Let's talk about Vice Magazine

Is Vice just the whole pigfucker ethos with a $2,000 suit and a job in advertising? Must be!
I said "homo" and I'm so naughty! Tee-hee! I derive much enjoyment from shaking up people's preconceptions because it is so much fun! I feel giggly all over now! Tee-hee!

-- Michael Daddino (epicharmus@aol.com), June 28th, 2002

the fact that people continue to fall for this bullshit in 2002 makes me rather ill.

GM: The punk rock-ness of that is just plain honesty. We seem really racist and homophobic because we hang around with fags and niggers so much. It just becomes part of our vernacular.

Albini: Given how intermingled the gay and punk subcultures were, it was assumed by anyone involved that open-mindedness, if not free-form experimentation, was the norm. With that under your belt, joke all you like. The word "fag" isn't just a gay term, it's funny on it's own, phonetically.

and if you actually belive any of this bullshit rhetoric may a group of passing meatheads beat the shit out of you rather than that fag or nigger they had planned to, in a rare moment of justice.)

If you like I'll retype that last sentence without the 'inverted' commas.

http://www.viceland.com/

The problem with this whole let's recontextualize old bigot terms in order to rid them of their previous offensive connoctations and thus provide a way for diferent people to come to terms with each other WITHOUT the intrusion of the Politically Correct Police is that it might feel very daring and liberating and laudable for the average white straight male; but if you've spent your entire life getting kicked around for being a "fag" or "nigger" or what have you, you'd be much less likely to see VICE's stuff as the highly subversive breaking down of the PC walls etc that its staff thinks it is, and much more likely to see it as a bunch of guys celebrating their bigotry under the guise of "irony", regardless of whether or not they employ members of the groups they're throwing cuss words at. And you'd probably be right.

Cf: "The White Noise Supremacists" by Lester Bangs

(in between writing and posting this, I see Momus's link, which I'll check now and see how it changes what I've just typed)

whenever i pick up a vice, the prevailing message i seem to get from it is one of "aw shit, dude, don't think about things so much! titties are fun, some music sucks ass, mainstream media is all bullshit, this is REAL. have some fun you uptight fuckwad."

but i think the thing that bothers me most about vice is their undeniable beavis factor; sometimes in their brazen stupidity and painful 'realness', they hit at the root of a subject with more effectiveness and insight than anyone else.

i'm sure some readers who secretly (or not so secretly) *want* that for themselves allow themselves to be bullied by vice's "what's one more?" con job. the (flawed) logic being: "i am a certain way, and this is my life. they are a certain way, and that is theirs. if i want elements of what they have, etc etc etc"

from where i stand, vice is a bunch of pretty and insanely charismatic (but ultimately vacuous) people using their assets to play against the desires of anyone else is who *not* definitively those things.

haha mark i think you've pretty much nailed momus' aesthetic right there.

(except maybe replace pretty with Clever.)

"I said "at least they're white" about Williamsburg because it was funny."

"We’ve always felt that PC attitudes always hurt the people they’re trying to help. We believe words like “African American” and “East Indian” are just excuses for white, middle class, academic, liberals to patronize the working classes (of all races) and tell them how to speak."

"At worst it incites an angry debate on the power of words and what prejudice is really about."

Gee, Momus. Have you been around the art schools, man? I've got a feeling you have. There's about a bazillion people doing the exact same thing Ryan's doing. Ryan is aggressively mediocre at it, no less. The whole Tillmans/Goldman thing is a fucking yawn. It's no-talent no-vision scenester snapshot crap. This shit's got to die, and Vice is just feeding it. That's enough of an argument against Vice as it is, before you get into their dubious politics.

Let's get to the heart of the matter with Ryan McGinley: he's a cute guy and he knows who to pal around with, and who to sleep with. He's a clever and ambitious guy, and a total hack of an artist.

What makes me cringe is the "some of my best friends are [oppressed minority], therefore it's OKAY for us to use the word [epithet]" card the Vice guys try to play. And of course the reportage about being on the scene with Actual Real Live blacks/gays/dwarves makes the magazine seem so very real and trenchant. < /sarcasm>

I have to wonder how their "best friends" feel when Mr. Badass Vice Editor uses these epithets to their faces at a party or something -- I mean, mileage varies, but I wonder if they're perfectly cool with it, or whether they just grin and bear it while secretly feeling offended. All I know is how I'd feel -- uncomfortable.

Magazine A decides to pass over your orientation in discreet silence, because 'it's about the music, man.' Mag A is read by some people for whom homosexuality is actually not an acceptable lifestyle option. And we don't want to put them off buying your records, do we? Because you might influence them towards your decadent metropolitan views if you don't push their faces in them. So shut up already and you might get somewhere, boy.

Magazine B is militantly liberal. It tries to feature as many 'minority' artists as it can, and push their 'agendas'. It wants to talk about you as a 'new gay voice' in music. All its questions seem to angle for anecdotes about how you've been discriminated against and beaten up. The article will be a form of cultural reparation. Hardcore queer activists will ask you to speak at rallies after reading this piece. Whoopee!

Magazine C -- written by people you see all the time around town, some of whom you may even have had casual sex with, you can't remember -- calls you an 'art fag'. Actually, that's what you call your boyfriend too.

Vice magazine is run by people who have set their watches to the correct time, in terms of what words have what meanings to what people. This is why people who make money from trends are buying into them, and have been for a while. They are not affectionately calling, say, Larry Clark, 'pedo' in their articles. But they are calling people, affectionately, 'faggot'. This should tell you something about the word 'faggot' in the year 2002.

Resistance to the 'decriminalisation' of words like 'faggot' can be conservatism disguised as 'sensitivity'. Vice magazine is not conservative. Some people on this thread are.

Well, it's free, so there ya go.

felicity, do you like goebbles?

felicity, you know i was joking (since i am talking to you about it right now ha ha.)

1. One of Vice's contributing editors, Amy Kellner, a lesbian, DJs at an event called Art Fag Mondays in the Meat Packing District. She even named it.

2. We (and by 'we' I mean fags, non-fags, art fags and Vice readers) are a lot quicker and more creative when it comes to messing with language than Bushites in pickup trucks. So let's put the word 'faggot' more and more in a friendly context, and hear hostile uses of the word sounding increasingly lame. Eventually the hostiles will be forced to come up with a new term. It'll take them about ten years. Partly because they're not too smart. And partly because they believe that words do not change their meanings, and that the word 'faggot' is -- and will always be -- intrinsically insulting. They're wrong.

a lot of young black men call themselves niggers. would you walk into a room and do the same? even 10-20-30-40 years after the initiation of civil rights?

First of all, and I don't know how apropos this is but I'll say it anyway, "contributing editor" is often just a vanity title given to famous writers and other "cool" people whose butts senior editors smooch in order to look hipper by association. Occasionally they'll write an article or something.

As Jess already stated -- just because a subculture has adopted an ironic usage of an otherwise loaded word DOESN'T MEAN that the word is inoffensive anymore. YES there are gonna be some "fags" here and there who don't give a shit how the word is used, but it's not really fair to use those people as proof that IT'S OKAY to go around using hot-button words like that.

In other words, Michael Daddino was absolutely right.

That Albini quote is so WRONG it's, I don't know, cute. "Anyone involved"? Like, did he ever go to a Bad Brains show? Were the gay and punk subcultures really intermingled anywhere outside of NY, London and LA, especially after the first couple of years?

Personally, I find the insistence on skate culture in Vice and Tokion and some other mags a little silly. But that may be a generational thing.

On the question of 'the revaluation of all values', nobody has made the smart objection to my argument, which is that recontextualising insults is a reactive stance, and allows the enemy to set the terms of the debate.

And the answer to that is... but I'm typing this in a computer store in Ginza. Must dash.

your argument readily positions vice as vanguards of libertarian language. in general, you seem more than willing to bestow a whole lot of credit on them ("...run by people who have set their watches to the correct time..."), all the while discounting a much more likely possibility: that they're a bunch of meatheads who use words like "fag" and "kike" and "nigger" because it instantly earmarks them as different from virtually every other magazine in their demographic. the tired "we're trying to disempower the rich kid academics" bullshit comes much, much later.

what are the dangers of re-selling latent bigotry as 'realness'?

"But although that might make you foolish, unthinking, and sadly all too typical these days, it doesn't make you bigots. No, what makes you bigots is under the Vice Guide to Evil where you listed "Israelis" as a runner-up. Not the Israeli government, not Israeli policy, just Israelis. Of course you wouldn't list all Muslims as evil because of Sept. 11, but it's somehow become politically correct and acceptable to consider all Israelis as "evil." Well, this is the exact same attitude as suicide bombers, who don't have any problems blowing up a family with little children, after all, they're Israelis, they're evil."

full response from gavin:

"Hey jewboy,
If you check the gang rape gavin thread you'll see a co-founder of the magazine defending Israel and the Jews."

Vice is...okay. The thing with calling people art-fags in print which bugs me is that some readers will be clued in (and they might well be scenesters and/or 'friends of the mag') but people outside the loop/demographic might not be, so the meaning changes. So maybe it's not such a good idea. A good/entertaining writer doesn't need those words to fall back upon, so that's why I find the whole shtick kind of tiring.

There's an editorial argument that goes, 'make it conversational, like you're talking to your friends' and Vice does this. This is a risky strategy because half of the time, we talk utter bollocks to our friends and might not necessarily want to see that highlighted in print. Also, the supposedly 'inclusive' style which I feel included by is probably going to give off exclusion vibes to someone else, for whatever reason (I've never understood people who pick up magazines and wail about being hated by the stuck-up people who run them).

Also - and this is specific to something Nick wrote about the ex-Index lesbian contributor - magazines like to show editorial melting-pot but it would be more illuminating to see who's running the advertising department. Chances are it's mostly guys/ladette women with a more reactionary bent, who go to meetings with closet-conservative yuppie agency types who spend the whole time talking about art-fags etc in a non-inclusive, non-matey way.

Arthur: you should know this, but small cities' punk and gay scenes are often really tight and bear on each other - I think there's actually more separation in the larger cities. In smaller places, all the people who are 'different' wind up meeting each other eventually, and need each other. I think the words 'Husker Du' might be appropriate in this context!

Oh, and Ryan McGinley is a good enough photographer, but as opposed to Nan G or Wolfgang, he's perceived by fashion/magazine folk as being a bit of a wannabe and a bit too available. That's what happens when you land features in all the British mags at once, people think, shit, he must be about to be o.v.e.r. True, he's made good career moves, but is way too obviously inspired by what he could get in exchange for the pics of his friends/the portrayal of a scene based on how it's been for more original photographers.

And a few weeks ago Wolfgang told me he's not taking photos, or letting photos be taken of him, for a whole year. Not a careerist at all.

Just wanted to say 'Yay Suzy!' and...

How come nobody in this thread used the word Gonzo? Is that libertarian journo tradition forgotten in the US, or only amongst Gen ILXers?

Nobody uses gonzo because gonzo includes risk, ie. the distinct possibility of getting shot or surprised by one's surroundings. Edgy style magazines are not really edgy - any fule knos they're too attuned to what's going on not to recognise the need to succeed commercially. Such recognition includes making others take all the risk. You can then write about the addict/suicide/Other with gusto and go home to your six cats and meals for one, while planning what to do with that big paycheque and feeling cool because you're on a guestlist.

so Vice /= gonzo, capische? I'm just wondering if/how much they pay their writers. Give me that info and I'll be able to infer loads.

Let's say I find the name 'Sterling' offensive. (Maybe I'm rabidly pro-Euro and anti-sterling. Whatever twisted reason.) I find utterance of the name 'Sterling' offensive in nearly all contexts. And those where I'm not offended (i.e. where some guy chooses to call himself Sterling) I still think using that name is hideously misguided and counterproductive.

I don't care what you think, even if you happen to be called Sterling and to use that name every day. To me it's offensive, and I think you're wrong to use it. You're letting us all down, and you're hurting yourself.

temporarily ignoring any concerns regarding vice's own latent bigotry, try this on instead. if you can acknowledge that meanings of words shift from user to user on a per-play basis, then surely you can acknowledge the possibility that vice's 're-definition' of certain words may not READ that way to a large segment of its readership. who (and, i know, it's rather dull and ho-hum) have the gall to hear "faggot" (hatred) as "faggot" (hateful) and not "faggot" ("as in 'art fag' - that's what i call my bf too!").

you're coming from a privileged perspective that is NOT in keeping with regular/vice-reading north america. for fuck's sake, spend some time on their message board. what do you think these people would say about a momus record?

really, it's all so arrogant to assume that your forward-thinking 'art fag' friends see the way out, because hey, they've been calling each other fags at dinner parties and sushi stops for years, and no problem there.

simple question: would you walk into a room full of black people and call them niggers?

The obverse question is, would Sterling or anyone else walk into a room and tell them to *stop* using the word 'nigger'? That's what he seems to be saying. And many people on this thread want to gatecrash the Vice party and tell them they can't use certain words in certain ways to their friends, amongst themselves.

a) To use, yourself, the (formerly pejorative) word they're using to each other.

b) To tell them to stop using the (formerly pejorative) word they're using to each other.

Which is the better option? I answered your question, now please answer mine.

It's a MAGAZINE. Although it's a ploy of advertising-sales types at magazines to sell titles as an 'exclusive' party 'everyone' (in its demographic) is invited to. Which contradicts, of course.

While I don't presume to tell people what descriptive slang terms to use, I'm generally not down with people who feel the need to use them. I'm also not down with the Inclusive Language Posse either as I hate being told what to say by some unimaginative local-government type.
Also, the *second* certain terms start crossing over, you can bet the people who started it off will get bored and find a new term so as to make the people who've just picked up the slang LESS COOL.

No, no, no, Mark P set the terms of this conundrum and it was very simple: "Would you walk into a room full of black people and call them niggers?" And I'm saying that if you just have the option to

a) go along with their revaluation of the word or

b) question it

which would be the better thing to do?

(must dash...i'm in my living room and now i have to go to my kitchen.)

So who's going to walk into Art Fag Mondays and tell DJ Amy 'I'm not, um, 'gay' myself, but I really think you should change the name of this place. It's degrading!'

which words? and how? why? when? with who in mind? while keeping a cautious eye out for which elements? oh, fuck it, i'd rather lick matted menses out of dyke pubes while getting sucked off at the jewboy afro hair day at the fag salon than think about this gay shit, but that's okay, everyone knows the vice "scene" includes every gay/black/jewish/left-leaning person living at present.

how's this, Momus: "I'm gay myself, and I really think you should change the name of this place. It's degrading!" ?

Better not to use the word at all than throw one more coal onto the fires of pent up rage and pain of the Ivan Julians of the world (cf. aforementioned bangs piece where he describes hearing it like shrapnel lodging in his stomach).

This doesn't mean that I am going to write letters to Vice complaining. I find them and what they pander to repellent, but fine.

Momus you're a dope half the time because you automatically equate moral disapproval with censorship and shock value with merit.

Nabiso - are you saying adults should be judged by the same standards as 8 year olds then?

why oh why am I having the sudden urge to play (LOUD) You'll Dance To Anything by the Dead Milkmen?

This reminds me of Nitsuh's comments on the 'Is Bush An Idiot' thread. He wanted the people who voted Nader to outline their longterm vision for the positive outcome a Nader vote might bring. And he got frustrated because nobody seemed even to have thought in those terms.

Here I'm actually being somewhat Naderite, in a sense, and saying that I believe the word 'fag' can be totally revalued *for the whole community* within a few short years, and that this victory, which I believe is both important and inevitable, is worth the short-term risk (of Democrats losing votes, in the Nader case, or of a peceived -- but illusory -- temporary *increase* in homophobia, in this case).

I refuse to pick one of Momus's hypothetical scenarios because they're fucking stupid. I freely invite Momus to walk into a room filled with my relatives or my wife's relatives and start throwing the word "nigger" around because he desperately needs the beatdown.

Sterling's name has never been more appropriate

Why should it? What's so great about that word?

Jesus, Momus, you can't claim both that the usage is for the scene, and is being carefully handled by licensed word-smiths, AND it's for the community (which I'm assuming is at least the 90% of the US outside NY), where it will bring great healing. Make your mind up.

also, since when did stockholm syndrome redeem a word?

We (and by 'we' I mean fags, non-fags, art fags and Vice readers) are a lot quicker and more creative when it comes to messing with language than Bushites in pickup trucks.

You are, at very best, not paying enough attention to the people you speak for.

Momus, have you seen Kentucky Fried Movie?

It starts on the scene (and it's not all thought-out, it just happens because of stuff like camp and irony) and spreads out from there. I don't see any contradiction here.

Momus, this whole "blunting" word-reclamation idea is like a man telling his wife that if he rapes her very carefully every night it won't be as terrible when someone does it for
real.

Nabisco, who's being silly now? Come on, what did you make of my reference to your point on the Nader / Bush thread?

So yes, I think the Nader-thread comparison is spot-on: what is this meant to accomplish, beyond making money tittillating people by saying words they don't think they're allowed to hear?

So let's also add that his "recontextualization" scheme is preaching to a choir -- it has no effect on the people who claim these as actually-hateful words apart from giving them the impression that they're completely right and even the fags and the niggers can see that.

If a person uses it in conversation with me it depends again. If they're not black, well, firm request and if they don't stop or seem to relish it I usually stop talking to them but this happens rarely. If they're black, as I said, most black people who use the word still often don't do it talking to people who aren't, and hardly anybody really minds of I ask 'em not to. I mean it's a respect thing. If I respect you, I don't wanna hear language that disrespects yourself. (er, grammar allowing for clarity of thought there). & if you respect me, you're just sensitive to that whether or not I go through a whole round of argument with you on the generalities of it.

Also two days ago I was driving with my girlfriend and her little sister (13) who allovasudden starts quoting Busta Rhymes lyrics and uses the word and we both just got sort of shocked and gave her a talking to. The thing that she knows better than to ever use the word to refer to herself, but she doesn't quite get what it means in a broader social context, just that it's somehow "forbidden". She's also got a nearly completely white group of friends and is in somewhat of a bubble as to what it means to be black beyond a suburban jr. high.

I don't know the point of that story.

i mean, is it primarily because you would fear for your safety or because you would fear offending somebody?

Do you use it, though?

I mean like that's like if I say "I'm gonna kill you" and you say "man, stop threatening me" and I'm all like "no way, if I meant it I would have said 'going to' instead of 'gonna' because the two are completely different"

haha graham to thread!

gah sterling got in while i was posting, one moment dude!!

is it because there's still work to do? i mean, do we need oprah to start referring to martha stewart as "my nigga" before this wonderful utopian cleansing can begin? and if she did, and the word became as ordinary and as torpid as "lampshade", would that be a good thing?

U+K! U+K! U+K! U+K!

heh. i totally don't get it.

what "good" qualities might n-a with an "a" signify, simon?

sterl you know what nigga with an a means, you listen to rap, do you really not 'get' it every time its mentioned? its my crew, i love my niggas, thats all there is, sometimes ill talk about some nigga im impressed by, 'that nigga beat me at street fighter twelve times!!', its a term of love and respect, and ill bet anything vice dudes were saying nigga, theres a pretty long history of totally square news herbs not knowing theres such a word and transcribing it as nigger instead

GM: "Well, at least they’re not fucking niggers or Puerto Ricans. At least they’re white."

(Yeah, real affectionate.)

but it was a really good quote!!

come back, simon!!

I use it too, out of habit. I guess it's offensive, but this country doesn't really have a long and rich tradition of Retard Persecution, so it's not quite as bad as any of the other loaded words.

It's not like you ever pick up on when I'm being sarcastic, but whatev.

or is it that it's more easily co-opted because they're not able to defend themselves?

That's true too -- although there are varying degrees of retardation. Some "retards" are normal, functional people; some of them have fairly decent cognitive skills and might very well understand what "retard" means. But there isn't much they can do to stop the epithet from being used.

jbr, if we accept that this word is commonly used b/c the ramifications are far less severe than if we were to use, for example, the n word with similar abandon, i think we could probably draw some ugly conclusions about society in general...

Apparantly they should get their arty friends to publish articles in a magazine that make reference to their retard friends.

Vice makes me laugh, which is more than most things do these days.

I 'love' a white guy living in Japan telling black guys in New York that they're wrong to object to these white guys using the word 'nigger' and trying to act like the black men are being patronising! Hilarious irony!

My best gay friend likes and uses the word faggot, but the wrong person uses it the wrong way, in the wrong tone, he's liable to break them in half.

(actually I just posted that because I wonder where I fall)

[also I tried to call you a "f-g" as a joke right here and I couldn't do it, not evern doubly or triply ironically or whatever the hell it would be at this point].

sterl, if you have to ask you'll never know, etc etc.

so wouldn't that sort of cycle be eventually repeated if the arguments momus espouses hold true -- and wouldn't the underlying message of these mass-marketed uses of these words, then, also mutate into an affirmation of already-existing prejuidices that are held by the majority of americans, for the simple purpose of making as many dollars as possible?

i don't know how this fits with maura's statement but i don't want the dream lost forever. (her coochie is still burned into my memory.)

Uh anyway, back to Vice...I don't think that made any sense.

also, as maura just brought up in conversation with me, it's equating purchase with a creative act which is one of the things that's made american culture so fucking vacuous to begin with.

second, wouldn't you argue though that the original sentiment and the mass-marketed version of it have two very different public connotations? this is important, because the provocations that these word-images would have on their viewers were essential to their being scrawled in the first place.

also, a hypothetical: if a girl bought this mass-marketed shirt and wore it to school unadorned, and then ran into 1 or 3 or 5 people wearing that shirt in the same way, since it is, after all, mass-marketed, how would her 'empowering' wearing of the shirt come across? so much of the way messages are looked at is rooted in context -- would this 'more empowered' 11-year-old then change the rest of the shirt's context (including, perhaps, the shirt itself) to make herself and her intentions stand out?

(spoken in a non-normative tone of voice)

I also read way too many Japanese fashion magazines.

(unless bc meant my beat digger analogy which i also thought was on point)

but Vice started in Canada!

haha Dave Q to thread!

To relate this back to Vice, it's perfectly fine for them to ironically fling epithets back and forth under the guise of changing the world but they should be cognizant of the fact that the majority of the people who wander across them aren't going to buy their interpretation and be prepared to deal with the consequences of it (ie, my family beating your ass).

(and then they all lez up)

Wednesday night at about 1 AM I was riding my bicycle home from [work]
when I met a red light about 15 or 20 blocks away from my house. Sometimes
if there are absolutely no cars or anything I'll run a red light, but if I
see headlights I assume they belong to a cop car containing a cop who will
give me a 200 dollar ticket and probably harass me to boot. So, I decided
to stay put. It's a long light, and I sat there and sat there.

A car coming down the road I was waiting to cross suddenly stopped at the
green light and a man opened the door and got out of the driver's seat. He
was black, probably between 20 and 30 years old. That's all I know and will
ever know about this person. He was approaching me rather quickly and
purposefully. I had a feeling that he was going to fuck with me in some
way, and was sort of waiting to see how.

He said "what up nigga?" and before I responded said "Where you from,
nigga?" I can't remember exactly but I think what I did was look back
and gesture vaguely down the street in the direction I'd come from - I didn't
really know what he could mean by asking me where I was from - "I'm from
Long Island" is maybe what I should have said but why would he care?
Anyway, as I turned back to face him and began to say...something, I don't
even know...I got punched in the face, hard, at least once and fell down. I
sat there in the road with my bike lying next to me and heard the guy get
back in his car and drive away. I think he said something else but I'm not
sure.

I couldn't see very well because a) I had just been punched in the face and
b) my glasses weren't where they should have been. I didn't want to put my
glasses on because I was sure they were broken, but they weren't. I sat
there for a bit longer, and touched my lip with my hand and my tongue to see
how badly it was fucked up. I slowly picked myself and my bike up and
continued to ride home.

What was running through my head as I rode home was "What am I supposed to
do now?" I felt like there must be some kind of appropriate reaction. I
didn't want to call the police because the police in my neighborhood are
fucking assholes (there's another long, much worse story I could tell
here...). I didn't remember anything about the car or the guy so there was
no way I'd be able to give the cops any information anyway. I wondered if
this was some sort of lesson, like, O.K. it's now unsafe to ride home at
night, but that's bullshit. I've been riding home from [work] late
at night for a year and I've never even felt uncomfortable before. What
managed to cross my mind for a second was: maybe I don't belong in that
neighborhood, like, getting punched by this guy was some kind of message to
move to a different part of town. That was the most fucked thought of all.
Thinking rationally, would you deduce that this guy was acting as an
authorized representative of the neighborhood?

I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm lucky that I didn't
get hurt more. I mean, if the guy had wanted to keep on kicking me or some
shit he could've just gone ahead and had his way with me. At least I was
just randomly punched - people get randomly stabbed and shot, too. I still
kind of can't believe it, but, it also makes sense in a weird way. I mean,
if I were driving around looking for somebody to punch, I would probably
would have punched me too.

I don't know what to make of the semiotics and/or semantics of this man's referring to my friend (who is, as you probably inferred, white) as a "nigga"; it seems bizarre to me, to be frank: was he using it primarily as a term of denigration? As a way of totally confusing my friend and making him feel uncomfortable? Is it what he calls everybody? I've no idea.

(I do know, however, what I probably would've done to that man had I been there and been suitably armed. My friend is a sweetheart who would never hurt anyone.)

As for the "N-word", unless I'm quoting something or otherwise making reference to a statement not my own, I never use it, whether ending in "-er" or "-a". Getting in the habit of using it in everyday speech strikes me as a very dangerous game -- the risk/benefit ratio is pretty atrocious.

Jess says 'no sound is innocent'. Race stuff is 90% of what makes Dan despair of humanity. The thread seems mostly to have concluded that re-casting meanings is a guilty activity. Indeed it is. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. The brave will do it, despite threats of a beatdown.

Dan again:

To relate this back to Vice, it's perfectly fine for them to ironically fling epithets back and forth under the guise of changing the world but they should be cognizant of the fact that the majority of the people who wander across them aren't going to buy their interpretation and be prepared to deal with the consequences of it (ie, my family beating your ass).

This goes back to my distinction between acts and deeds, and my first point on this whole thread. By all means be enraged (or encourage your family to be enraged) by transvalued epithets. After all, no interpretative act can be innocent, whatever the intended outcome of the transvaluation. But don't forget (and don't let your violent family forget) to judge by acts too. Vice employs homosexual and black contributors and promotes their perspectives and their terms. In the subculture Vice addresses, those people actually have considerably more cultural capital (ie cool) than straight and white people. It's by those deeds, and in that context, that you should judge the mag's editors.

As always, the answer to this dilemma can be found in that most holy of literary tomes, Chris Rock's Rock This:

"Yet some people still wonder why black people can say "nigger" and they can't. Believe it or not, it's a very common question. I hear it all the time:

White Person: Chris, can I say "nigger"?

Me: Why would you even want to?

White Person: I don't mean anything bad by it. I've travelled the world. I've got a yacht. I fucked Racquel Welch. Now, if I could just say 'nigger', everything would be complete.

Me: No. After I smack you upside the head everything will be complete."

I also want to note the following about this thread: "rappers do it" is a really piss-poor justification of basically any type of behavior.

Because I don't believe in the status quo. I don't believe that it is virtue just simply to avoid using a word which some people might find offensive. In many cases, that's conservatism and cowardice. That's what people do who don't think words and meanings are important enough to get into fights about.

I believe (in fact, I know) that society changes, and those changes start with small groups. In some cases the changes are wrought by avant garde artists, in some cases humble journalists. But nothing changes if nobody dares to stick his/her neck out.

My song about retards would basically say 'the retards are my friends'. It would be thought-provoking and ambivalent. 'Why don't I hang with retards? Why do we feel uneasy with someone saying he does? Why is it funny that he would pass this off as some kind of cool thing to do? Is he making fun of the handicapped, or is he paying attention to people who usually get none, or get only certain stereotypical 'managerial' or 'sympathetic' light cast on their lives?

The alternative is to pass in 'inoffensive' silence over such topics, or to sing 'I will always love you' or some variant, a 'formula so watertight nobody could possibly disagree with it. So you win.'

I'm not interested in winning, but in thinking. I'd rather be perplexed than right.

Modernism’s dirty secret: avant-garde work requires the survival of the order it first flared against, or its full radicalism no longer properly registers.

momus you sound like a 16 year old goth girl now.

I get the sense that the people who like the magazine have actually read the magazine, but that those who are critical of the people behind Vice haven't extended the criticisms to the published output that much, other than by pointing out (quite correctly) that hate speech words have a different effect when published than when uttered. By the way, I don't happen to share Momus' views on co-opting and subverting language here, so please don't attribute those to me, either.

I find parts of Vice amusing but after reading that interview I am wondering what it is I like about it. I have definitely wished aspects of Vice didn't exist, and I do have a different attitude towards it now. I think I have a similar reaction to Vice as I did to Spy in that my baser nature is amused in spite of my better self, although, unlike Spy, Vice is free so I don't feel like such a sucker for reading it.

If you can't get past the offensive words in Vice and have nothing more to add, I fully understand that, because it's an important issue, but I'd be interested in hearing someone articulate their criticisms of the magazine other than that it contains words of hate speech or that these guys are poor spokespeople for higher education in Canada. So, let's talk about Vice magazine, anyone?

a lot of the writing is good and the "don'ts" page is usually hilarious, but suzy is absolutely OTM re: "edgy" = zero actual risk.

Well, again and again we get people popping up with this motif that re-interpretative work is guilty (this time it's because it's lazy and cowardly, apparently). Yes, fine, there is no innocent revaluation. But where is the King Canute who can stop it going on? And what are your motives for wanting that Canute (actually, it would be better to characterise him as Plato) to come along and somehow fix meanings for all time?

The fact that Hollywood has done my song does change it. Like the notice on the post page says 'Other messages have appeared while you were composing your reply, which may change your message's context. Do you still want to post it?'

momus i said 16 year old goth girl. i know plenty of 19 year old goth girls smarter than you.

You forgot 'fundamentalist' -- one must embrace the details.

But I wonder why this argument doesn't apply to Ned and Mark?

they get the luxury of claiming/deflecting responsibility as they see fit without doing any of the work

it'd only take one post

I think I've just articulated it in a more wishy washy liberal way than they have

maybe so but the idea is also followed through a few degrees further than I've ever heard the vice eds attempt. their "defense" hasn't changed or developed in the slightest in all that time - how's that for rigid unflexible wordplay?

(vice-hatin is a years-old sport here in montreal and believe me what i'm doing ain't even close)

I don't see how beating can be considered desireable either, Dan, yet you're the only one on this whole thread talking about it. Do you really think a liberal-progressive revaluation of language is so clueless?

While my comment was clearly flip and meant to be taken as such, I've no doubt there's something to be talked about here seriously, inasmuch as just about anything can be discussed seriously. I might well have something to say about that at a later point; however, it is late, I am tired, and I have a number of things on my mind, so I'll leave it at that.

well, uh, yeah. what did you think i meant?

and what does shift have to do with *anything*? i subscribe to it. they may have the same v/c as vice but the similarities end there.

ps. what is your point anyways? i mean, jesus, so they reviewed your albums. doesn't mean you have to go to war for them.

Do you really think that these peoples' intentions and yours are at all similar, Momus? The way the Vice boys use these 'hot button words' doesn't indicate that they have any desire to reclaim them. And I can't imagine that any black person who reads their response to the Williamsburg question would be anything but offended, even if they work for the mag itself. GM is certainly not using these words in an affectionate way.

In fact, the only thing they seem to be interested in is projecting cool, and the easiest way to do that (in certain circles, at least) is to appear not to give a fuck about anything. 'We're so baaad, maaan, we say faggot and gangbang chicks and everybody does heroin and nobody wants to read about anything for very long, but were not serious about anything its all a big joke'.

The Vice method:
1) pretend to hate everything
2) pretend to condone all forms of unacceptable behavior
3) make it unclear whether you're pretending or not

I think the argument about whether there is an acceptable context for these words is a separate issue. As far as Vice is concerned, the only thing I care about is the intention with which these words are written. And the only thing I can determine from the context of this article is that even though the writers may actually be liberals who like and employ black and gay people, the ONLY reason they use those words is to offend.

haha!

must dash...i'm at my desk and now i have to go...to my bed...

well done! who would have thought that Vice magazine could provide so potent discussion opportunites?

oyasumi!

To rewind back to the argt I was having with Momus up-thread (legalising arrows etc.) - Momus is saying that hate-words are dependent on context. I agree. This is why I think 'reclaiming' them is totally useless against people who like using them hurtfully.

Well (this to Tom's point) it seems to me that conservatives have a choice. They can either go along with the dilution of their homophobic words in ever-increasing quantities of irony (which may allow them, as you say, to use them more, but makes each use less and less satisfying) or they can pose as liberals and object to their victims taking control of language on the grounds of taste, decency, and sensitivity.

What Momus is suggesting here with his first option is that the context of hate-speech itself changes when words are reclaimed. But it doesn't. The context of a guy yelling "Hey faggot!" hatefully at someone does not change no matter how many times that someone's cool mates say it every day: it's still intended to provoke fear, rage, humiliation and depending on circumstances still will provoke those things simply because of the tone of voice. So I just don't see what good 'reclamation' does for anyone other than the reclaimer who gets to feel transgressive.

There's also a difference between using the words and playing with the attitudes behind the words, and this is another effect of reclamation. The affectionate on-'scene' use of the word by transgressives takes away some of its sting in wider society, sez Momus. I don't agree (see above) but I see the argument. But what Momus is leaving out is that the on-'scene' use also removes its transgression-status and so the transgressives look for something more transgressive, and this seems to be what's happening with the interview at least. (I'm making no pretence of discussing Vice itself here). A shift from "we can detoxify racist words by using racist words ourselves" to "we can detoxify racism by being racist ourselves" (and get even bigger props from Momus too!).

1. What a pack of reactionary twunts. It's like they've stepped from the campus of a small liberal arts college, where as the few heterosexual males there, they have had their pick of really boring girls called Jen, made less boring by their trust funds. Dare someone to ask if they go in for fart-lighting. And they associate with Williamsburg, which is for middle-class people keen to maintain their college experience (last time I was in NYC I decided it was one giant alterna-mall).

2. The assumed liberal bias of counterculture is only that: assumed. Most people who run magazines (not the people who write for them or take the pics) are faux-liberal/zen-capitalist breadheads (hint - you have to like, or learn to like, advertising assholes if you want to do this business). These are no different and seem to enjoy selling others' difference for them, so their methods and motivations are not like big corporations HOW, exactly?

3. Nick seems to be doing a Voltaire and defending someone's right to free speech, whatever. While this is commendable as a principle (mostly because it's harder to play Find The Asshole when people don't have freedom of expression) I get the feeling the Vice founders would not be as keen to put in a defense of anyone else's rights of expression. I'm also extremely sceptical about the possibility of turning 'hate' words into 'love' words; I think people who try to do this are affecting toughness without actually having to be as tough as the people who've had to endure the hate attached to the words for their whole lives. And the Vice people sound like they get off too much on the naughtiness of their words to ever want the meanings to change properly.

4. Nick, the 'some of my best friends are retards and homos' song will be a) bad, b) will annoy tedious Birkenstock wearers who whine about that sort of thing and c) is soooooooo 1992.

Tom, you're trying to reduce context to the intention of the speaker. But context is much more than that. It's what street you're on when you get yelled at, what city, what time of day or night, it's the age and gender and race of the caller, it's whether you have a loaded Walther PPK in your pocket at the time, it's whether you just had a drink, it's whether it's rag week or Wigstock, it's whether your friends call you 'faggot' affectionately, it's whether you say of yourself quite unapologetically 'I'm a faggot...' The list is potentially infinite.

Trend-makers (and I think we can agree that Vice is some sort of trend-making magazine) can help shift context, if only by introducing a tad more ambivalence into our reaction to that yell. Ambivalence in itself may be enough to stop our adrenal glands squirting in a Pavlovian way at the word, and prevent our fingers from squeezing the trigger of the hidden Walther PPK we've been saving for the hundredth homophobe.

momus: thanx for entertaining me.

Re context: I'm not sure how that changes what I'm saying. I'm saying that a reaction isnt a reaction to a specific word as much as it is a reaction to a gesture of hate. Obviously anyone's reaction to a gesture of hate is contextual i.e. it depends on who they are and what they're feeling/doing at that point but I don't see how reclamation of words affects that.

As a writer for many of the magazines covering the same territory as Vice, but without resorting to name-calling vast quantities of the (possibly self-loathing; most 'trendy' people having an element of this beneath the surface, like an engine) readership to do so, I write because a) I'm genuinely interested in the people/things I cover b) my editor has asked me nicely to interview some flavour of the monther and she knows I will give them a chance to speak and will react in an interesting way and c) sometimes the title might be the only place I can place a feature about something contentious (like being an atheist). But even bearing those things in mind, the culture of magazines since, ohh, 1995, when 'alterna' became a more urgent, capitalist concern, dictates that any transgression is okay as long as nobody at an ad agency is the "victim" of my transgressive opinion. And even then it's far easier to cover some fashion designer instead.

This is why, when I want/need to cover something cool for a magazine like the Venice Biennale, I almost always have to pay to get there, and sort out my own accomodation. However when ten people from the fashion department of the same magazine want/need to cover the collections, they get to go over, paid for by the company. The reckoning for this, as explained to me by my editor (who has to keep all of us happy somehow and had the ulcer to prove it) is that the fashion contacts generate advertising, so it's a legitimate expense.

Advertisers rule this indusry and it really annoys me when they invest in reactionary goods like Vice, which clearly tap into the barely-concealed derision they feel for freaks, geeks, and the like (which they do - If they didn't they'd be learning the hard way with the real artists and writers and image-makers). If 'the reactionary' sells, the buyer has paid (say) $5000 to appear between contributions which the editor will have paid the contributor roughly $500 to print (that is, if they're getting paid at all. A lot of these magazines run 'free copy', promising exposure to the writer or photographer - and it's usually the kind of exposure, at least for the writers, that wins them the opportunity to do more free/badly paid work for another person).

Also there is always a point when the established middle class pass 'ironic gesture' with whatever it is (laddism being a case in point) and take on the less attractive attributes of the ironic 4 REAL (becoming actual racist/sexist) thus seeping into the conservatising version of the melting pot. I don't think ANYONE is intelligent enough to walk that walk, and everyone who's ever tried becomes the thing that they professed, as a liberal, to be sickened by.

But doesn't that just reaffirm to the skinhead fascists that their style (and by extension way of life) is more than just okay, it's cool and trendy?

No amount of "recontextualization" or "recalamation" is going to make a funny situation out of someone passing around pictures of a semi running over a black man titled "NIGGER-KILLER" a month after your brother dies in a hit-and-run accident. This is the position I am arguing from and this is why your liberal racist bullshit is pissing me off.

So if I were an East End Bangladeshi, [...]

YOU ARE NOT AN EAST END BANGLADESHI, YOU SELF-IMPORTANT TWAT.

I don't really fall into the trap of romanticising or idealising 'difference' (which my esteemed friend in Tokyo seems to be doing). Ninety-five per cent of the time it's fucking awful being 'different' even if you vehemently don't want to be just like everyone else.

So how would the makers of Vice, y'know, DEAL with the world they moved in if all their convenient little labels for people just fell off one day? What content do they have besides 'this is really cool, hur-hur' to fall back upon?

YOU ARE NOT AN EAST END BANGLADESHI, YOU SELF-IMPORTANT TWAT.

Well, I was married to one, you, er, person!
;-)

(I think nevaready and falling-on-a-bruise would liven this discussion up no end.)

From experience, the shortest way out of this for someone to claim that you're a middle class western white male who shouldn't speak for others, and you to huff off. If someone has to start that, I'm game.

Tom's post: I don't see how magazine ad departments are going to affect change that way. It's just not the way they do business. At best they can ask the agency, 'where else are you running it' and the agency may or may not tell the truth. What works is the actual accounts placing provisos with the agency, eg, 'sell to Index and not to Vice, we've had complaints'.

Andrew: it is possible to win the argument without resorting to name-calling, you know ;-p.

(I'm also not swearing at Tom, obv)

Suzy: No, I don't think it is. But I think it's the quickest way to end the argument.

I think 30-somethings are more likely to be reading Vice than teens.

Also if 12-year-olds were reading Vice in any large numbers, they'd lose the booze and cigs adverts.

That I am seriously considering playing "you're in, you can't talk about being out, you can never understand my pain, which you must still respect" is an indication of how much this thread annoys me, as I abhor this attitude. And how glad I am that this thread has avoided this pitfall so far.

Though of course, it's in my advantage to hope that in-ers can understand out-ers: I'm still in on three of the axes :)

Perhaps that's a moral of the thread: outsider status that you can parlay into cool is a very different beast.

And the first time I went to that page the recommended products included mook-tastic Grand Theft Auto, which sums up what they (or at least their advertisers, thx Suzy) think about the nerd population.

("If Vice was based in Moscow & run by self-loathing ex-American nerds, except with the twist of Edward Limonov (& John Dolan, obv); + without the whole advertising thing & oh well I guess it isn't really like Vice at all"?)

Is this boycott thing real? I have never heard of anything like that, ever in publishing. seems like it would just generate publicity for them. "the magazine Maxim tried to BAN!" heh heh.

I wrote a few things for them years ago. Shit pay back then anyway. Suroosh is a very smart guy, Gavin and Shane are coked up tattoo jocks but cunning motherfuckers.

(a lot of people here bitching about Vice have apparently never seen a copy, so their PunkRock 'hate us' publicity campaign is working. why let em suck you in so easily? it's actually pretty fucking harmless, mostly about skateboards, hip hop, and boobs. just yr average larry clark baloney. so what?)

I've totally gone off the idea of the song about retards. Now I think I want to write one called 'The Biographies of Famous Mathematicians', because mathematicians are under-represented in song, and the math of curves is beautiful. Or something about lapdogs...

BTW Dan, I just recorded my Schubert song in German (it didn't sound right in English) and was thinking about you -- affectionately -- when I sang it, because I remembered you'd offered to sing it. I guess that isn't going to happen now...

we won't reap the rewards until oprah derides the latest martha stewart clothing line as being hella gay.

(Vaguely serious post on this thread by me to occur sometime tonight, perhaps.)

in what possible universe is "language" distinct and seperable from "writing"?

Momus: Because I don't believe in the status quo.

This is my problem, Momus: you never seem to bother to isolate the valuable parts of the status quo from the ones you disagree with. The western "status quo," insofar as it exists, frowns on things like racism, child pornography, spousal abuse, and incitements to violence -- and I don't imagine you'd see inherent transgressive value in taking any of those actions. It's for that reason that you can't simply fall back on the syllogism that any transgression against the status quo is an inherently good thing: at some point you're going to have to start looking at the individual transgressions and working out whether you think they're productive ones or not. What I'm seeing in a lot of this thread is you saying "it's a transgression, therefore it's good" and a lot of other people saying "it's a particular transgression that doesn't help anything and quite possibly makes things worse."

"nigga" isn't a stereotype, fritz. it's a collection of stereotypes as well as being a word, unlike "16 year old goth girl" which is just a collection of stereotypes (and isn't a racial or sexual slur no matter how it can be twisted.)

(nb: i don't think fritz is an idiot, and basically agree with what he sez.)

(also equating a public message board with a magazine is a bit more problematic.)

I had a huge argument with a Vce editor about this issue one night, and his basic argument was that there should be no difference between the way people talked to their closest friends and the way they wrote. they were arguing that it was just honest.

Julio: Glad to oblige.

I don't know if I should even get involved but Jess, I guess my point was more something like "Well, do you like the magazine otherwise?" Because there are other things going on in the magazine, with or without the smartass diction they use, which never struck me as the main point of the magazine. Some of the reviews and interviews are brilliant. The Andrew WK review was one of the main things that got me interested in him. The debate about using these slurs is relatively uninteresting to me - sometimes I talk like that with people who know me and think it's funny, mostly with my sister. If it offended you a great deal I probably wouldn't around you. I don't think it's that much worse than making jokes about dead babies or something - I don't take the latter as condoning child murder. It's not a big deal to me either way but I can understand why it could offend someone. If it offends you, fine, understandable, that's a general point about using these slurs that applies everywhere, not just Vice. But if we're going to talk about Vice, I think there's a lot more to talk about even if the vocabulary does offend you. I'd be more interested in talking about the reviews, interviews, articles, and columns. Unless you're so turned off by the use of words like "homo" that you never read further, in which case HOW DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN SIT THROUGH YOUR EMINEM AND G'N'R ALBUMS? It reminds me of the time I lent my sister a Public Enemy CD. She gave it back after only reading the lyric sheet and complaining about some of the attitudes towards women. All this said to me was that she had no interest in listening to the music itself.

stockbroker. beautiful. divorced. fat. busboy. German. singer-songwriter. rockist.

as i said before, i am friends (or at least "friendly") with almost everyone who has expressed a "dissenting" opinion from my own on this thread. including geeta, who tried to paint me into the reductionist "you disagree with jess" = "you are wrong" corner. if i had to stop liking them because i disagree i think i'd surely be limiting the enrichment of my life. but if my friends were as juvenile and purile as vice with little redeeming value, i'd feel no shame.

i like big black too, that doesn't mean i don't think steve albini is an idiot.

The problem is that the word has historically meant not just "you are a person of these particular inferior characteristics tied to your race" but also "you deserve according treatment, as do all such people" which is a great deal to go into a word, and that doesn't even begin to address the "-a" issue.

know what I'm saying? the use of the n-word in huck finn tells me more about the characters of tom and huck than it does about jim, right?

imagine that same book which is great and anti-racist and powerful and all thrown into a crowded integrated inner-city classroom already rife with racial tension -- some gang related, much not -- and kids being asked to read out loud passages including that word. it's like throwing a bomb into the room.

context is everything.

Home Truths thread to thread! Or just d00mie.

You want examples of why I hate Vice? This article got mentioned on some blogs a few months ago. I'm sure this magazine is very proud of its CANON SMASHING SHOCKAH, and I'm not like offended that they're dissing bands I like, I just think the writing here is really puerile and annoying. (And ooooooh, "venereal warts" -- these guys are PUSHING BOUNDARIES. WHOA.)
And I quote:

3 The Fall
Great band, right? “Mr. Pharmacist” is the jam, right? What about the other 99.9% of their songs? Have you ever heard that album they made up on the spot? The one where he goes, “I am curious orange, curious oh-rawnge”? What the fuck is that? Those guys suck. They’re one of those bands your big brother totes because nobody’s ever heard them before and they seem like some heavy shit. Like Brian Eno. Or Roxy Music. How gay are they? All these groundbreaking bands like The Residents or Throbbing Gristle or Captain Beefheart or Pere Ubu or Cabaret Voltaire are essentially nonexistent. Music critics always cite them as a huge influence but nobody’s ever heard them play a note. I wouldn’t be surprised if none of them even have any albums. I’m not going to look into it, though. I checked out Gang of Four, Love, and Frank Zappa after hearing how influential they were and all I heard was a bunch of gay weirdos going “pajama people, pajama people.” Fuck that.

just sorta had to swing into a thread gettin' as long & unwieldy as this one -- everybody sit back now and wait as Momus thinks up another postmodernism-by-numbers response

as regards to the article on jody's post: i remember we discussed on ILM Jody and it was dumb but not shocking and it's just your annoying oyunger brother talking (mine does, he believes i can't possibly like burse with wound and I'm just 'faking it' to show how 'tough' i am).

and if they keep mentioning how the fall and other bands are shit ppl might check them out.

I'm people, and I find it frustrating that their articles are so short and unfulfilling. The writers give themselves just enough space to drop the appropriate names, talk about all the coke the artist does or how poor the artist is, and maybe add one sentence about why the music is good. A glossy magazine should try harder, y'know?

Do you want your annoying younger brother to run a magazine, though? (BTW, I know plenty of people who like and actively listen to Nurse With Wound.)

same with the mag.

momus, since you seem to prop up your lame arguments with this one quite a lot, it might help to actually READ the adorno passage i assume you got it from: after the bit about how philosophers should try to be wrong he qualifies it with "but in such a way as to convict their opponents of untruth." which i've yet to see you do.

Your pal,
http://members.aol.com/dubplatestyle/mase.jpg
Ma$e.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,804547,00.html

Gotcha. Sorry.

Nah, I think they're just picking at their own scabs, and by doing so, they make themselves look even uglier.

Fresh? How is "Well guess what, nerds? Fuck you. Fuck fucking you. We are going to tape your buns together so tight that we’ll get muscles doing it" fresh? It's tired as all hell. Who here didn't spend the first fifteen-or-so years of their lives being subjected to moronic 'quips' like that?

OK, so let's imagine there are two ways to interpret this article. The first: "As one of the cool people who used to savagely beat and torture the socially awkward members of the society I lived in, I am appalled at the foothold that they have gained in mainstream pop culture. Let us return to the days when we would savagely beat and torture the weak and disadvantaged."

If this is the author's sincere intention, then my objection to this one ought to be obvious.

The second: "Now that nerd culture is dominating pop culture, I am appalled at the fact that bullies have become the new underdogs. This article will satirize the modern cliche of the pissed-off nerd, which is oh-so-tired."

This might actually be funny and interesting if it worked, but there's one problem. Bullies will never be the underdogs, because when bullies grow up, they beat their wives, their kids, homosexuals, black people, and anyone else who get on their nerves. When stylish people appropriate nerd style, it's funny because the perpetual losers appear to be winning. It's really hard to imagine or even get a laugh out of the idea of bullies as losers, because they're not the ones who get their assholes taped shut or get black eyes every time their spouses get drunk. Maybe you can enjoy the writing regardless, but I have trouble.

Without that juxtaposition, this article (and most of the magazine, for that matter) is just a big whiny rant by a barely-literate thug. I'd be really interested to read why you enjoy it, Momus.

I actually found thart article mildly funny in a sort of Mennipean satirical way indirectly dealing with the internet bust.

well, all I can say is if you're looking for moral instruction and rectitude in a "hipster bible" then I think you're already lost. It's a magazine that tells you what brand of sneakers are cool to wear. Only Momus takes it seriously.

and the bullying thing ...If this is the author's sincere intention, then my objection to this one ought to be obvious...come on! lighten UP on the faux outrage

I'm not looking for moral instruction or rectitude ANYWHERE! I just don't like seeing a major magazine throwing around the word "faggot."

Whereas I find a lot of cheap-playground-diss music writing ignorant and ill-informed and I think it can do more harm than good considering we're living in a culture that discourages intellectualism and serious thought, and encourages hateful little soundbites.

geeta: is anyone saying they dislike vice becauze they're (ilxers) against smash-yr-idols articles? or is it because what they wrote about the fall is as close as you can get to the bad standup parody of standing around and saying, "dude, like, what is up with *that*?" (almost literally! read it again)?

"Nerd culture is in ascendency and it's pretty cool."
"The Powerpuff Girls movie is hilarious!"
"Bullies are desperately pathetic and stupid no matter how they cast themselves."
"There is no point to this article beyond venting for comedic effect." (This is the reading I came away with, for what it's worth.)

I agree on that count. :-)

(thx jess)

Apples vs. Oranges: FITE!

I can criticize this editorial choice, though, can't I?

I don't think Vice is always funny, and as I did say upthread, I don't think they try hard enough. I think quite a few of their jokes do fall flat; if I was their editor I would probably recommend to them to lay off the coke and head for the beer.

I don't read it regularly or anything, BTW.

PS I've always found The Onion to be total shit.

The only tone I detect running through all of them is this phony transgression thing, where this big value is placed upon anything that stirs people up or gets them defensive or assaults their sensibilities -- apparently for the sole purpose of the text sort of lording it over you afterward and trying to make you feel like an uptight pussy for disapproving. I really don't like that whole thing, in that the underlying message is "You care about something? That's so fucking lame."

Weird thing is that I've always sensed that they do care, though in a specifically delineated way. Fashion? Definitely. Music? More than I think is being given credit for (the music review section at the back often has some sharp, scabrous and celebratory entries). Perhaps they're like the Onion in trying to have their cake and eat it too, except that their own version of the AV Club isn't specifically set apart from the main text.

The Onion has been really lacking these days, sadly.

There was an article about Colombian art students that was sort of interesting, but then they had to go and fuck it up and spell the nationality "Columbian" in the title. Talk about not caring.

Dated, lame and deeply pretentious. (Putting it that way makes me see why Momus is so keen on it: you could say, without being mean, that rehabilating the pretentious in all its facets is one of his goals as a public figure.)

Well FUCK THAT SHIT. Getting 'tude for broadly "caring about things" from a magazine with fashion spreads is like being criticized by a doll collector for taking music "too seriously."

Vice is a 'boundary-pusher' and a trend-setter. Its New Brutalism is a pastiche, a well-captured adolescent voice designed to alienate one generation and consequently attract a new, younger one and pass it on to the advertisers. We should save the derision we're currently pouring on Vice for the much less intelligent imitators coming even now in its wake. For if Vice is Ziggy, watch out, here comes Alvin Stardust!

he is four years old = "faggot" is transgressive (and funny!)

DJ the Girl (Amy Kellner), DJ Soccer Star (Meredith Danluck), Boney M (Michal Jurewicz)

Is the Art Fag crew.

ART FAGs TUESDAYs is this Tuesday Night at Passerby, 436 W 15th (btw 9/10) (no cover). Every Tuesday except the first Tuesday of the month (which is Nico Mazet "Undertone")

Hear the music!

*********************

Anyway I really wanted to post to note that I actually think Maxim and Vice are a different kettle of fish in a certain way. For one thing, Maxim can be pretty consistantly funny and veers from the "transgressive" aesthetit of vice for a more pc-backlash "we think sex an beer are cool so whatever you wanna think, fine" sorta way which can lead to scary places but hey -- I like sex and beer and cars and gadgets. They're not ALL I like, but I don't mind something which focuses on them since actually I don't tend to encounter much on them elsewhere, at least not like maxim does and in a way i can tolerate and maybe this is my limited subset of existance more than anything else but...

Also, I think some of the only smart pop-cult crit. Camille Pagillia has done in a long time has been her praise of the Maxim aesthetic in photography of hot chiXor.

(2) Jody writes, re the question "don't you guys have any sense that...that they are satirizing themselves and their readers and the conventions of music mags?": "Nah, I think they're just picking at their own scabs, and by doing so, they make themselves look even uglier." I think there's a degree to which it is satirical, but the more overt stupidity of it makes it untenable as such for a lot of people, including me a lot of the time: the joke that fell into itself, in a way. I also think people who compare Vice and Maxim have pretty obviously never read either.

So even though we're offended by Vice's content, we should just stop complaining because we'll sound silly in thirty years when we're all saying 'pass the salt, nigga' at the dinner table?

Also, please answer my previous question, Momus. In that 'nerds' article, how did you interpret what the writer was saying (assuming that he or she really wasn't advocating beating the shit out of nerds once again)?

(Dan - you and Sterl are right, my argument was reductionist. I was really just trying to make the point that I hated the way they said whatever they were saying in that article, and that I couldn't imagine a reading of it that would redeem the style they used)

Ken Tynan was the first man who said 'fuck' on the BBC. It was in 1963. Now it's pretty much a daily occurrence. King Canute was the man who tried to order the tide to stop coming in. Brian Eno said that he had learned to curb his instinct to hate hyped new bands because he knew his hatred was a waste of energy. If these bands succeeded, they would redefine the context in which everyone worked. So he skipped hate and went on to the next phase, working with the new context.

In that 'nerds' article, how did you interpret what the writer was saying (assuming that he or she really wasn't advocating beating the shit out of nerds once again)?

The article says 'In the old days, being on the side of nerds was subversive. Now, when Bill Gates rules the world, it isn't. So to be subversive, we need to do something else. Reset your watch, pay attention to the changed context!'

in any event, if you didn't notice the incredible amount of ill will and tension dredged up by this thread (and i'm not even including conversations i've had with people about it outside) that might tilt it towards "godawful" then, well, damn.

i can't shut my personal feelings off when i'm arguing with my friends, i suppose.

matos: apparently so.

I'm not a fogey for finding Vice tactics kind of suspect in a boring lowest-common-denominator sort of way (and yeah, they are Albiniesque - yucch - and in the parlance, Albini = weenie).Someone upthread mentioned the whole 'clothes + swearing = junior high' vibe of Vice. I'm of the opinion that ALL of the current celebrity culture is just way too much like junior/high school - which is exactly why I loathe it. In that context Vice is just in compliance with stuff like:

People who are considered 'popular' (insert your fave TV presenter here) but nobody you ask actually likes them, or knows why they're popular.

Having to have the hot new label before everyone else, but not being seen to be imitating someone 'popular'.

Really mainstreamed approach to what's cool.

Getting the smart/artistic kids to do all your work for you, then passing it off as your own, and then calling names in a just-joshing way.

Bleurggh.

Hey, you're already gathering features ideas to pitch to the editors! You're a sly one!

How about 'The Vice Guide To Why Vice Totally, Like, Sucks And MUST DIE'?

Oh, sorry, Jess got that one.

Also if Vice is more subversive than Bill Gates cos its smaller and less powerful then surely NOT HAVING A MAGAZINE AT ALL is even more subversive yay! From where I'm sitting, if you're dealing with advertisers etc you're PART of the status quo, you're doing fuck all against it.

Karma is a bitch, Momus, and it will come down on your ass.

He may have done. I know another radical iconoclast who marked a decade, Malcolm McLaren, thinks Eminem is the closest thing the world has now to a Sex Pistols.

Nitsuh's question was not 'invalid', but it was a question which questioned questioning itself. It seemed to imply a deep conservatism. Why, one implication of the question runs, would anyone even want to make a statement that society might find uncomforable? And I'm astonished to have to even answer that, but I will. The American and French revolutions, for one thing, would never have happened if people had never, for fear of giving offence or going out on a limb -- or even causing some bloodshed -- questioned the status quo.

From where I'm sitting, if you're dealing with advertisers etc you're PART of the status quo, you're doing fuck all against it.

That's kind of binary, isn't it? You have to be totally outside, in which case you're powerless, or totally inside, in which case you're corrupted and complicit? Such fatalism breeds a terrible complacency, methinks.

Now I'm being threatened with Hindu theological concepts! For what crime, exactly? Hope?

Yes, the ancien regime is bad, but if we revolt and try to found a republic there will be a Terror and then a Dictator, and isn't that worse?

Yes, if liberals take over the language and semiology of fascists it will diminish the power of fascist heraldry, but it will inevitably make fascism more acceptable. Let's not go down that path!

Yes, 'A Clockwork Orange' contains an intelligent critique of power, but if we release it with a U certificate young and impressionable people will just pick up on the violence and the streets will be full of mayhem.

The end results of the caution behind this argument is 'put all that nasty stuff back in Pandora's box'. But you can't. So what you do is make a liberal version of the New Brutalism. Which is what Vice is. There's a pretty obvious Reithian spirit lurking just behind its faux-brutalism. What makes it a successful mass market product is precisely this clever combination of Apollo and Dionysus.

Meanwhile I'm delighted to have made a statement SO binary that it brought that accusation from you! I suppose what I'm saying is that a magazine's sphere of influence (i.e. the things it actually can 'subvert') doesn't generally include Bill Gates and his cronies. The only things it can 'subvert' are its audience and the fashion system its operating in: accepting advertising, getting rich and floating on a coke'n'hype bubble for as long as it lasts are all wonderful things (particularly if you're a Vice magazine editor!) but I don't see where the subversion comes in.

"So what you do is make a liberal version of the New Brutalism."

Are you so bereft of imagination that you cannot think of any other way to address the very real threat of the New Fascism? If so, we're in trouble.

Are so bereft of imagination that you can only read "let's not go down that path" as "let's not go down any path"? If so, you're in trouble.

The issue is about questioning everything, not about questioning nothing, Momus. I'm astonished that I have to point out that your 'status quo' isn't a monolithic bloc but an innumerable range of different and nuanced worldview spinning around a hegemonic axis. You seem enormously keen to point out the enormous fluidity and multiplicitly of language (whilst simultaneously trying to explain that some in-groups have special access to what's really happening right now); would it kill you to acknowledge that this is true of meaning, culture and society more generally?

"The American and French revolutions, for one thing, would never have
appened if people had never, for fear of giving offence or going out on a limb -- or even causing some bloodshed -- questioned the status quo."

You said way way above that: change is normal (check) and that nothing changed unless people stuck their necks out (not check) (no pun intended juxtaposing that next to the French Revolution). By temperament I'm a utopian idealist, but even I can see that social and cultural change is the water we swim in. IT's dialectical, not the exclusive result of a bunch of avant-guardistes pushing the boat out and looking on with an 'I told you so' smile as we all eventually catch up with them.

Well, even to use the word subversive, as the Nerds piece does, in a positively-loaded way is a start. I don't see Maxim or Loaded talking about how they feel let down by people they had hoped would be more 'subversive'. It's also rather interesting that they use contemporary art to illustrate a teenzine-type article. Nobody was forcing them to do that. And nobody is forcing them to write about figures like Larry Clark, who is genuinely a subversive character, whether you like what he does or not.

Ellie / Tom, can I just say, on this question of binaries, that you can use binaries (we all do and we all have to) without pledging allegiance to their arbitrary divisions, which always fail reality. Eno has a nice riff (in his 'Swollen Appendices') about 'axis thinking'. Imagine a pile of spills. Each represents a binary concept: short / long, black / white, good / bad... Each on its own is flat and reductive. But imagine them all stuck through each other. That's more like reality. It's 3D. You can locate a point in the middle of your cat's cradle of spills, and it'll be at *this* point on the binary spill 'wet /dry', and *this* point on the binary spill 'rough / smooth'.

I'd also cite Barthes, who said that language structures our thought, but that we should learn to 'abjure' its structures, in other words abandon them quickly, like temporary scaffolding.

Misunderstanding of these points is why I'm so often accused in these threads of setting up binaries but also of abandoning them and changing positions. That's the whole point. Apollo / Dionysus, for instance, is a binary. But it's only when you put it up against another binary like 'Left wing / Right wing' that the dialectics -- and the thinking -- really begins.

I think you mean collaborating.

(Rimshot.)

I now have a computer screen full of coffee.

Momus = an MP on Question Time. "I'm very glad you asked that question. (Answers different question)"

Momus
Oy smartass!

can you explain why exactly
You probably can't, but come on, we want to see you wriggle a bit

you see inherent value
The word 'inherent' means the questioner wants you to explain without reference to any contingent or contractual value. He's forcing you to be a Platonist, knowing full well you aren't one.

in people's doing things society disapproves of?
Wha...? I thought this was going to be hard. Is he really asking me to justify any form of action which is not in total lockstep with some notional monolithic society?

As you can see, when I look more closely I see that Nitsuh's very question was full of propositions ('inherent value', the idea of society en masse 'disapproving') which are alien to my conception of the world. Perhaps he meant it as a trick question.

I would read it as applying to a range of objects as applying to the characteristics that they have in common, that distinguishes them from what they aren't, which is (to start with) the single-facet description of those objects that is the next clause. Would the word "intrinsic" help instead?

Is he really asking me to justify any form of action which is not in total lockstep with some notional monolithic society?

You've loaded this sentence the wrong way round. He's asking if you will justify "(any form of action...)" which is a large group with only one obvious thing in common, not that you pick any (form of action...) and justify that one thing.

Perhaps he meant it as a trick question

Then why did you answer?

And my answer lies in my refusal of the idea that there really is, as he implies, a monolithic society out there with only one standard of conduct, one model of human interaction, one ethics, etc. If there's even a possibility of such a world outside the ant kingdom, it must be seen as the worst possible nightmare scenario.

In a pluralistic society, dissent, disagreement and debate between people with different worldviews (like the Vice thread itself!) are signs that things are working as they should. All forms of behaviour will be disapproved at some point, from some position. That's okay. What's not okay is to try and stamp out behaviours you see as transgressive or divisive. That's basically cheerleading for antworld. And I thought there was somthing, if not antish, at least waspish in Nitsuh's question. I was guilty until proven innocent, because I was championing a form of expression that would inevitably annoy someone, somewhere.

Responding with talk of 'the status quo' was probably not useful, I will admit, and I think Ellie picked me up on that.

That could just reflect on Vice's copy editors, assuming they have any.

Well, it ain't working- I showed it to some of my friends (and We Are The Kids, 'natch), and we pretty much agreed it was bollocks and that, generally speaking, the bullies at our school are much more creative with the term "faggot" than Vice is.

Yes, the ancien regime is bad, but if we revolt and try to found a republic there will be a Terror and then a Dictator, and isn't that worse?

Ha ha ha cf: Portuguese history 1908-1975

I would say that "irritating=good" is one of the least interesting formulae around, just for the record, and cite the Insane Clown Posse as evidence of my claim.

Or, as my betters once put it, "Wicked clown, wicked clown/wicked clown, wicked clown/wicked clown, wicked clown/wicked wicked wicked clown."

because "they" do it at the exclusion - no the DERISION - of everything else. as tom alluded to, ilx's own vice-isms are read within the context of ilx as a whole. if ilx were JUST those things (fisting jokes, "nigga please", drug refs, whatever), i'd guess that it'd have a VERY different demographic overall.

i'm not for one moment suggesting that vice isn't reflective of the way that people speak at times, nor am i saying that there isn't value to what they do. in fact, i admitted *way* upthread that they sometimes "hit at the root of a subject with more effectiveness and insight than anyone else"

what i object to is the way that their VERY one-dimensional dialectic is proferred as a complete and whole and 'real' lifestyle. i mean, you can't deny that what they do is generally to the exclusion of reasoned debate or considered opinion (their 'serious' stuff is always coded by an "aw shit" moment of faux-earnestness). it's clowning. it's anti-intellectual. and it's that which makes me really question momus' prevailing theory that they're using these epithets in an earnest attempt to subvert their meanings. rather than, say, subverting the meanings in an honest attempt to use these epithets.

(sorry. it slipped.)

But it also seems to me that you don't like John Ashcroft, and you don't like him because you've decided that his particular transgressions and his particular rebellions against the status quo aren't positive or productive ones.

So I absolutely cannot believe you're pretending there's some deep trick to the question I asked you earlier (and consequently skirting the entire point of it). There are a great variety of actions that violate norms in a great variety of ways. Clearly this doesn't mean that they're all good. Having people running around smeared with their own feces, for example, would be highly transgressive and would certainly get people talking, but it would also stink.

There is nothing at all antlike about pointing that out, to you or to Bob Dylan. Breaking down "the status quo" -- which let's note is a term you introduced to this discussion, so stop trying to backtrack into "there's no such thing" -- is not inherently good: it's only productive if you're breaking down a part of the status quo that for some reason needs to be broken down. What you're doing is saying "I unquestioningly support emptying the bath out the window, in all cases." And all I'm saying is you have some sort of responsibility, in each case, to think about the ratio of baby to bathwater therein.

Mein...gott...they...are...even...more...stupid...than...I...feared...or...dreamed.

and if we're reducing this argument to cliches, all i'm saying is ilx has some responsibility to think about the ratio of thrown rocks to glass houses here.

yes, i realize that message boards and magazines have different functions but a lot of the criticisms of vice here centre around it's glibness, hipness, cynicism, emotional remove, shock-for-shock's sake, ambivalence about stereotypes, etc. all of which ILx and most normal, intelligent people indulge in from time to time.

Yeah, it was a great example of how satirical intent can catastrophically backfire!

suzy criticizes momus's ideas as "so 1992" ... describes williamsburg as an "alterna-mall" for people clinging to their college days (while gavin from vice refers to wmsburg as "the big dorm" & "the flipflop capital of the world" or something) - where's the difference?