vice

Anyway, it's official: https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/vice-cease-publishing-layoff-hundreds-ceo-1235919843/

The thing that jumped out at me there was ... they paid $400 million for Refinery29?

I'm vaguely aware of Refinery29, and I realize I'm not their target audience, but wtf.

it is slander because it's just some bullshit that was deliberately and maliciously misconstrued and then repeated endlessly by a poster who is no longer here (thankfully) but now you're here to do the same and oh yeah go fuck yourself
xp

there's a direct line between Gavin McInnes' schtick with Prussian Blue to the Proud Boys and Trump. How is this disputable.

going off of (poor) memory here, but they did hire a bunch of ok-to-good writers in the ‘10s and these ppl fundamentally changed the character of the site. there was a pretty high turnover rate with these writers tho, and i suspect it’s bc… vice didn't seem like it had the best workplace culture

this is accurate. after 2008 they changed; I still avoided them for a while after that, but they were a different place, and they hired a bunch of good people. they worked out of a very expensive building that was all modern and kitted-out.

their reporting on Tim Ballard/OUR/Sound of Freedom was really good and valuable and I think it kinda sucks that the same vultures as always have destroyed another place that was publishing that kind of work.

““We create and produce outstanding original content true to the Vice brand. However, it is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously. Moving forward, we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model,” the CEO continued.”

Where else have I heard this kind of talk, just recently

translations: “we’re gonna pay for on camera personalities, not writers”

No one miscontrued anything, you made a joke that was super bizarre and offensive (thus so memorable) even by the standards of the bad old days of ILX and don't like being reminded of it, which is one reason your schtick of bringing up old weird grudges is so strange.

There is no direct line between a Vice interview from the first Dubya admin era, not even available on the internet and forgotten by everyone but you with a band (that had already dissolved and the two people reformed by the early 2010s) and Trump. White nationalism didn't need an interview in a Canadian magazine to establish a foothold in the US, you might say it's a foundational aspect of the country.

xp - don't even know about paying for on-camera personalities, the HBO news show and cable channnel are both dead aren't they?