The Daily Mail recently wrote a disparaging article surrounding the Carnage UK event in Liverpool, entitling it 'Is This Really What University is About?'. It showed a heartwarming slideshow of scantily clad girls drunkenly falling onto the cobbled streets, and paying extra attention to the plethora of 'amorous couples' dotting the many corners of the infamous Concert Square.
To be frank, the pictures chosen are distasteful and exaggerated, with the behaviour within them not much better, but can this really be used to slam all students? The answer is a firm no: that is most definitely not what university is all about, and never will be.
According to statistics, the University of Liverpool is home to around 21,000 students; the Carnage Liverpool official page on Facebook has 2,405 likes. UoL is one of four universities that call Liverpool home: with this information the number who attend Carnage appears minimal compared to the amount of students who actually inhabit the city.
Whilst the small number of those attending Carnage go wild on the streets the majority of students are otherwise engaged. It is not uncommon to visit the library at 10pm and find it difficult to secure a computer: this is what being a student is all about. Sweating over textbooks, essays, graphs and a multitude of other tasks take precedence over cavorting in the streets with the opposite sex.
The Daily Mail is too busy zooming in on pictures of young women's ample chests and exposed derrieres to take notice of the life that students in this day and age actually lead.
On a separate note: what even is the issue? Students work hard and thus deserve to have fun. If this fun comes in the form of an organised night out which involves cheap alcohol, what is the problem? It is the personal choice of the individual to participate in binge drinking, not a comment on student society as a whole.
The Mail simply longs for the days when the youth of this country remained silent: it's a huge surprise that they haven't blamed the influx of international students for this supposedly burgeoning social dilemma.
Student living is blighted by poverty, a tiresome workload and a lack of suitable living conditions: this is the reality of what university is all about. Is it any surprise that some find it necessary to blow off steam and hit the streets for a night of carefree living?