Posting a previous comment on a Vice-related article because it’s relevant here;<p>Vice Media has several issues;<p>1) The founder, Shane Smith, was over ambitious and raised over $1 billion, which is just too much for a media firm. This is not a software business with high margins to justify such capital.<p>2) Vice transformed from an edgy content company producing cool stuff like a documentary about the Liberian cannibal warlord and a trip to North Korean labor camp and became just another mainstream liberal/left-leaning news outlet; the problem is there’s no shortage of such outlets, so Vice lost what made it unique.<p>The good thing about the kind of edgy content Vice produced is that it cut across all political spectrums and across different countries, meaning a larger audience. Anecdote is I and my friends (from Nigeria) used to watch Vice shows but have stopped due to shoving US politics down our throats.<p>What will likely happen is that Vice will end up selling for scraps. But note that Shane Smith already sold $100 million+ worth of shares [1], so he’ll be fine regardless.<p>1- <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/03/19/2023/shane-smith-made-more-than-100-million-from-vice" rel="nofollow">https://www.semafor.com/article/03/19/2023/shane-smith-made-...</a>
When they lost their quirky uniqueness, they lost their relevance. What's the difference between Vice today and Salon, Huffpo, etc? They become one of an interchangeable crowd.<p>I think Vice peaked around the time they put out <i>This Is What Winning Looks Like</i>. I haven't seen any media from Vice as compelling as that since then.
I don't understand why Vice is hated here so much. Yes, they have dopey "stoner" content, like Buzzfeed did with their vapid original content. But like Buzzfeed, they have been doing serious journalism, getting unique interviews with heads of state, adversaries, and in war zones.<p>Just today, they released this interview in Moscow with the Russian lady wanted by the International Criminal Court for deporting kids from Ukraine: <a href="https://youtu.be/Ei4xLdv2gYE" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/Ei4xLdv2gYE</a><p>Among other good ones involving Ukraine, Russia, Taliban, etc.<p>Taliban Rule: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIFi_Rgm-T8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIFi_Rgm-T8</a><p>Ukrainian soldiers' lives before the invasion of Ukraine: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKAt56zW0-g">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKAt56zW0-g</a><p>Siege of Ukrainian Bakhmut: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpe1OgCbCY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpe1OgCbCY</a><p>and the all too crazy bride kidnapping that happens in Kyrgyzstan: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKAusMNTNnk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKAusMNTNnk</a>
Vice Motherboard has been a really good check on the tech industry. A lot of the rest of Vice has always been trashy and exploitative, but it's had an unexpectedly big impact, as well -- much like BuzzFeed News.
Treat your audience like idiots who must be shouted down at and you'll lose that audience fast. And that's a shame because interspersed with all the trendy woke messaging there was actually a lot of good. My favourites were the Scott Dozier death row interview and the "One Star Reviews" series.
The last few recent VICE/Vice News clips I've watched on youtube seemed like the visual content was predominately AI-selected stock footage ~loosely related to the words being narrated.<p>Those instances basically were just audio narrations with borderline pointless visuals you may as well just be listening to. The narrator might be talking about a particular invasion of a specific country for instance, and the visuals are just showing some random war footage and you're left wondering if this is even from the present day let alone the right country/invasion etc. It's totally strange. Can't cost very much to produce though...
I always think of The Onion's Edge: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWVNDfDSE44">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWVNDfDSE44</a>
Vice was good as long as it was edgy. But now a days it is mostly far left progressive trash which you can read on Buzzfeed, NYT and 15 other major outlets.
I still really like Vice News, but they do a lot less investigative pieces that are on the ground. Their reporting on Ukraine in 2014/15, Syria and even North Korea were top notch. I hope at least the News portion is bought up by Axios or someone. Vice itself, I could do without. It hasn't been relevant in a long time and is mostly just living on rage clicks. Like BuzzFeed, it felt like just adding "News" to a brand that largely wasn't actually "News" was a mistake. You'd got to vice.com and it would be a heap of trash, but go to "vicenews.com" (now just redirects to a section of Vice) and you'll get much better content.<p>For instance, on vicenews.com now you see "Ukraine Is Now Using Steam Decks to Control Machine Gun Turrets" which is interesting...then on vice.com you have "Ring In #MasturbationMay With MysteryVibe's Massive Sex Toy Sale"...what is this mix? Why did they do this? vice.com is also full of stoner content, it's wild.
I was never much of a VICE follower, but their This Is What Winning Looks Like [0] special on the US' war in Afghanistan seemed like pretty solid journalism.<p>Wish they'd continue producing content like that... Hamilton's Pharmacopeia was fun as well.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI</a>
Sad to see, I remember being hooked to their early work. I’ll occasionally watch Vice News which is still good. On the ground, on or near the front lines of a conflict zone, has always been there sweet spot.
Is there at this point money in even modestly expensive investigative journalism? Getting people there, having them spend some time on site with all the work involved, to produce what one piece week or a month? Will that sort of content garner return?<p>While on other side, you can rewrite AP or Reuters. Pick some twitter post. Or just throw stuff at AI... Or sit in relatively cheap office and talk to microphone producing hours of content a day. While people throw money at you and sponsors pay for you selling out...
Vice had (has?) a very interesting monetisation model, which didn’t rely on typical advertising or subscriptions<p>they essentially conjured an image of “coolness” to the end of selling sponsorships to megacorps. so they’d go and sneak into North Korea or meet a transgender Ecuadorean meth dealer and it’d be sponsored for a shocking amount of money by—say—Microsoft or Heineken thinking that cool millennials would hop on board<p>quite innovative for journalism as far as I know, but I suspect the return on investment was pretty poor
Vice used to be cool around the 2010's. I got the monthly magazine in our local American Apparel store for free and absolutely loved the edgy stories, photos and interviews. But after Shane left, Vice became another boring Buzzfeed clone. It was another example of the sad truth that nothing good lasts forever.
News dies with the internet. Who would pay for news when you can get news for free on the internet.<p>Soon it will just be billionaires feeding us what we want to know.
Good, I hope they fail. Lazy clickbait reporting and shock value editing. Long history of screwing over their most well known journalists also.<p>Above all, the Co-founder of Vice is Proud Boy..good riddance
Vice was on its way out anyway and the world could do without such a clickbait-laden pseudo-news site down the trash bin.<p>Good riddance and nothing of value was lost.