VICE MAILLetters - The Mexican Issue
CARE ME A RIVER
Dear Vice,
I’m enjoying this schizophrenic conversation you’re having with yourself about “caring.” You seem to want to tell all the impressionable youths that it’s cool to care about social issues, but only from a properly ironic distance. You’re trying to walk a really thin line. I don’t think it’s working though.
Take your article about horse fighting in the Philippines. Am I supposed to call somebody to stop them? Am I supposed to enjoy the rawkin’ photos? Both, somehow?
Your newfound environmentalism is similar. Here’s my take: Environmentalism is important, but the only cool way I can engage with it is by making fun of the hippies who started it. Again, am I supposed to get off my ass and do something?
Even the DOs and DON’Ts are getting conflicted—half the time they celebrate twenty-somethings for dressing like five-year-olds, and the other half is spent cursing them for not growing up and getting a life.
I understand, at the end of the day you’re a business and you stay in existence by selling cool shit for the Vice-branded lifestyle. You seem to be having some angst about this, though.
My unbidden advice? Pick an issue, then shit or get off the pot. Last month a reader wrote, “You know what is cool? Giving a shit and trying.” He’s wrong—it’s really not possible to give a shit and look cool, because cool is primarily based on not giving a shit. But maybe we don’t have to be cool all the time?
JC DWYER
Laredo, TX
OK, Mr. Conflicted, and here’s some advice for you: Chill the fuck out, you fucking overwrought freak. Do you spend so much time every morning trying to decide whether or not it’s time to take a dump that you just end up shitting your pants?
SPEED SPOOK
Hey Vice,
My roommate is from Costa Rica, and he somehow has found a good hookup and has recently been giving me a lot of what he calls “free, pure, uncut Colombian cocaine.” It’s the best shit I’ve ever had in my life.
But honestly, I think it’s weird, because instead of wanting to be social and talk about how deep-sea creatures are cool or something like I usually do when I do normal Canadian (super meth-y) blow, I have developed this weird introverted obsession where I sit alone in my room and go on ghost-sighting websites from all around the world and scare myself by looking at the pictures that people submit and, like, cry. Is that normal? I don’t really think that it is.
Are ghosts real, Vice magazine?
HALEY COURBET
Montreal, QC, Canada
Yes, ghosts are real. And what you are doing is a very valid way to spend your time. We like you.
THE FEMININE MISTAKE
Dear Vice,
I just wanted to complain on behalf of all the women out here that women suck. If I see one more letter in your Vice Mail section from some whiny-ass pseudo-feminist rich girl I think I may explode. I am so very sick of all these women complaining about how demeaning you are to women and how showing naked girls is a bad thing and that tits are for private use only. I love boobs. I love having them (seriously, they rock, and all you guys out there should go get a pair ’cause you’re missing out), and by God, if some perfect-breasted girl feels like showing ’em off, more power to her. Anyway, have none of these women actually thought about what they have to complain about? Nothing, that’s what. We can vote, we have rights, and having a few naked girls in a magazine isn’t gonna change that. And besides, what kind of guy is attracted to a bitchy, controlling, and very complainy man of a woman? I certainly wouldn’t be. So yeah, I guess the gist of what I’m saying here is that it is high time for women to stop bitching people out and bake some cookies. Chocolate chip would be preferable.
Sincerely,
LUCY SCHACHTER
Boston, MA
We’re with ya, Lucy. Now show us your tits and we’ll give you this string of shiny plastic beads.
THE VAMPIRE LESUCK
Dear Vice,
Whoever claims Vampire Weekend are lame does not know music. At all. Lyrically. Musically. Songwritingly. Completely superior to everything currently out there—except maybe Times New Viking, but them we won’t count. Just because they’re smarter than you does not give you permission to hate. And yes, I know that’s what you’re doing. It’s obvious here: “...but they literally just copied Graceland into ProTools and added some voices.” That “just” is superfluous.
Betta check yo’self ’fo’ you... yeah, you get the picture.
JASON
Via Viceland.com
Just check in with us next year, when you haven’t listened to Vampire Weekend for months and you’re wondering what the fuck you were thinking liking that pussy, pussy band.
STATE OF THE NATION
Vice,
Your magazine regrettably glorifies, and even celebrates, some of the most deplorable and base acts of human behavior. The ads are derogatory. Your content without merit. Articles without purpose. Your magazine is full of abuse, as I’m certain is your intent. What are you adding to humanity that the world isn’t already overwhelmed with and why is there intent to promote such waste? Your publication is much too ambitious to spread disease rather than something a little more healthy for the mind. There is no wit or wisdom to offer your young readers and it is sad you stand behind feeding such arrogance and irresponsibility to the public. It is also obvious by your responses to correspondence that you do not take any responsibility for what you copy.
I would say, in fact, that you revel in idiocy.
KATHLEEN HAY
Via email
Kathleen, really, please, and I say this with genuine concern for you: Dust the cobwebs out of your sad, neglected vagina and join the human race.
CORRECTION
Jason Sanchez did not write the Horse Fights story that ran a couple of issues back. We mistakenly credited him with it. Vice regrets this error.
In North America send correspondence to vice@viceland.com (include city and state/province) or mail to Vice Magazine, 97 North 10th Street, Suite 204, Brooklyn, NY 11211.
In Scandinavia write to VICE at St. Eriksgatan 48 A, SE-112 34 Stockholm. Send letters there or to info@viceland.se.
In the UK write to VICE at 77 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QS. Send letters there or to letters@viceuk.com
In Australia send letters to Mailbox 61, 278 Church St, Richmond, Victoria 3121 or to stuff@viceaustralia.com
Letters are edited for length.
 Anonymous, on Jul 12, 2008 wrote:
dear mizz cry me a river. relax baby. everything’s cool. | | Anonymous, on Jul 12, 2008 wrote:
OPEN LETTER TO ALL U TIGHTASSES. The guys who started Vice are from Montreal. Before u write ur stupid letter about standing up for uterus rights and not exploiting Indonesian crackbabies, go to Montreal and stay for awhile. Then perhaps u will learn how little Vice editors give a shit about pathetic moral diatribes. Yo moderator, am I right or am I right? | |
| Taeil, on Jun 24, 2008 wrote:
Um, I like Vampire Weekend and all but I’m not a fag about it. There’s no real point trying to convince anyone if a band’s good or not when it comes down to musical taste. It’s nearly impossible. Big whup. The guy who wrote the review didn’t like the record. Feel good you don’t feel everything this rag does is gold. I’ll feel sorry for those that do. | | Anonymous, on Jun 24, 2008 wrote:
ad | |
| delacerda, on Jun 19, 2008 wrote:
fuck it. i will love vice forever. | | Anonymous, on Jun 17, 2008 wrote:
Piss in my cunt | | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
isnt this just entertainment?
i mean the idea that the editor and staff of VICE magazine are responsible(one of america’s favorite words) for the well being of "young people" is silly. this magazine is for people who want to read what ever they print, right?
So why baste them with angry reverberations because they dont suit your fancy anymore?
VICE is cool because they inform you about things that the ’mainstream’ will not informs you about. and if they arent like TIME magazine articles, YAY!
its my brain and i get to decide what i put in it, but its not my fault most of america is taught to glorify hero’s of virtue when it teaches vice.
But it will be my fault if we let that continue, VICE is an entertainment venue not an activist/rightouness/christian/leftwing/rightwing
venue.
and if you want to be angry
send hate mail to FOX news network | | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
RE: "He who shall not be named" this has come up before, but even when he still worked there Gayvin didn’t write the responses to the letters. I useda to worka there. | | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
Are you guys actually serious. This letter "owned" Vice? Let’s take it apart real quick:
"Take your article about horse fighting in the Philippines. Am I supposed to call somebody to stop them? Am I supposed to enjoy the rawkin’ photos? Both, somehow?"
This can be applied to any article written about anything in any magazine ever. You are supposed to take the information you have been given and figure out what to do with it because you are a grown up. Do you write letters to the NYtimes complaining that they don’t tell you what you can do about the Chinese Earthquake or Sudanese coup you just read about in their paper?
"Here’s my take: Environmentalism is important, but the only cool way I can engage with it is by making fun of the hippies who started it."
First of all hippies didn’t start environmentalism. They popularized a retardedly simplified version because they thought "The Earth is Groovy," but real environmentalism was started by Muir and his turn-of-the-century Sierra Club cronies (read: rich guys) and was transformed into its current pollutant-fixated, anti-industrial form by Rachel Carson types in the 50s and early 60s--still pre-hippie.
As for your take, where have they said "Environmentalism is important, but we hate hippies"? Are you referring to the Ocean article they did and the follow-up interview with the Breakthrough Institute? Cause if you were of an over-8th grade reading level and can get past the jokes in the title, you’d realise that what they’re saying is, this is an environmental catastrophe that has no personal solution on account of its scale, so instead of giving you unproductive "feel-good" options like "use less shopping bags" or "avoid Nalgene bottles" they are giving you the painful, but dog’s honest truth: This shit isn’t going away until we reorganize how products are produced consumed and disposed of by our ENTIRE SOCIETY. Putting two milk cartons in a separate bin from the rest of your trash is doing nothing to help anything at all ever anywhere.
"Even the DOs and DON’Ts are getting conflicted—half the time they celebrate twenty-somethings for dressing like five-year-olds, and the other half is spent cursing them for not growing up and getting a life."
The Dos and Don’ts, for all their failings at humor, are not "conflicted." They are jokes. They are funny words attached to pictures. If you take them as some sort of uniform Vice dress code or secret rules to live by, you are stupid. Endy story.
"My unbidden advice? Pick an issue, then shit or get off the pot. "
Oh, so Vice should give up on trying to cover a wide variety of stories its staff find interesting and become a niche publication focused on a single social issue. That is AWESOME advice.
"it’s really not possible to give a shit and look cool, because cool is primarily based on not giving a shit. But maybe we don’t have to be cool all the time?"
Here is the funny thing about "being cool"--if analyzing "coolness", discussing it, being worried about it, or even thinking about it enters your brain at all, you can pretty much be assure that you are not "cool" and not a boogie-boarding tween in the universe would consider you so.
| | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
It might be flabby prose, but the gay is right.
Kids hit puberty at what? 11? 5% or so of them are gonna be homosexual, but all anyone ever talks about in school is how "gay" anything bad is, and all the worst insults are the rich and varied vocabulary of slurs for homosexuals, so you’re pretty much brainwashed into thinking it’s about the worst thing you can be. The suicide rates are hardly surprising.
It’s like that because people keep these words and ideas in circulation. If you’re one of these people, and you probably are, take some responsibility for what you’re saying and bite your tongue next time. | | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
wow, vice, all responses to the letters just sounded angry and bitter. | | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
Dear Kathleen,
This IS a magazine called VICE.
Sincerely,
Kathleen
| | Anonymous, on Jun 13, 2008 wrote:
I love hearing Vice Staffers do their best imitation of "he who shall not be named", but maybe you shouldn’t do it to letters that completely sum up your fucking magazine in 08. You’re garbage right now and need to start listening to "overwrought freaks" who have you pinned. | | Anonymous, on Jun 13, 2008 wrote:
OK, Mr. Conflicted, and here’s some advice for you: Chill the fuck out, you fucking overwrought freak. Do you spend so much time every morning trying to decide whether or not it’s time to take a dump that you just end up shitting your pants?
(Nelson from the simpsons at Vice:) HA ha
Most of the letters I’ve seen in the past trying to indict Vice for being hypocritical have failed, but the one above fucking owned Vice. They shouldn’t have even printed it, because any response would be inadequate.
Well said Anonymous, except one response would be adequate: Shit, you’re kinda right, we’re still trying to figure shit out... | | Anonymous, on Jun 13, 2008 wrote:
Kathleen does seem like one of those people that would induce murderous thoughts in you just by having a conversation with her but it’s kind of annoying that Vice mostly seems to pick the letters and emails that people already know are lame and gay (probably even the people who wrote them know it) just so they can write some kind of witty cutting response that isn’t even funny. Anyway, the responses annoy me as much as the correspondence and it makes me want to bang your heads together. | | Anonymous, on Jun 13, 2008 wrote:
Most of the letters I’ve seen in the past trying to indict Vice for being hypocritical have failed, but the one above fucking owned Vice. They shouldn’t have even printed it, because any response would be inadequate. | | Anonymous, on Jun 13, 2008 wrote:
Read it again. JC wasn’t feeling conflicted, those were rhetorical questions used to make the point that Vice is transparent and hypocritical. At least when you were unrepentant junkie assholes you didn’t make us cringe by on the one hand bemoaning the world’s ills and on the other selling us to advertisers. | | |
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