mainstreaming of VICE // VICE mainstream

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
It's not twitter though. If there is any problem with medium and disproportionate reactions it's people with an audience of millions refusing to take the most simple considerations on board. With journalism suffering both economic slump and collapse of / changing business model it's probably difficult to separate one from the other. So while already having your work and livelihood devalued the latest affront only adds to the siege mentality. With everything else in meltdown having your right on credentials challenged from below is sending them over the edge. Most sharply if that is what you trade on.

Think how many articles you used to see flat out rubbish the internet. Easier then accepting a change and engaging.
 
D

droid

Guest
5 pages of VICE and no mention of

sugarape.jpg


?
 

trza

Well-known member
Ace of Base's Secret Nazi Past in Noisey is based on a documentary released in 1997, a cd reissued in 1998 and a youtube video uploaded in 2011.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
Sorry I didn't check this thread before it went haywire. Yeah, I agree with whoever brought up the Jizz Smoothie post or whatever it was, and IdleRich's comments regarding. As someone who furiously refutes most liberal hairsplitting relating to prejudice, political correctness and other language police-ish tendencies, that's not really what's at issue here. It's frat-boy bullshit whose inclusion in the magazine/on the site exemplifies a side of its character you fans will try to scrub up as irony or subversion, when in fact it's just the kind of thing that wouldn't even make it to a Loaded magazine pitch meeting. Not because it's too subversive or ironic, or even misogynistic (although it may be that, we'll never know unless we're actually inside the minds of the people who made/approved it with an objective stethoscope -- hence the danger of labelling anything or anyone misogynistic when we don't actually know scientifically the motivation).

No, it's a lads mag. They have the budget to go to Mexico and North Korea, and they've strung along some fairly decent people for the ride on these foreign excursions, who've written what appears to be fairly good shit. They probably paid them well, which is a striking contrast to the many people who contribute to their project for nothing or pittance. But you know, the Daily Mail taps out a real killer of an article every once in a while. Yes, about liberal topics and sympathetically too. But none of us read the occasional decent article in the Daily Mail and proclaim it to be some kind of Jacobin proxy to our liberal debauchery, do we? No, because we know better, and we can see the forest beyond the occasional tree. The Mail has become shorthand for a certain kind of curtain-twitching bigotry we have all come to loathe, and rightly so. But Vice seems to get away with a similar level of judgmental, borderline bigoted crap, because it's read not by your mum or some Wiltshire homophone but by some of your friends using its Dos and Don'ts thing as some kind of arbiter of cool. Or if not cool-o-meter, a thing it's at least OK to laugh at while scorning the shallow, small-minded fodder the Mail throws up when it does an expose of a celebrity not wearing much make-up.

BTW the thing about 'transcending judgmental attitudes' wasn't an observation of the way alternative culture has come to operate. I'd say its almost parochial, tribal divisions are inspired and perpetuated by the likes of Vice, though, who profit from every douchebag in a Minor Threat t-shirt who scorns others for not fitting into the 'subculture'. But what I mean by 'transcending judgmental attitudes' is that's historically been the goal of any dude who identifies with a traditionally persecuted group. Now Vice is taking the signs and pointing them back at those very people. The very best of intentions are being co-opted into the regime with the worst.

Over and out.
 

Patrick Swayze

I'm trying to shut up
in fairness I've never really seen the "dos and donts" section as malicious. I've always taken the fact that it'd be hard to put actual parameters on what is considered a 'do' and what is considered a 'dont' to mean that the real aim of the column is self-deprecation i.e. don't we all look ridiculous and yet we still assign notions of 'right' and 'wrong' to how we dress (absurd in itself)

the whole thing strikes me as very tongue in cheek

I've certainly never clicked on it and felt genuine contempt for any of the ppl pictured. And we all judge people's appearance, in one way or another based on our personal set of values, in our heads and among our friends anyway.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
^ what a load of crap bangpuss.

i have never met a single girl who finds Vice offensive or misogynist. and i have quite a few feminist theory types in my circles who reads Kristeva. instead, they all either like it and read it regularly, or find the occasional story funny or curious.

besides, for every "lad's story" like "Who Gives The Best Head, Girls or Gays" or whatever, there is a "Guide to Eating Pussy" article written by a girl.

Vice is one of the most un-sexist, un-classist, and resolutely anti-racist publications in existence.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Again, I'm interpreting for you Zhao but I read "lads" as meaning "lads and ladettes" of the frat boy kind. It seems you're determined to read every criticism of Vice as saying it's misogynist when really they're just saying it's crap.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
Jeepers, Zhao, how are we supposed to respect your opinion when you keep criticising us for stuff we didn't say?

I specifically said I don't like the liberal hair-splitting and labelling stuff as misogynistic when there's no clear way of knowing the intentions of the authors/editors, which we don't. You could be right: they're die-hard subversives blah blah whatever. That still doesn't make the Gross Jar, or Do's and Don'ts, or the Guide to Eating Pussy (whatever the gender of its author) particularly good. I'm specifically saying it's mostly a bowl of piss outside of the sexual/racial politics. OUTSIDE, BEYOND, BESIDES. I don't find the Gross Jar misogynistic, I just find it incredibly dumb.

The comparisons to the Daily Mail, I think, are particularly apt because the one thing everyone loves/hates about the Mail is its predictability. It dwells on a few select topics to get its hits/readers and reports them sensationally and selaciously. House prices, immigrants, etc. Well guess what, Vice does exactly the same, only with drugs, guns, sex, the far right and terrorism. Sure, there's other stuff, just as the Mail does feature other content, some of which isn't bad. But not much. Let's have a look at what's on the front page of the site today, and see if we can find anything that fits that description, shall we?

Would You Have Sex with a Distant Family Member?
"I'd say 100 percent no."

The Syrian Electronic Army Talk About Hacking the Guardian and Their Obama Bomb Hoax
"They almost crashed the stock market by telling everyone Obama had been bombed."

What Do Terrorists and Tesco Have in Common?
"They both use logos to get their "brand message" across."

Jonathan Hobin Re-Creates the World's Most Infamous Tragedies with Children
"An interview and some exclusive photos of kids re-creating tragedies."

Hanging Out in Benghazi's Car Boot Arms Market
"Where grenades and Kalashnikovs are sold next to herbs and counterfeit t-shirts."

Internet Psychonauts Try All the Drugs You Don't Want to Try
"Which is handy, because some of them sound horrible."

Would You Take MDMA for Therapy?
"Are you selling it? No, I wouldn't take it."

Hungary Is Destroying Itself from the Inside
"The far-right's on the rise and the state's getting oppressive."

See what I mean?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
don't share zhao's active appreciation of vice but I'm def w/him philosophically

they're die-hard subversives blah blah whatever

that's not what was said. I'm tired of repeating myself tho. you can read what I said 2 pages ago if you want.

dwells on a few select topics to get its hits/readers and reports them sensationally and selaciously...Vice does exactly the same

news flash: EVERYONE DOES THIS ON THE INTERNET. sorry for the caps but thats one of the dumbest criticisms I've ever read. The Guardian, The Atlantic, CNN, you name it. every major pop culture website, every major news site, produces click bait. it's not somehow less noble when Vice does it. some places only produce click bait (or aggregate other peoples click bait), some also produce some worthwhile content.

also if Vice's click bait gets people to read semi-serious content about Syria or Liberia or etc then more power to them

'transcending judgmental attitudes'...historically been the goal of any dude who identifies with a traditionally persecuted group

continue to smh in wonder at your extremely rosy and selective view of "alternative culture"

dudes "identifying w/traditionally persecuted groups" has done at least (if not more) as much expropriation and self-interest as anything vice has ever done. also, since it's no longer like, 1981, thankfully self-righteous earnestness isn't only the only way to be anti-sexist/racist/etc.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
yeah it was definitely a mistake to bring this up in the first place

A mistake because we have a differing opinion? I don't understand why you'd join a debate at all if opposing views make you wish you hadn't bothered.

The thing about click-bait or whatever you want to call it, though: You're going to have to do a better job than simply saying 'everybody does it'. True, all publications have areas of interest they focus on more than others. But Vice's obsession with drugs, guns, sex and the far right isn't the same as, say, the Guardian's focus on social security or the health service over, say, immigration or other nationalist issues. It's also about the way they're covered. Sometimes they do get it right, but mostly I think it's way over-the-top, just lads-mag/Bravo-channel titillation, and that's the supposedly 'serious' stuff, not the cum drinking gross jar or whatever.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
also, since it's no longer like, 1981, thankfully self-righteous earnestness isn't only the only way to be anti-sexist/racist/etc.

It's no longer 1996 either. Ironic detachment is the mainstream, not any kind of alternative. And it's a frequently-used cover for some odious attitudes.

I wonder if those from the States just haven't seen wall-to-wall 'irony' for enough years yet to be utterly bored by it. In the UK we certainly have. I may be wrong, but perhaps this is at the root of some of the disagreement here.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
A mistake because we have a differing opinion?

no. because this:

shoulda been more clear in OP tho cos I'm def not interested in just discussing VICE. haven't read the mag in years, rarely if ever look at website, it just don't interest me. plus, who the fuck wants to discuss Vice? it is what it is and it has been for what, nearing 20 years now right? whatever you think of it you think of it.

thought some of the people at Vice parlaying the magazine into the YT channel into an HBO show that got bemused coverage in NYT etc was a marginally interesting development, as much for what it says about CNN or whoever as Vice. bringing it up was mistake cos should've known would inevitably devolve into an argument about the gross jar etc, which is a pointless argument that I don't care about.

don't think Vice is greatest thing ever, or even good, or unproblematic. do think it's an easy target for earnest liberals who want to feel morally superior. also think your criticisms are pretty facile but you're welcome to them. also I'm sorry they didn't pay you one time or whatever + your bitter about it [edit: I take the last line back. I'm sure shady business practices on the internet are hardly unique to vice but it's a low blow and beside the point anyway. the rest stands tho]
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I wonder if those from the States just haven't seen wall-to-wall 'irony' for enough years yet to be utterly bored by it

never been to the States, have you

point isn't that irony is so awesome, just that self-righteous earnestness doesn't impart moral superiority

isn't this the guy who founded vice?

yeah he does the Vincent Gallo "I'm a Republican and a massive jerk but am I really or is it just a massive put-on" schtick. think the only founder still w/Vice is the dude who doing the TV show, who is more benevolently clueless than hardcore d-bag.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
earnest liberals who want to feel morally superior.

I don't think it's about moral superiority or being overly po-faced to say that Vice is good at what it does, which is basically Jackass. Things like Jackass can be funny, but sending Johnny Knoxville to Syria doesn't make it a trustworthy news source. Skateboarding in Palestine doesn't make me feel more or less for the people of Gaza...
It actually kind of cheapens and devalues the issues they're given credit for covering.

also I'm sorry they didn't pay you one time or whatever + your bitter about it.

I'm not bitter, it's a funny story I'm still trying to write up. A tabloid gave me way more for the same story, so I still came out of it OK. But I do wish more people knew how their sausage is made. Or was made, maybe they've changed...
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I've been quite a few times, spent about a year there in total. Outside certain small pockets, that kind of 'irony' really isn't as big there in my experience (which is of course by no means a bad thing). Have you spent time in the UK?

At least if someone is earnest, you have a yardstick by which to judge the difference between their words and actions. With irony, it frequently means someone is too scared to even commit to being judged in that way, and too scared to present what they truly think.

never been to the States, have you

point isn't that irony is so awesome, just that self-righteous earnestness doesn't impart moral superiority

yeah he does the Vincent Gallo "I'm a Republican and a massive jerk but am I really or is it just a massive put-on" schtick. think the only founder still w/Vice is the dude who doing the TV show, who is more benevolently clueless than hardcore d-bag.
 
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