3 ms·

Vice to me was always just “high quality” news for people who read Pitchfork and the Fader and listened to Danny Brown and Ariel Pink. In hindsight its “good c

Vice to me was always just “high quality” news for people who read Pitchfork and the Fader and listened to Danny Brown and Ariel Pink. In hindsight its “good content” of the war and drugs sort doesn’t feel too far off from the original angle of low-brow edginess that I feel like evolved and predated things like the “dirtbag left” and “El chapo traphouse” with less of a political bend. I’m sort of confused as to what carried it into being heralded as a “digital colossus”, whose decline is described as part of the “end of an era” next to Buzzfeed News. Granted, once my own “New York nights at 21 edgy” phase tapered off around 2015-2016, I stopped regularly paying attention to it. At least Buzzfeed News had the accolades to justify its merit. I suspect that around 2015-2016, right around the time when Supreme got sold to VF Corporation and Kanye and Kim Kardashian were in their prime, and Trump first stopped on (or off?) that escalator…there was a “vibe shift”…and whatever underlying cultural tones that everything that I’m describing can be categorized under sort of seemed “marketable”? But after Trump was elected, the vibe shifted again hard, and I guess Vice couldn’t keep up. Their target demographic is aging and the generation who follows them probably doesn’t have the stomach to tolerate their lack of taste and can probably figure out the “war and drugs” stuff on their own. I don’t know. So much of this calls to forlorn days and I don’t expect much of the HN crowd to feel where I’m coming from. If you know you know.

JansjoFromIkea 3y ago
I think some of that vibe shift was happening anyway and the Trump presidency just pushed it into overdrive as the numbers were all pointing towards easy gains from doing that (similar to CNN's high ratings throughout his presidency). Pitchfork following the 2015 Conde Nast acquisition was the actual point where it drifted off imo into being wildly predictable with what it would champion. Several others (most notably for me the avclub) had had several years of struggles then a very abrupt and marked decline in content with Univision acquisitions circa 2015/2016; eventually blurring into a uniform kind of sludge that seemed to intentionally blur the lines between several once disparate audiences. Meanwhile attempts to create new outlets for the content that had been ditched tended to commercially flop (e.g. the Dissolve) Relatively speaking Vice was a lot better than most of these outlets in that it would still occasionally have some good content, but I guess this was largely due to the value of its brand ensuring it weathered that wave of acquisitions.
- the-printer 3y ago
  Okay, so I'm not tripping. This is just the first time I've had to think critically about the mid-2010s awkward bend that I think you describe well, "a uniform kind of sludge that seemed to intentionally blur the lines between several once disparate audiences." At the time, I never paid much attention to how stiff the competition was during this period and how much money was being shoveled into the media outlets in such a weird market. Now I'm reminded of an associate who was afforded a job opportunity at Vice that was basically an invitation to shill junk food on Twitter. And Verizon owning Complex Magazine (which is now apparently owned by BuzzFeed...) What an odd time. No wonder it fell apart.

JansjoFromIkea 3y ago

I think some of that vibe shift was happening anyway and the Trump presidency just pushed it into overdrive as the numbers were all pointing towards easy gains from doing that (similar to CNN's high ratings throughout his presidency). Pitchfork following the 2015 Conde Nast acquisition was the actual point where it drifted off imo into being wildly predictable with what it would champion. Several others (most notably for me the avclub) had had several years of struggles then a very abrupt and marked decline in content with Univision acquisitions circa 2015/2016; eventually blurring into a uniform kind of sludge that seemed to intentionally blur the lines between several once disparate audiences. Meanwhile attempts to create new outlets for the content that had been ditched tended to commercially flop (e.g. the Dissolve) Relatively speaking Vice was a lot better than most of these outlets in that it would still occasionally have some good content, but I guess this was largely due to the value of its brand ensuring it weathered that wave of acquisitions.

the-printer 3y ago
Okay, so I'm not tripping. This is just the first time I've had to think critically about the mid-2010s awkward bend that I think you describe well, "a uniform kind of sludge that seemed to intentionally blur the lines between several once disparate audiences." At the time, I never paid much attention to how stiff the competition was during this period and how much money was being shoveled into the media outlets in such a weird market. Now I'm reminded of an associate who was afforded a job opportunity at Vice that was basically an invitation to shill junk food on Twitter. And Verizon owning Complex Magazine (which is now apparently owned by BuzzFeed...) What an odd time. No wonder it fell apart.