Student Life

The cult of radical self-love

Published

2 months ago

April 29, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

“I love struggling, actually,” says Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu, “it makes me feel alive”.

The 20-year-old has become something of a global phenomenon, not only because of her success in Milan, but also as a result of this attitude of unprecedented self-confidence. The American had previously quit the sport at age 16 to spend more time with family and friends, but made a triumphant return in 2024 on her own terms, saying the sport gave her “something to be strong for”. You don’t need to understand the mechanics of a triple Axel to be able to see the pure, unfiltered joy on Liu’s face during her victorious Olympic free skate.

I am fascinated by mindsets like Liu’s, ones that differ so starkly from my own. As a chronic depressive, the thought of waking up with such apparent unwavering self-belief is so alien that I’m half-convinced I’d be capable of some kind of acrobatic ice jump if I were able to similarly trust myself through the hard days.

And it strikes me that I’m not the only one in Oxford who could learn a thing or two from Liu.

At an earlier and more cynical time in my life, I saw Oxford as a city divided between us outsiders, crippled by imposter syndrome and self-hatred, and the wannabe leaders of society, brimming with confidence instilled in them since birth for the low price of £20,000 a term. Now, though, I can see that almost no one at Oxford goes about their day without overthinking, or an inner monologue telling them they’re not doing enough.

A recent work by Oxford graduate Simon Van Teutem examines a “Bermuda Triangle of talent” wherein an unprecedented number of graduates are choosing careers in corporate law, management consulting, and investment banking. Is it possible that this phenomenon is a symptom of a crisis of self-esteem at Oxford? Two minutes on LinkedIn is enough to convince you that everyone you know has a millionaire-making graduate scheme lined up, and that you’d better quickly follow suit. I’m delighted to announce that you need to hurry up with your life. You’re falling behind. Why haven’t you been networking? Why didn’t you start casing for McKinsey the day you received your UCAS acceptance?

So it is against this backdrop, as rejection emails numbering in the triple-digits burn a hole in my inbox, that I consider Alysa Liu. Bored of harbouring a heavy fatigue from ceaselessly comparing myself to others, I am optimistic, or maybe delusional enough to hope that self-love really is learnable. What a relief it would be not to rely on a bottle of wine, or 50mg of sertraline to drown out the fear of being judged and found lacking.

In fact, self-belief is a more fundamental component of emotional balance than you might expect. In her 2018 memoir I want to die but I want to eat Tteokbokki, the late Korean author Baek Sehee locates low self-esteem at the crux of her dissatisfaction with her life and personal relationships. To constantly second-guess what impression you’re making on others is to begin to resent those around you for the most likely unfounded suspicions you attribute to them. It almost guarantees that you will never have a moment of peace. And Oxford can’t afford to be negligent about moments of peace.

Here then, is as good a reason as any to investigate the possibility of reinvention with a self-fashioned self-confidence. I had noticed that certain creators online referred to Liu in relation to the term “radical self-love”, so I took this as my starting point. I scrolled through video after video featuring Pinterest pictures of women doing yoga and dancing in the rain, and found an entire genre of girlboss self-help books. But I quickly developed doubts about the internet’s current favourite psychological buzzwords. After all, Marcus Aurelius didn’t have to navigate this modern rabbit-hole of ‘aesthetic’ philosophy and profiteering self-help programs when he set out to know himself.

For example, I found out that the term “radical self-love” itself is attributed to the writer and public speaker Gala Darling, whose 2016 work of the same name promises to offer “the ultimate guide to living the life you’ve only dreamed about”, and to help you “manifest a life bursting with magic, miracles, bliss, and adventure” for the price of £10.29. Did you roll your eyes with me?

Although it feels cynical to side against self-love, I simply worry that this feels a little too close to the commercial exploitation of insecurity. If we purchase Darling’s book in order to love ourselves, who’s to say we shouldn’t purchase a rhinoplasty, or that new designer jumper that everyone seems to have but you? That’s not to say that I am against the movement as a whole, but at this point, I’m proceeding with caution.

In a similar vein to the question of commercialised self-love, I turn to another no less pressing issue: is self-love a mindset that you can simply decide to inhabit one day? Can you try on optimism like a new jacket and leave your old insecurities on the fitting room floor with other temporary delusions like belief in the tooth fairy? Thinking that such a radically good feeling will last forever is what I recognise as a manic episode. I’m pessimistic about the possibility of turning your life around simply because you decide it’s fashionable to love yourself.

On the other hand, I consider that Albert Camus’ freedom has, as its point of entry, an abrupt recognition of the absurd conditions of life. “We must imagine Sisyphus happy” because, having discerned that there was no power to prevent it, Sisyphus is free to conclude that “all is well”. In this way, might it not be possible to navigate Oxford with an awareness of the absurdity of the university and the social exigencies of its student populace?

Radical self-love feels artificially radical to me. I don’t want to have to pay £10.29 to find out that I’m not as messed up as I think I am. I don’t want to put my faith in a TikTok edit to inspire a shift in my outlook.

But maybe there’s something profound at its core. Maybe it is still possible to start loving yourself and your life just by choosing to start swimming up to the surface. To trace the shape of the firm bedrock of insecurity and push up from it simply because you see that it is absurd. To trust that there’s no concrete obstacle between us and a self-belief that doesn’t flinch at the possibility of failure. The kind that helped Alysa Liu come back better than ever.
“Winning isn’t all that and neither is losing,” says Liu: “It’s just something that happens, it’s the outcome. But what matters is the input and the journey.” The key word is input; a concerted effort, not a video you like and forget about. For many of us, self-belief doesn’t come naturally and isn’t going to manifest in us by osmosis. You have to practise. Not a triple Axel, but choosing self-belief. Because despite the girlboss idealism of radical self-love, Oxford needs a little more Alysa Liu.

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Student Life

Branding the beautiful game: How the World Cup logo signifies the commercialisation of football

Published

47 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

As billions around the world gear up for the beautiful game to touch down in not one, but three cultural superpowers, there has been an overriding sense of disgruntlement with North America’s vision of the world’s festival. Restlessness with the tournament, hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, has grown steadily since the unveiling of its logo nearly three years ago; far from an empty icon, its design reveals an insight into the growing commercialisation tearing fans away from the game they love.

Beset by organisational and political problems, the upcoming FIFA World Cup is not only the most ambitious in the institution’s history but also the most marketed. In fact, this World Cup goes where none other has before in the realm of marketing. From Clarkson’s Farm to Coca-Cola, Lego to Lays, there is seemingly no product to which the World Cup treatment has not been extended. Key to this effort is the marketing power invested in the World Cup logo.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the World Cup logo for setting the tone of the quadrennial tournament. From the very first World Cup logo at the 1954 Swiss tournament, a stylised ball-like icon incorporating a red Swiss flag turned football pitch in its centre, the World Cup logo has been utilised as a chance to paint a picture of national pride and culture. Through the years, each host has taken up this chance with fresh ideas and new perspectives.

There have been both remarkable successes and notable failures in the history of World Cup logo designs. Mexico’s 1970 World Cup saw what many regard as one of the finest sports logos ever created, its distinctive MEXICO 70 wordmark drawing inspiration from Lance Wyman’s typography for the 1968 Olympic Games. By contrast, England’s 1966 logo lacked both the inspiration and commendation expected for a tournament which brought such iconic moments. Yet, despite their varying levels of success, each of these attempts shared a common goal: they are designed not only to articulate a host nation’s identity but also to communicate its place within an international community brought together by football.

This is what the World Cup is about: drawing football into a global conversation of hope and joy. The World Cup logo is a visual cue for this, stating the organiser’s ambitions for the tournament. The logo for South Africa 2010, for example, was designed around the idea of unity, using sweeping colours that combine to form the African continent while converging on the football. These logos signify cultural moments, and being a part of a cultural moment is what fans seek. It is precisely this sense of shared significance that many fans seem to find absent from the approaching tournament.

The World Cup is not only about culture, it is also a political beast of sizable proportions. In its worst forms, football has proved an effective way of bolstering support for authoritarian regimes and blinding the world to corruption and coercion. The World Cup itself is no stranger to political interference. Whether used to strengthen and unite Fascist Italy in 1934 or ran by a brutish authoritarian regime, the tournament has long struggled to keep a clean face to cover its dark underbelly.

As the symbolic face of the tournament, the World Cup logo has often served as a façade to cover up cultural and political tensions. Decided upon by design committees, consultancy firms, and so-called ‘brand teams’, the World Cup logo is a powerful marketing device aimed at suspending the material, political, and social reality of the tournament, promoting the image of a world unified by the spirit of the game. However, at this year’s 23rd edition of the FIFA World Cup the curtains have been well-and-truly drawn back.

Rather than projecting an image of a tournament defined by sporting merit and excitement, this World Cup’s logo serves as perhaps the most striking testament to its underlying commercial character. Since Sepp Blatter’s 17-year stint as FIFA president, beset with allegations of corruption, fans have felt a growing rot within the game as commercial interests begin to outweigh sporting spirit. The selection of the USA as primary hosts, the foils of dynamic ticket pricing, and the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams, have all contributed to the sense that this World Cup is a pinnacle of the game’s demise. This year’s logo does little to hide this. Its sterile numerical design and photo-realistic representation of the FIFA World Cup trophy bear greater resemblance to Apple campaigns than to tournament logos of old.

While FIFA has adapted this design for the individual host cities, it seems more like a brand template than a thoughtful representation of sport or culture. The brainchild of a Toronto-based creative agency, the logo does little to acknowledge football fan culture, instead becoming just another feature of America’s corporate “logorama”. If the World Cup logo aims to summarise the tone of the games, symbolising the tournament’s message to the world, then this is a message of meaningless corporate greed and soulless commodities. The World Cup logo has been rendered plain and marketable, suiting a tournament that now holds those values at its core.

And yet, this format is here to stay. ‘Johnny’ Infantino, as he is warmly referred to by President Trump, promises that all future tournaments will continue to use this numerical design to provide brand consistency, no matter the extent of fan outcries. Whatever excuse or justification one makes for such a decision, it always comes back to the same logic: business. For fans around the world, World Cups are not remembered for their revenue or marketability, but because of the cultural moment they created. It seems that for Mr. Infantino and motley mob, this is of little importance. FIFA is very much at risk of tearing out the game’s soul in order to grow its brand; once that soul is gone, one must ask what there remains to sell.

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Student Life

Oxford Union holds “This House Believes the West is Right to be Suspicious of Islam” Debate

Published

1 day ago

June 17, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

Background

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, otherwise known as Tommy Robinson, is due to speak at the Oxford Union at 8.30 pm this evening at a debate on the motion “This House Believes the West is Right to be Suspicious of Islam”. The event has drawn condemnation from University societies, local politicians, and local faith leaders.

The debate comes days after Yaxley-Lennon was detained at Heathrow Airport on Saturday evening under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, following his return to the UK from Russia. His phones were seized, but no further action has been announced by the Metropolitan Police.

Thames Valley Police (TVP) has confirmed a significant policing operation across Oxford city centre from 3.30 pm today. St Michael’s Street, where the Oxford Union is located, has been closed to vehicles and pedestrians since 4 pm, and will remain shut until 1 pm. Despite earlier statements, it has been confirmed that no other roads will be closed.

Businesses in the city centre have also been closing early: The White Rabbit pub announced in advance it would shut from 3.30 pm, citing safety concerns and solidarity with other independent businesses. The Handlebar Kitchen on St Michael’s Street closed at 3.00 pm – their pavement licence was revoked for the day. Activate Learning, which runs further education colleges in the area, has also written to parents and carers advising students to avoid large gatherings and allow extra time for journeys through the city centre.

In a statement, Oxford City Council Leader Susan Brown has raised the question of the cost of the large-scale security operation. She wrote that the Oxford Union “must meet the full costs of staging their event, rather than leaving Oxford’s taxpayers to pick up the bill”. The Oxford Green Party has also issued a statement, demanding that the Oxford Union “cover the entire cost of the security operation it is requiring” and that “compensation be paid by the society to local businesses forced to board up their windows and close”. Cherwell has previously reported that the Oxford Union is just years away from insolvency.

The Oxford University Islamic Society issued a formal statement warning that the invitation posed a direct threat to Muslim students’ safety, arguing that “extending a platform to individuals whose reputations are built upon targeting minority communities is not without consequence”. A group of Oxfordshire Liberal Democrat politicians, including MP for Oxford West and Abingdon Layla Moran, have also called on the Union to reflect on whether proceeding “was consistent with “the values of respect, inclusion, and community cohesion that Oxfordshire strives to uphold”.

Individual colleges at the University of Oxford have announced that they will remain closed to the public this afternoon, and have reached out to remind their students to take the requisite precautions. Wadham College, for example, urged students to “please act responsibly, stay safe and vigilant and take the disruption into account when planning your afternoon and evening”.

The debate is due to feature Laurence Fox and Jonathon Sacerdoti (alongside Yaxley-Lennon) on the proposition, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Abdullah Al-Andalusi, and Michael Doward on the opposition.

Defending her decision to invite Yaxley-Lennon in an article in The Telegraph, Elrayess wrote: “For more than 200 years, the Oxford Union has existed to host debates – not to platform views uncritically, but to subject them to the most rigorous scrutiny. You do not invite a speaker to endorse them: you invite them so that their ideas can be examined, and their claims tested.”

A spokesperson for the Oxford Union previously told Cherwell that the Union gives “members the opportunity to challenge…a broad range of speakers” and “only host[s] speakers who agree to be challenged”.

The University of Oxford has shared a reminder that “welfare services are available to support all students”.

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Student Life

Oxford’s prestigious reputation deserves scrutiny

Published

1 day ago

June 17, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

I was very close to rejecting Oxford for Exeter. While this is not why I eventually accepted my offer, I couldn’t stop thinking about the prestige the name ‘Oxford’ connotes. This ‘prestige’, however, was historically incubated through empire, slavery, class hierarchy, and elite political power. For these reasons, especially, I feel that studying here is nothing to boast about at all.

We often ignore the fact that Oxford did not merely exist during the empire, but helped to produce the people and ideas that sustained it. It was this institution, alongside Cambridge, that was tasked with educating generations of colonial administrators who governed the British Empire. Among them are: Cecil Rhodes, Lord Curzon, Alfred Milner, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, and Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin. Additionally, Britain would offer members of foreign elites a place to study at Oxbridge, a practice that some scholars view as a soft power tactic to strengthen British cultural and diplomatic influence abroad. Perhaps unrelated, today, over one quarter of the world’s countries still have a leader who was educated in the UK.

Oxford further helped intellectually legitimise the empire and colonial hierarchy. Subjects like classics, theology, and my own subject, ‘Oriental studies’ (now Middle East Studies), were historically intertwined with imperial governance. These disciplines provided the ideological justifications and administrative frameworks necessary to establish and manage the British Empire. Even today, I have classmates from ethnic minority backgrounds who have told me about Oxford coursemates and even a tutor who has proudly introduced themselves – to them specifically – as the grand or great-grandchild of the governor of areas in Bangladesh, India, and so on.

Oxford has also benefited from wealth derived from colonial exploitation. The Codrington Library at All Souls College was funded by Christopher Codrington. His fortune was accumulated from Caribbean sugar plantations where enslaved Africans were put to work. When Oxford has wished not to associate with its donors, they have renamed libraries. The Ferdowsi Library in Wadham College was initially the Ashraf Pahlavi Library, as it was funded by the last Shah of Iran’s sister in 1977. Just two years later, when the Shah was overthrown, the College didn’t hesitate to rename the library. The Codrington Library, however, still bears a slave-owner’s name.

Looking back at the last three years, Oxford students organised encampments calling on Oxford to divest from companies linked to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and criticised the University for insufficient transparency regarding its investments. Oxford was quick to ban and dismantle the encampments. In January 2025, as many students may remember, abseiling police officers were seen scaling the Radcliffe Camera to arrest protesters from Oxford Action 4 Palestine. Would the University’s response have been so harsh if students were protesting a different humanitarian catastrophe?

Another cause of personal discomfort for me is every single time I have to wear my sub-fusc. The same sub-fusc that was worn by Leo Amery and Lord Alfred Milner, who, along with Arthur Balfour, drafted and authorised the Balfour Declaration.

These ongoing and past injustices are easily traced back to Oxford’s alumni and donors. Apart from these alumni and Oxford’s current polemical financial investments, having played a role in fuelling injustice in current ongoing international conflicts, its links to past atrocities can still be seen in its landscape. The relationship between Oriel College and British imperialist and white supremacist Cecil Rhodes (the founder of the colonies of North and South Rhodesia) is perhaps the most high-profile example. Rhodes left a financial bequest to the college, which funded the construction of the building that still bears his name, and his statue remains prominent in Oriel. Again, in the past, Oxford has renamed buildings and can easily do so again. For instance, the Faculty of Asian and Middle East Studies was previously the Oriental Institute – while the name has officially changed, the ‘Oriental Institute’ sign remains.

In 2015, the University of Cape Town, after immense pressure from its student body, removed the statue of Cecil Rhodes from their campus. Our students continue to campaign for the same, especially after the “Black Lives Matter” movement, but the Rhodes statue remains. The global “Rhodes Must Fall” movement has argued that Oxford glorifies the Empire while marginalising those harmed by it. At times, our student body has done the same, like in 2015, when the Oxford Union named one of their cocktail drinks: “Colonial Comeback”.

It is public knowledge that up until that year, academics from Worcester College were drinking from a 225-year-old skull, thought to have belonged to an enslaved woman, and gifted to them by an alumnus. Why did that alumnus feel that human remains, which were passed down in his own family, were the best gift to present to his college? Why did he assume it would not raise any questions? Why did multiple Oxford academics even think to use it for such a purpose, and comfortably do so for years? Even after it was damaged, they used this human skull to store chocolate. All this alone reveals so much.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was some Oxford academics (Julian Huxley, John R. Baker, and E. B. Ford) who were among the elite who perpetuated eugenic theories, and played a role in legitimising racial hierarchy under the guise of ‘scientific research’. In recent times, other Oxford academics, like Nigel Biggar, Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology, have defended certain aspects of colonialism, as can be seen in his article for The Times in 2017. As for Oxford donors whose names are ingrained in stone in the buildings we study in, their names are also found in the Epstein files. If not for word-count sake, this list would go on, all raising questions about the kind of institution I feel I really belong to.

And yet, instead, for reasons I cannot fathom, Oxford is somehow considered by so many to be a source of moral and intellectual authority. In a clothed expression of classism, a former sixth-form teacher of mine even went as far as to describe Oxford students as “the peak of civilisation” to explain why he was shocked that Oxford has one of the highest statistics among UK universities for cases of sexual assault on university grounds.

I will never belittle all that Oxford has given me, including my Oxford education, and I suffered greatly for my place here. However, pride in this institution – in where I study and who has studied here before me – will always be impossible for me.

We cannot pick and choose. We cannot believe that we are inheriting a millennium of intellectual achievement, and also dismiss the moral weight that comes with it. We cannot falsify, erase, or deny history, and a large part of Oxford’s history is shamefully one of empire, elite political power, and built with slavery-linked wealth. Students have every right to question what that legacy means today. If anything, doing so reflects the very critical thinking and values that Oxford claims it champions.

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