Vice (magazine)

Vice is a free, monthly magazine that focuses primarily on contemporary arts and culture and relies on its ability to market advertiser's products and right-wing values to the so-called hipster generation. Founded in Montreal, Canada by Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith and Gavin McInnes, it was launched as the Voice of Montreal in 1994 on government funding to provide work and a community service. Due to the controversial nature of its content, the magazine quickly outraged the authorities and became independent. After renaming itself Vice ^[1], the center of operation was moved to New York City in 1996, where it has remained since.

After the move to New York, Vice began openly concentrating on, well, vice. The magazine's focus can loosely be defined as being on contemporary independent arts and culture, but has earned itself a reputation for being a source of writing on any and all forms of debauchery — sex, drugs, violence, etc. The magazine's demographic is generally made up of young, bohemian adults, frequently defined as "hipsters." The magazine prides itself on being controversial and openly writing on "taboo" topics, which has garnered it both praise and condemnation. Particularly outlandish articles, such as The Vice Guide to Shagging Muslims and Bukkake On My Face: Welcome to the Ancient Tradition of the Japanese Facial, often precipitate the magazine being banned from a former distribution point, namely university campuses.

Vice has been criticised for using irony to conceal what some consider reactionary politics and are actually a way of promoting racist, violent and homophobic attitudes. This has been confirmed to many, especially since the founder of the magazine, Gavin McInnes has said as much in an article published in The American Conservative "Hip to Be Square: It’s geting cooler to be conservative".

The magazine is also famous for pioneering a feature that they call "DOs and DONTs", which has since been imitated by other competing magazines. The feature displays candid photographs of strangers in public places accompanied with a short piece of commentary either ridiculing or praising the person's fashion and perceived sensibility. The idea has also been spun-off into a book, The DOs and DON'Ts Book, along with a compendium of the magazines most popular work, The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Vice has also created a retail clothing chain, Vice Retail, and a record label, Vice Records, amongst other proclaimed, but as of yet unsubstantiated, ventures (Vice TV, Vice Film.)

Today Vice publishes editions in Australia, Great Britain, the United States, Japan, Scandinavia, and Canada. It is available for free in trendy locations and supports itself primarily through advertising.

External Link

• Viceland – Official site

• Critique – Another point of view

• Hip to Be Square: It’s geting cooler to be conservative – article by Gavin McInnes in the American Conservative Magazine

• Discussion between protagonists – Vice sucks – Mcguiness tries to backpedal