VICE magazine's G. MacInnes in The American Conservative

[D84]

I just saw this article in todays paper which is worth sharing:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Ne...-old-prejudices/2005/04/28/1114635692379.html

"Finally, the dumb community's days are numbered," wrote Canadian Gavin McInnes, in The American Conservative.
"[Young liberals] are slowly but surely being replaced with a new breed of kid that isn't afraid to embrace conservatism. I'm not saying I had anything to do with this newborn counter-culture, but I do have this strange compulsion to start handing out cigars to all my friends."
The conservative counter-culture McInnes was coyly taking credit for is growing into a hugely profitable demographic that is tired of being politically correct and makes no apologies for its privileged, Western lifestyle. It is embodied by Vice - a free youth lifestyle magazine that McInnes co-founded in Montreal 10 years ago and now distributes throughout the world.​

...

"Vice is co-opting underground culture and turning it into a commodity which it's then using to further their own agenda," says Paint it Black's owner Tom Scott. "It's a movement of fascist little hipsters."
Scott is concerned many of Vice's readers - traditionally a demographic who challenged authority and agitated for social change - have stopped caring about morals. "There's a whole group of punk kids that have decided punk isn't for them any more, and that they've got to grow up. So they slot into this Vice-esque, cocaine-snorting existence. They're going against all their past ideals as some kind of statement. They think they're being ironic."​

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

I just saw this article in todays paper which is worth sharing:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Ne...-old-prejudices/2005/04/28/1114635692379.html

"Finally, the dumb community's days are numbered," wrote Canadian Gavin McInnes, in The American Conservative.
"[Young liberals] are slowly but surely being replaced with a new breed of kid that isn't afraid to embrace conservatism. I'm not saying I had anything to do with this newborn counter-culture, but I do have this strange compulsion to start handing out cigars to all my friends."
The conservative counter-culture McInnes was coyly taking credit for is growing into a hugely profitable demographic that is tired of being politically correct and makes no apologies for its privileged, Western lifestyle. It is embodied by Vice - a free youth lifestyle magazine that McInnes co-founded in Montreal 10 years ago and now distributes throughout the world.​

...

"Vice is co-opting underground culture and turning it into a commodity which it's then using to further their own agenda," says Paint it Black's owner Tom Scott. "It's a movement of fascist little hipsters."
Scott is concerned many of Vice's readers - traditionally a demographic who challenged authority and agitated for social change - have stopped caring about morals. "There's a whole group of punk kids that have decided punk isn't for them any more, and that they've got to grow up. So they slot into this Vice-esque, cocaine-snorting existence. They're going against all their past ideals as some kind of statement. They think they're being ironic."​

I don't see Vice in that light at all. It's just a magazine that isn't hung up on guaranteeing that nobody is offended, ever. And their record reviews are some of the best around, priapist rather than onanist - they say which records give them a hard-on but don't proceed to wank off themselves with critical theory for 400 words.

 

[john eden]

Politicos always kids themselves that because people are consuming a particular product, they will swallow whole the beliefs of whoever produced it.

 

[henrymiller]

have you met any vice readers, though? it's not a matter of reception theory. they haven't been brainwashed. they are indeed fascist little hipsters by nature or intent and they have *chosen* vice. it wouldn't be anything without them. the 'beliefs' of the editors are indeed those of the readers. why would you read it otherwise? it's not exactly a hotbed of dissent.

 

[john eden]

Well I read it, sometimes. I like Jim Goad's stuff, tho I don't agree with much of it.

Similarly I don't really like Penny Rimbaud's stuff, but do agree with some of it.

Tho having said that, a browse through the readers comments on the viceland site would seem to suggest that some of them are conservatives of some shade. Does that mean the mag is a torch being held up to unify a new movement like that?

 

[Pearsall]

have you met any vice readers, though? it's not a matter of reception theory. they haven't been brainwashed. they are indeed fascist little hipsters by nature or intent and they have *chosen* vice. it wouldn't be anything without them. the 'beliefs' of the editors are indeed those of the readers. why would you read it otherwise? it's not exactly a hotbed of dissent.

Have you really met anyone who actually takes Vice seriously?

I've met plenty of people who read it, but no one who thought it thought it was important or had anything genuine to say. Perhaps young 'conservative movement' types at the universities like it, but I'd guess that most of its readership comes from the fact that it's free and occassionally funny.

The editorial team is definitely pretty dodgy, though, in that they are flirting increasingly with overt white nationalism; they had Jared Taylor in on a debate and then they were plugging a talk of his on their website.

 

[henrymiller]

of course they don't "take it seriously," ie they don't earnestly debate their bullshit, but they nonetheless firmly believe in it. otherwise they wouldn't read it! of course there's irony there, self-awareness, but its readers need that to go on with it. likewise the guardian is self-aware, but prints polly toynbee and george monbiot anyway. irony is just a safety-valve for these people.

 

[stelfox]

their record reviews are some of the best around, priapist rather than onanist - they say which records give them a hard-on but don't proceed to wank off themselves with critical theory for 400 words.

i've often heard this said, but i think it's a total bullshit myth. i've never seen anything worth reading in it. is the london one still running or has it closed?

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

i've often heard this said, but i think it's a total bullshit myth. i've never seen anything worth reading in it. is the london one still running or has it closed?

Still around, I picked it up in the Sun & 13 Cantons on Beak St a couple of weeks ago while having an idle afternoon pint.

 

[Pearsall]

henrymiller,
I dunno man, I don't think that if you read something that necessarily means you agree with it. That's a bizarre assumption to make. I've read all kinds of stuff written by people that I don't agree with (Marxists, jihadis, white supremacists, black ultra-nationalists, 'critical theory' onanists, movement conservatives, etc etc etc), but that doesn't mean I agree with anything they are saying, or that I can't articulate where and why I disagree with their ideas.

And is there any point in earnestly debating what Vice is talking about? Most of the comments I've heard about Vice as an overall entity are "it's bullshit", which is about as much as needs to be said about it.

 

[martin]

The piece he wrote for the American Conservative was apparently a pisstake, they ran it straight without checking it and in the full piece, there's references to a think tank that doesn't even exist and the statistics quoted were made up.

I think Vice is OK, the readers' comments are probably written by three people posting under fake IDs.

 

[dominic]

i've had roommates in the past who always left copies of vice magazine lying around

(didn't much like said roommates -- of course what roommates have i ever liked!)

and yeah, i'd read through the magazine, look at the images, etc

fascination w/ the abomination

i think for the most part the magazine can only have bad effects on the general public

same is true of most newspapers and magazines -- i.e., they promote the bad -- and in the ideal republic they'd be suppressed!!!

however, vice magazine seems especially vicious -- i.e., let's celebrate the naked and callow

btw the magazine is pushing grime

and i think mike skinner is on their music label or something?

 

[luk_ny]

man, that "american conservative" piece is shameful. why do you think that mcinnes is trying to suck up to the right like that?

vice is funny, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. it's so negative and self-righteous.

 

[owen]

sorry, but i think this outs them as the loathsome, misanthropic shits they are.

(i like momus tho )

 

[zhao]

she came in through the bathroom window

I kind of see his point: whiny complaining liberals have gotten us no where. while we were all feeling smart and cultured in our well informed contempt for the current administration and the fundamentalist christians they represent, the right stole the election. again. I mean GWB is anything but a stupid man. selfish and socio-pathic maybe, but not stupid like all liberals mistakenly thought.

as for the actual new generation of "alternative conservatives", it's a pretty scary phenomenon. picture a goth-kid with all the right tats and boots and jet-black hair covering one eye voting republican. come to think of it... some people prolly think I'm a fascist hipster... but that's just because they haven't taken the time to talk to me.

 

[3underscore]

btw the magazine is pushing grime

and i think mike skinner is on their music label or something?

The label, it seems, is a name operated under a major. They have so far signed the Streets, the Boredoms, Chromeo (when Chromeo actually looked pretty exciting) and I think may have Kano (for a while some thought it had a rights deal on 679 records).

How close the magazine is to the music label I don't know. As for the magazine - it is free. It is the only way that people will pick it up. It's pretty content-less, though I guess the music reviews bare worth glancing at, mainly cos they will go as far as giving Zeigenbock Kopf and others a review.

 

[Ned]

I read Vice and I think it's one of the best magazines out there. I don't buy into its nihilism but one clearly isn't intended to and I don't think many people do (although of course people will carry on accusing 'hipsters' or 'students' or whatever of whatever they want). I like it because, firstly, it's almost the only magazine I can think of which has a recognisable voice; if you think that kind of prose is easy to pull off with such flair then you've obviously never tried. Secondly, their satire of magazine conventions in general is often very witty - for example their interview with Bloc Party here or their fashion spread recently where all the clothes were just discarded over furniture in empty houses. Thirdly, it's unfair to say it's contentless - for example this piece about grime in Somalia is a worthwhile piece of journalism which you wouldn't find anywhere else. Vice is easy to criticise because it seems - and this is part of the point - as if it would be very easy to put together, but actually there are countless throwaway ideas in every issue which a conventional style magazine would beg for. Vice is something which needs to exist and I'm thankful it does.

 

[Dubquixote]

Vice is the best magazine around. It's got balls, it's way funnier than anything else out there, the photography puts most 'serious' photojournalism to shame, features like the "Gross Jar" and porno reviews are stupidly hilarious, its irreverent pisstake towards race issues in America is refreshing, and occasionally it reveals a surprising degree of heart ("Rob's" commentary peppered throughout last month's "Crazy" issue was classic).

Personally I think MacInnes argues a strong case that conservativism has actually become the progressive movement at this moment in history, while liberalism is stagnating.

 

[mms]

there are some things that are just entertaining about vice, the reviews are excited,'do's and don't s' spot on, piers martin's electronica page is always genial and joyful about good music.
i don't like the grimewatch thing as it seems to just treat the mcs like animals and i don't like idiots that call people fags and niggers.
vice mag has an unflinching view of the darker side of things, no wonder william bennet writes for them sometimes, its ok but it's very depressing, worn out and jaded like someone who's run all the adrenalin from their body, but it beats the kind of british school fce style oldschool of overexcited puff pieces. At the very least it provokes thought, even though it's nihlistic in its outlook and with that seems to be rather exploitative.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

Picking up vice is now the ONLY reason I bother to venture back into London. I wouldn't even bother doing that, but they don't publish their album reviews online and soulseek wouldn't be the same without them.

Yay vice. Fuck over-earnest muesli-knitters who don't get it.