mainstreaming of VICE // VICE mainstream

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Skateboarding in Palestine doesn't make me feel more or less for the people of Gaza...

does regular news coverage make you, or the public at large, feel more or less for the people of Gaza (or wherever)? and if it does, which I doubt, is making people feel the point of journalism?

I never said Vice was a "trustworthy news source" (tho neither is CNN, if you followed the coverage of the Boston bombing). it ain't Bernard Fall in Vietnam, but it's also not Jackass. it's more like if the Jackass guys started caring about stuff and decided to start making documentaries about school privatization or immigration but had no idea how to actually do so. the Liberia doc I mentioned: it's just some dudes tooling around Monrovia talking to ex-warlords. it's amateur, lacks depth or insight, they repeatedly look like clueless 1st world assholes (esp compared the two real journalists - one Liberian, one Canadian freelancer who lives there - they get to guide them around). and surely one of the reasons Vice originally wrote about it during the civil war was the WTF factor of the Liberian Civil War, crossdressing cannibals and guys w/names like General Buttnaked. but it's legitimate, and totally unironic - they're def not covertly laughing at the people they're filming - and the style produces its own kind of insight that regular news coverage absolutely wouldn't. that's why I said they're more like a sub-sub-sub-sub Herozg/Errol Morris than 60 Minutes. but watch it for yourself. just understand the difference I'm making between the documentaries and whatever click bait is on Vice's front page.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and btw, wtf is wrong with skateboarding in Palestine? like all news coverage of conflict zones or impoverished people has to be an unrelenting self-serious slog of grimness. like Gazan teenagers aren't allowed to be goofy idiots just as much as 1st world teenagers.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I apologize. clearly you're an expert on the American psyche.

Oh dear. Someone's getting narky, for little or no reason.

If you'll read my original comment: "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."

then you'll see that it was just a supposition on my part. Also, you didn't answer my question about your experience of the UK.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"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"
Maybe true but if you find the topics that a publication is using as click-bait childish then it's probably an indication that you might find the publication childish.

"that's not what he said but more patronizing interpretation, please"

I'm not sure - Bangpuss said he wasn't commenting on any supposed sexism from Vice just its laddishnes and Zhao said

"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.
Which may be true but is at best irrelevant. I definitely read it as Zhao trying to shift the criticisms back to sexism (for the second time) - presumably becuase it is easier to defend on those grounds.

Not that I personally have a problem with the laddishness of Vice - it is what it is and there's not much more to say about it. I quite enjoy it every now and again.
 

trza

Well-known member
The whole North Korea scenario this past couple months seems to have played out like every other North Korea crisis of the past twenty years. But if NK had bombed some island off the coast of South Korea or sunk a fishing boat, would Vice have apologized for going there with a washed up basketball star a month earlier? I get the idea of going there for an HBO special, but what if some poor South Korean fisherman or conscripted soldiers had died in some bizarre incident?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
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.

So, let me get this straight, is the basis of Vice a post-Gen X P. J. O'Rourke pose? It's funny, I'm a magazine addict, but I have never taken more than a cursory glance at Vice. It stank of stunts.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
does regular news coverage make you, or the public at large, feel more or less for the people of Gaza (or wherever)? and if it does, which I doubt, is making people feel the point of journalism?

I never said Vice was a "trustworthy news source" (tho neither is CNN, if you followed the coverage of the Boston bombing). it ain't Bernard Fall in Vietnam, but it's also not Jackass. it's more like if the Jackass guys started caring about stuff and decided to start making documentaries about school privatization or immigration but had no idea how to actually do so. the Liberia doc I mentioned: it's just some dudes tooling around Monrovia talking to ex-warlords. it's amateur, lacks depth or insight, they repeatedly look like clueless 1st world assholes (esp compared the two real journalists - one Liberian, one Canadian freelancer who lives there - they get to guide them around). and surely one of the reasons Vice originally wrote about it during the civil war was the WTF factor of the Liberian Civil War, crossdressing cannibals and guys w/names like General Buttnaked. but it's legitimate, and totally unironic - they're def not covertly laughing at the people they're filming - and the style produces its own kind of insight that regular news coverage absolutely wouldn't. that's why I said they're more like a sub-sub-sub-sub Herozg/Errol Morris than 60 Minutes. but watch it for yourself. just understand the difference I'm making between the documentaries and whatever click bait is on Vice's front page.

I agree with about 90% of that. I'm not defending regular news coverage, for the complex of factors relating to bias and what consitutes 'news', etc. But with Vice, you're right, they come across as ignorant, churlish first-worlders only there for the 'whoah, dude!' factor. Do they care about the people and the issues? Maybe they do. But as you say, there's definitely a form of cultural colonialism going on, with privileged white dudes exploiting tragic situations for titillation. All foreign news coverage is ambulance chasing to an extent, but Vice's version is particularly vulgar.

As much as I hate to bring it back to sexism, have a flick through the mag or look at the site and tell me how many women hold editorial positions. I don't think that necessarily makes them misogynistic. (Read that line again.) But I can totally understand why someone could think so, especially when added to the other evidence which supports that argument.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
so shane smith was on charlie rose last friday. only caught the last 2/3s but it was pretty interesting. he made some of the same points I did upthread about Vice's ability to present news to people that are interested in news but turned off by traditional news outlets, and he said that news - and specifically the longform content on its YT channel - has been by far Vice's most popular content for awhile now. the shift to news was - like I thought - a philosophical one for him, he realized if he had this platform he wanted to say something of worth instead of just snarky pop culture bullshit or whatever (the split w/mcinnes was at least partly over that), and it wound up being a good business move too b/c it turns out people do prefer news to click bait if you can present it in a way that engages them. there was a fair amount of entrepreneur seminar kind of talk about being willing to continuously reinventing yourself etc, altho he also made a pretty good point about how for a long time everyone was investing in platforms instead of in creating original content, which Vice focused on. oh and they got into the North Korea trip, if anyone is interested I can summarize what he said but this is already getting pretty long. I dunno if charlie rose streams online anywhere but i recommend watching it if you can find a way (c rose is always good anyway)

the last thing he said was "if you want to avoid criticism don't go anywhere and don't do anything" which, 100% yes
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
also @Bangpuss - didn't see that before but: 95% of foreign news coverage is ambulance chasing and I don't think Vice's is any less dignified or more exploitative than CNN (if you think is isn't true I dare you to watch any 8 consecutive hours of CNN) or the BBC. it is worse than no-nonsense independent journalists, indymedia types or otherwise but unfortunately that kind of coverage is typically highly marginalized. plus also, see above comment about criticism
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
CNN is like The Day Today! Jawdroppingly bad, 100% comedy. True, vice may not be less dignified than that, but it's a low bar. Again, there's a significant difference between us and uk culturally, to reiterate my point above.

also @bangpuss - didn't see that before but: 95% of foreign news coverage is ambulance chasing and I don't think Vice's is any less dignified or more exploitative than CNN (if you think is isn't true I dare you to watch any 8 consecutive hours of CNN) or the BBC. it is worse than no-nonsense independent journalists, indymedia types or otherwise but unfortunately that kind of coverage is typically highly marginalized. plus also, see above comment about criticism
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
CNN is like The Day Today! .

Sure we've all seen this, right?

7811_577766285601034_1835035799_n.jpg


Left: CNN Turkey
Right: international CNN
 

nomos

Administrator
The Revolution Will Not Be Vice
http://gawker.com/the-revolution-will-not-be-vice-1165948487

Honesty demands that Vice's accomplishments be acknowledged. It also demands that we call Vice what it really is: an ever-expanding machine for selling counterculture cool to the world's largest and most mainstream corporations. All media companies including ours are in the business of selling their audience's attention, of course, but Vice stands out for its twin passions of wrapping itself in antiestablishment symbols and simultaneously hustling harder than anyone to become part of the establishment. More than most media companies, Vice is a trick pulled on its own audience: lured by the promise of not giving a fuck, cool kids are assembled into a space where their desirable not-give-a-fuckness can be sold to corporate sponsors for hefty fees, which go into the pockets of Vice's owners.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
that is 1 way of looking at it. do you think it is the only?

Even with the mainstreaming and success, even with the imperfections and problems, i still enjoy Vice content once in a while, and DAMN glad it exists rather than not.

Voice of privilege? what media, music, film, in the West isn't?
Exploitative? on the other hand it DOES expose injustice and inequity on a global scale in a way other publications are not doing.
Jackass of news? But reaching a young western audience who otherwise would be much less informed of the devastating toll, and disastrous consequences of their privilege.
 
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