Carnage Liverpool: It’s really not an issue.

On February 10, the Daily Mail published an article in response to the recent Carnage Liverpool event entitled ‘Is this really what university’s about?’

This article is just the latest example of persecution by the press.  A truly distorted picture of Carnage Liverpool and student participants is being painted by this scaremongering agenda.

Firstly, in response to the question posed by the anonymous Daily Mail reporter: No. Of course it isn’t.

To take an occasionally-occurring student night and suggest it accounts for all of what university is ‘about’ is not only incredibly stupid, it is worryingly ignorant.

Press persecution.

Visit the university on any given term-time day and you will find lecture rooms filled with students and library books being hired out by the minute.

Sample life campus life during examinations and you will find the libraries over-flowing with exhausted minds, energy drinks and relentless note-making .

Indeed it would be criminal of me not to also allude to the plethora of societies, events & extra-curricular activity that takes place alongside the academic timetable.

The Huffington Post’s recent article ‘A Degree In Alcohol?’ echoes this infuriating ignorance; student life is being dangerously misrepresented by those with considerable influence.

In reality, Carnage Liverpool constitutes a tiny percentage of a Liverpool student’s lifestyle, with many students opting to abstain from the events all-together. The press must take some responsibility in providing a fair & accurate reflection of reality

Do not be fooled by this juvenile mob; they are in fact young adults.

Secondly, let us not lose sight of another important detail of the Carnage debate that appears to have been forgotten all together; students are adults.

Recent articles such as the BBC’s warnings regarding the ‘new’ craze for ‘prinking’ seem to completely underestimate the maturity and awareness of students in relation to the consequences and dangers of alcohol consumption.

Students appear to have been mistaken for primary school pupils who have mischievously broken into their parents’ alcohol cabinets and found the key to free them from their homes.

Of course alcohol is a prominent aspect of Carnage events, but as is alcohol during a work night out or at a hearty family get-together.

There is a fine line between being informed and being patronised. I can’t help but feel a victim of the latter.

Grasp that chest. You deserve it.

Lastly and possibly most importantly; Carnage in all it’s loud, seedy, fleshy glory is absolutely and wholly deserved.

Believe it or not non-student readers, being a student is rather tiresome.

Despite what you have been led to believe by the press or simply the inevitable inaccuracies of word of mouth, not all our time is spent face down on the cobbles of Concert Square or having our footwear ruined in Faculty.

Carnage allows work-ridden, anxious students a chance to purge all their unhealthy emotions and take a break from the strains and expectations of university life.

Carnage is neither sophisticated nor academic and quite rightly so.

It is a harmless, jolly, inclusive event that should be celebrated; not attacked.

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