put into it.
4. A Very British Scandal was a great quick little series to binge… and I’m always up for anything to do with aristocrats’ scandals.
5. Binge watched all of Money Heist, which is the perfect mix of action, drama and suspense. Though, I do spend 90% of my time while watching the show thinking of what city name I’d choose for myself.
6. I watched the entirety of Maid in two days; it was simultaneously distressing and uplifting, perhaps not the most festive pick but definitely moving and entirely gripping!
7. Documentaries! Anything history, archeology, or paleontology related is right up my alley, but I’m also quite fond of architectural makeover and baking reality shows, so… whatever I come across first really!
You can have your portrait created by one artist – who do you choose?
1. Definitely nothing realistic – I’d love to see what Junji Ito would create.
2. Grant Wood’s portraits have always been very funny to me. I reckon it would be like paying for a very unflattering street caricature and remind me not to take myself too seriously.
3. I love Arthur Rackham’s detailed, fairy-tale illustration style.
4. I’d love to have been painted by Françoise Gilot because of how striking and vibrant her portraits are.
5. Because I couldn’t imagine anything worse than an actual portrait of myself, I think it would be fun to see how Matt Groening, who originally drew The Simpsons, would turn me into a Simpson.
6. Perhaps Odilon Redon. His paintings are beautifully surreal and his use of colour is really striking. I doubt it would be very realistic, but I like how he often framed his portraits with images of flowers.
7. Jeanne Mammen. I love the dreamlike sense of vibrancy she creates and the strong women she depicts in her works, so a portrait like She Represents or The Lady with the Cat would be an absolute dream.
If you had to describe yourself in one song, which would it be?
1. Probably Protect My Energy by Little Simz. Amazing song!
2. On a good day, You Get What You Give by the New Radicals. My all time favourite one-hit wonder.
3. Currently Ribs by Lorde because I think I am going through a quarter-life crisis.
4. Woke Up Late by Drax Project because I am every alarm’s most difficult customer.
5. Currently Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots, while thinking about all my unfinished work.
6. This is the Day by The The, although this is perhaps because it’s an all-time favourite song and, in my opinion, features the only acceptable use of the accordion. Also includes apt references to sleep-deprivation.
7. Keep on Walking by Passenger. Because sometimes we just need to keep going, somewhere. 🙂
And now for the results! If you got…
Mostly 1s
Congrats, you’re Gloria! A master of procrastination, you love capturing every significant moment in perfectly curated Spotify playlists (containing just about every genre, except country). You always have several TV shows on the go at any given time, so you can jump between worlds and forget about your essay. And, of course, you have an ever-growing pile of books that you always say you’ll pick up next vacation.
Mostly 2s
You got, Eliza! You can generally be found strolling round Oxford with wired headphones avoiding the English faculty library. Your strengths include a love of American beat culture, surf music and ballet, but all this is overshadowed by the unfortunate fact that you enjoy the Joe Rogan podcast unironically.
Mostly 3s
Congratulations! You got Elspeth. You can be found going to Pret numerous times in between Radcam trips, listening to Phoebe Bridgers and buying second hand jewellry. You like romanticising your degree, with the help of Brideshead Revisited, although your tote bags are not strong enough to hold your books.
Mostly 4s
Congratulations, you’re Sophie! You stay up late for absolutely no reason to the point that you’re always living 5 time zones behind everyone else. You enjoy writing, ballet, and eating any and all pastries. However beware, you have a fatal weakness for rings and Garnier moisture bomb eye masks that are sure to drip hyaluronic acid all over the pages of the latest book you’re reading.
Mostly 5s
Congrats, you got Megan! You can be found sitting in the library late at night because your productivity peaks at the wrong hours, or walking around the Rad Cam unable to find any of the books you need. You wear your college stash with pride while stomping around Oxford in your Docs and with a coffee in hand. Your daily routine involves watching Community on Netflix, hanging out with friends and maybe, sometimes, some work towards your degree.
Mostly 6s
Congratulations, you got Maddie! You’re a self-professed francophile but don’t feel very Parisian when you find yourself getting Pret coffee in a college puffer on the daily. You use the fact that you’re from the North as a personality trait, and when the going gets tough you treat yourself to a grocery shop at M&S or a coffee at the Jericho Gail’s. Any club classic from the eighties or nineties will get you dancing, even in the most inappropriate of situations, which leaves people wondering whether you were lying when you said you did ballet for 8 years.
Mostly 7s
Congrats, you’re Joana! You can be found strolling around Oxford’s museums (usually the Pitt Rivers, since you secretly wish you were studying arch & anth, or the Natural History Museum, because you never grew out of the annoying childhood phase where you won’t shut up about dinosaurs). You spend the rest of your time in libraries and in the corner of bookshops, musing about all the works of fiction you wish you had the time to read. Your strengths include learning a new craft that you will pursue avidly for two weeks and then never practice ever again, and consuming inhuman amounts of coffee. To the chagrin of your tutors, you have awful opinions on punctuation that usually involve an excessive use of commas, ellipses, and exclamation marks.