By Edward Lander
Disclaimer: This winter-themed event at the SCC was very much real but the same can’t be said about anything else in this satirical story.
Last February, a Glasgow-based events company looking to cash in on the hype surrounding Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel film Wonka held a chocolate-themed experience so bad that police were called. The story received worldwide attention for days afterward.
Last week, the beloved Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) put on an event with some eerie parallels.
This is, of course, referring to Winter Wonderland, an eccentric series of holiday displays and activities that lit up the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Student Campus Centre (SCC) from Jan. 13 to 24.
If you weren’t drawn in by the brighter-than-the-sun flatscreen television advertising the festivities in the SCC’s front window, I’d be happy to let you in on what you missed.
The first thing you may have noticed about Winter Wonderland is the prolific use of what looks like images generated with artificial intelligence (AI). Walking into the SCC’s lobby feels a bit like scrolling on Facebook nowadays—you’ll be met with a bombardment of shoddy AI pictures depicting vaguely holiday-themed thingamabobs and whatchamacallits.
The worst offender was the handful of photo booth cutouts that, rather than placing users’ faces on fun characters, made them appear as disembodied heads floating in low-resolution winter landscapes.
Like its Glaswegian counterpart, Winter Wonderland’s marketing could best be described as dishonest. In an Instagram post on Jan. 9, the TMSU presented students with flashy—and, of course, AI-generated—depictions of what it may look like, oddly paired with real clips of a holiday pop-up at Mapleview Centre, a shopping mall in Burlington, Ont.
In reality, things appeared a little different. Winter Wonderland did boast rooms with unique activations like the gingerbread-filled “Sweetscape” and the seemingly-misspelled “Crystal Strenght,” but the scale wasn’t exactly as advertised.
Sweetscape was no doubt the star of the show. After being guided through a tunnel lined by fairy lights in the “Teschumse Audotrium [sic],” students were met with a cotton candy maker, a popcorn machine and a singular Christmas tree.
Other spaces included similar activations—like “Santa’s Workshop,” where a gift-wrapping competition took place 19 days after Christmas.
While a lot of work—and student money—clearly went into Winter Wonderland, opinions on the event have been mixed.
“I’m not 1,000 per cent sure what the TMSU does for students but I feel like it’s not supposed to be this,” said attendee Emma Nguyen.
TMSU representative Chris Goodwill said he’s regretful that some students weren’t satisfied with the event.
“This has been a moment of reflection, but we remain committed to providing services that truly serve the student body,” he said.
Goodwill said these concerns will be considered in the planning of upcoming TMSU events, like the “Valentine’s Day Sexy XXX-travaganza” on Feb. 14 and the long-awaited “6 Fest 2.0, featuring Drake (for real this time).”
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