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The World Hates You Issue

Employees of the Month

Bridget Collins grew up in Minnesota, across the street from a huge lake that’s frozen most of the year. As we sent this issue to press, she was relaxing on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean drinking a Coca-Cola Light and thinking about...

WES ENZINNA

Wes, our senior news editor, has had his writing appear in high-class stacks of paper like n+1, Mother Jones, Harper’s, and the New York Times Magazine. Before being taken hostage by VICE, Wes was a senior editor at the Oxford American, and before all that, his first appearance in a magazine was a photo of him skateboarding in Thrasher when he was about 15. We hired him because not only is he smart as a whip, he also will call people out on their shit in the most polite way possible. For this month’s issue he wrote an article about college-age white supremacists. He got kicked out of a bar one time because he started eating a total stranger’s leftover food, and he doesn’t mind peeing in beer bottles when there’s a long bathroom line.

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See HERE COMES THE WHITE-POWER SAFETY PATROL

STACY KIM

Suroosh Alvi, one of VICE’s co-founders, emailed us the other day and said, “We should make Stacy Kim an Employee of the Month for bringing positive vibes every single day since she started working here. She’s the video editor from Queens who is always walking around smiling and laughing.” Maybe her vibes are due to her college education in Muncie, Indiana, a town whose very name seethes wholesomeness, or maybe she’s just a naturally awesome person. Whatever the case, we’re happy to have her aboard. Some other fun facts about Stacy: she once flunked an IQ test on purpose, her Korean name, Jikyung, means “Knowledge like Jade Color,” and when we told her she was named an Employee of the Month, she just said, “Hahahah, yay!”

See SMILES AND EDITING A BUNCH OF CREATORS PROJECT VIDEOS

BERNARDO LOYOLA

Bernie, as we call him, was born and raised in Mexico City and came to the US in 2002 on a scholarship to study film, later working for Michael Moore as he learned the art of documentary filmmaking. Seven years ago, we hired him to edit a reel. The job was supposed to last two weeks, but he hung around for six years. In 2012, he decided it was time to move back home, so we put him in charge of all the film content for VICE Mexico. He misses New York a lot, but he also loves the food, mescal, and stories he’s found in Mexico City since his return. For this issue, he spent some time partying with the reggaeton-loving gangs who hang out in Mexico City’s subways and sniff glue.

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See THE SUBTERRANEAN SCENE

BRIDGET COLLINS

Bridget Collins grew up in Minnesota, across the street from a huge lake that’s frozen most of the year. She graduated from college last May and lives in Brooklyn, but as we sent this issue to press, she was relaxing on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean drinking a Coca-Cola Light and thinking about “getting her groove back.” She is passionate about exotic diet sodas, bunny rabbits, clouds, weird plants, and cute insects. Sometimes she takes pictures of these things. For this issue, she shot some portraits of her friend George, who likes to be buried in sand up to his head and stepped on. You can see more of her photos at bridgetcollins.com and become Tumblr friends with her at caffeinatedheart.tumblr.com.

See GEORGE'S FUN HAPPY PLACE

ED PARK

Ed doesn’t like to brag, so we’ll do it for him: he’s the author of the critically acclaimed novel Personal Days, he co-founded the literary magazine the Believer, and he has taught creative writing at Columbia University. He was once described as “totally the Sansa Stark of Amazon Publishing,” where he now helms the literary-fiction division. In real life, he is frequently called a “saint” and “the best” by friends and former students. When we asked him to send us a photo, he worried that this one might be “too last year.” If you agree, let us know at editors@vice.com, or just get over it. We’re very pleased to run his new short story, “Thought and Memory,” in this issue.

See THOUGHT AND MEMORY