No VICE is overtaken except what is common to us all
May 16, 2023 7:38 PM Subscribe
Vice Media files for bankruptcy as ad business suffers:
Vice Media Group, popular for websites such as Vice and Motherboard, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday to engineer its sale to a group of lenders, capping years of financial difficulties and top-executive departures.
The bankruptcy filing is a fallout of a challenging period for many technology and media companies that have been cutting costs to survive a weak advertising market amid slowing economic growth.
Vice said the lender consortium that includes Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital will provide about $225 million in credit bid for almost all of its assets and also assume significant liabilities at closing.
Vice: started off as an edgy 'zine for douchebros, then got big, closed the Glasslands, had kind of a moment of relevance, and then screwed everyone over through mismanagement. It will not be missed.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:24 PM on May 16, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:24 PM on May 16, 2023 [9 favorites]
They had already killed Waypoint, which was the only good thing about that site.
posted by JDHarper at 8:27 PM on May 16, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by JDHarper at 8:27 PM on May 16, 2023 [9 favorites]
Sometimes it felt like they were trying to mash Jack-Ass style antics with **SeRiOuS jOuRnAlIsM**, usually with limited success.
Waypoint was a genuinely good exception to that vibe.
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:55 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Waypoint was a genuinely good exception to that vibe.
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:55 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
They should have just pulled a Meta/Xe flex and changed the name.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:07 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:07 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m really going to miss Waypoint, but Motherboard has done some good reporting too.
posted by rodlymight at 9:10 PM on May 16, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 9:10 PM on May 16, 2023 [10 favorites]
Even though Gavin McInnes has long been unaffiliated with Vice, there were still even in 2023 threads of McInnes's cultural influence.
Ironically the "go woke go broke" social media commentators were out in full force when this news first broke.
posted by gtrwolf at 9:39 PM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ironically the "go woke go broke" social media commentators were out in full force when this news first broke.
posted by gtrwolf at 9:39 PM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
I will miss Vice for one reason - they were the first place I found out about Charlottesville. I came home from work and turned on the tv that day and their report was the first thing I saw. My mouth dropped open and all I could do was to stare, simply astounded by what I saw. I think that is when I became “woke”. They did probably the best job of covering that of anyone.
posted by cybrcamper at 10:13 PM on May 16, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by cybrcamper at 10:13 PM on May 16, 2023 [11 favorites]
FCGH
posted by ominous_paws at 10:39 PM on May 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by ominous_paws at 10:39 PM on May 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
DO: massively overextend yourself beyond your snarky origins as an indie culture zine.
DON’T: remain solvent.
posted by MarchHare at 11:46 PM on May 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
DON’T: remain solvent.
posted by MarchHare at 11:46 PM on May 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
Despite the gonzo sarcasm, there was a surprising candour that I miss from the early era of the VICE show, back when it was basically “Grunge 60 Minutes” with Shane Smith presenting it as a kind of Gen-X Orson Wells, because each episode usually contained two segments:
1) Here’s something that could be the end of humanity, and
2) Here’s a reason we deserve it.
posted by MarchHare at 11:54 PM on May 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
1) Here’s something that could be the end of humanity, and
2) Here’s a reason we deserve it.
posted by MarchHare at 11:54 PM on May 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Vice producers were the only journalists to ever take up my request that, if they wanted to find out about climate change, they needed to interview local and state politicans who are approving these 60 new petrochemical doomsday devices to operate on the old sugar plantations.
Not wash post. Not nytimes, not NPR, they all give these apparatchiks, these eichmanns, a total pass.
Whether they meant to or not, Vice has often stumbled into good conflict with powerful people.
posted by eustatic at 2:17 AM on May 17, 2023 [31 favorites]
Not wash post. Not nytimes, not NPR, they all give these apparatchiks, these eichmanns, a total pass.
Whether they meant to or not, Vice has often stumbled into good conflict with powerful people.
posted by eustatic at 2:17 AM on May 17, 2023 [31 favorites]
I'm sure Vice did good work, but the tone and tenor of the whole organisation meant that I never found out, and was never remotely tempted to.
posted by Dysk at 2:22 AM on May 17, 2023
posted by Dysk at 2:22 AM on May 17, 2023
Yeah, Motherboard did good work in tech news...but I never read it directly, only heard about it second hand from the Risky Business podcast.
posted by wenestvedt at 2:55 AM on May 17, 2023
posted by wenestvedt at 2:55 AM on May 17, 2023
Whether they meant to or not, Vice has often stumbled into good conflict with powerful people.
Which makes me assume that the next step will be a takeover by a right-wing billionaire asshole who doesn't mind how much money they lose as long as they get their viewpoint pushed.
posted by clawsoon at 4:10 AM on May 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
Which makes me assume that the next step will be a takeover by a right-wing billionaire asshole who doesn't mind how much money they lose as long as they get their viewpoint pushed.
posted by clawsoon at 4:10 AM on May 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
This is bad news. Vice was capable of supporting good work, such as Joel Golby's London Rental Opportunity of the Week (previously).
posted by virago at 4:39 AM on May 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by virago at 4:39 AM on May 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
Vice had its moments but like so many other good things in life, it was co-opted by corporate douche-bags who only wanted profit.
On a personal note, I'm going to really miss the Waypoint crew (Vice Gaming). Patrick Klepek, Rob Zacny, Renata Price, Austin Walker, Natalie Watson, Ricardo Contreras are ALL going to be missed.
Not only a great podcast (which I urge everyone here to go back to the Archives and give a listen) but their journalism shined in an era where thoughtful criticism and analysis of gaming are rare. I don't know these people but the parasocial warmth I received whenever I watched their streams or listened to their pod is something I'm going to mourn. We just can't have good things.
That being said, all the more reason to unionize, radicalize, & agitate for workers rights and protections!!
posted by Fizz at 6:01 AM on May 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
On a personal note, I'm going to really miss the Waypoint crew (Vice Gaming). Patrick Klepek, Rob Zacny, Renata Price, Austin Walker, Natalie Watson, Ricardo Contreras are ALL going to be missed.
Not only a great podcast (which I urge everyone here to go back to the Archives and give a listen) but their journalism shined in an era where thoughtful criticism and analysis of gaming are rare. I don't know these people but the parasocial warmth I received whenever I watched their streams or listened to their pod is something I'm going to mourn. We just can't have good things.
That being said, all the more reason to unionize, radicalize, & agitate for workers rights and protections!!
posted by Fizz at 6:01 AM on May 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
> Even though Gavin McInnes has long been unaffiliated with Vice, there were still even in 2023 threads of McInnes's cultural influence.
Ironically the "go woke go broke" social media commentators were out in full force when this news first broke.
I watched a clip of McInnes talking about the bankruptcy. He said gloating over "go woke go broke" didn't make sense because Vice made lots and lots of money for at least ten years; the real the problem was that Shane Smith kept pushing the value of the company into the billions of dollars when it's a website and magazine and couldn't possibly be worth more a hundred million dollars.
I think that makes sense when you compare Vice to Rolling Stone, which hasn't been the hip youth outlet in decades, but has stuck around no matter how the ad markets change, by mostly just being a magazine.
posted by riruro at 6:32 AM on May 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
Ironically the "go woke go broke" social media commentators were out in full force when this news first broke.
I watched a clip of McInnes talking about the bankruptcy. He said gloating over "go woke go broke" didn't make sense because Vice made lots and lots of money for at least ten years; the real the problem was that Shane Smith kept pushing the value of the company into the billions of dollars when it's a website and magazine and couldn't possibly be worth more a hundred million dollars.
I think that makes sense when you compare Vice to Rolling Stone, which hasn't been the hip youth outlet in decades, but has stuck around no matter how the ad markets change, by mostly just being a magazine.
posted by riruro at 6:32 AM on May 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
That was definitely a thing brought up by the Waypoint crew. They killed large swaths of the site despite those being profitable (like, actually, making steady positive income over expenses money), because they were shitting gold fast enough.
The owner class are some of the most shortsighted, moronic, childish motherfuckers to have ever existed.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:33 AM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
The owner class are some of the most shortsighted, moronic, childish motherfuckers to have ever existed.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:33 AM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yeah, Motherboard did good work in tech news...but I never read it directly, only heard about it second hand from the Risky Business podcast.
I maintain a daily links blog/newsletter for my employer, where we post links to reporting on IT security issues in the news, and I remember following Motherboard in my collection of RSS feeds for about six months before I gave up on them. Lots of individually-interesting articles that I absolutely could not link to, either because of the VICE-imposed editorial tone that made it NSFW, or because at one point they put all of their articles into an infinite scroll where a decently-researched infosec piece would invisibly segue into some wildly NSFW stuff apparently aggregated from the main VICE feed.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:11 AM on May 17, 2023
I maintain a daily links blog/newsletter for my employer, where we post links to reporting on IT security issues in the news, and I remember following Motherboard in my collection of RSS feeds for about six months before I gave up on them. Lots of individually-interesting articles that I absolutely could not link to, either because of the VICE-imposed editorial tone that made it NSFW, or because at one point they put all of their articles into an infinite scroll where a decently-researched infosec piece would invisibly segue into some wildly NSFW stuff apparently aggregated from the main VICE feed.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:11 AM on May 17, 2023
Huh. Today I learned that Vice got its start as a Montreal punk zine.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:38 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:38 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Whatever you may want to say about Vice, it's pretty remarkable that a bunch of 20 something drug addicts living in Montreal managed to create a global media empire out of a community 'zine.
posted by sid at 5:59 AM on May 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sid at 5:59 AM on May 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Waypoint Radio is now spun off as its own independently owned company now! Renamed to Remap Radio.
posted by JDHarper at 7:36 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JDHarper at 7:36 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have never handed over money to anything so quickly in my life
posted by ominous_paws at 10:12 PM on June 1, 2023
posted by ominous_paws at 10:12 PM on June 1, 2023
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Even though Gavin McInnes has long been unaffiliated with Vice, there were still even in 2023 threads of McInnes's cultural influence. The whole corporation should just be buried and forgotten.
posted by tclark at 8:11 PM on May 16, 2023 [7 favorites]