Vice Mail

SMUGWATCH

Vice

,

Well, it finally happened! A

Vice

writer got his head out of his introspective ass and did an article on an environmental issue! The irony of the whole thing is that

Vice

is a consumer- and ad-driven magazine. Your magazine is all about cool consumption, selfish indulgence, and the hipster bubble… and what does that all lead to? Making more fucking plastic/disposable consumer goods that you will then throw out, pretending they just disappear!

At least the hippies, who you love to eat alive, have been trying to make a positive difference in the world. Sure, they may fail miserably, but at least they are trying to take steps in the right direction. By the way, it’s hard for you to understand the issues around sustainable development because it’s fucking complicated! Sorry we can’t dumb it down enough for you to slip it in a few conversations at a party.

I wish more

Vice

writers took a second to ask, “What the fuck is the point of this mag and how is it helping anything? How are we any better than

Cosmo

at making our lives better? Aren’t we just selling a different image/brand under the pretense that ours is cooler?”

You know what is cool? Giving a shit and trying. You have the ear of an entire generation and all you’re doing is telling them to make fun of each other and buy shit. Way to challenge yourselves. Drop some DMT and consider how every complex sustainability issue (including the role of the media) is inherently interlinked. Expand your fucking minds. Do something better with your power, please.

NEIL PAGRAM

Via email

Yeah, God bless those hippies for “trying to take steps in the right direction.” It doesn’t matter that their sole accomplishment has been turning out successive generations of self-satisfied assholes because they meant sooo well. Maybe one of these days they’ll even make some headway toward thinking about getting around to doing something that people might consider nice.

SNUGWATCH

Dear

Vice

,

Last night it was about 35 degrees out and pouring rain and this girl got on the bus wearing pajama bottoms and Chinese slippers under a down jacket. I know this is the same thing every female college student has been wearing for years, but for some reason the circumstances awoke my inner grandma and I involuntarily asked her, “Christ, are you wearing pajamas?” to which she responded, “Fuck you, they’re comfy.” But the thing is, there’s no way that could have been comfy. Unless she was wearing a pair of jeans under them, the wind had to be murdering her legs. And the instant one of her pant legs hits a puddle, the water is going to shoot halfway up her leg.

Anyways, that got me thinking (should mention I was fairly wasted this whole time) that maybe we’ve undergone some sort of paradigm shift in the world of “dressing comfy.” The girl I’d yelled at may have been “dressed comfy,” but not so much in the sense of “wearing things that feel good on my body” as in the sense of “pajama bottoms always equal comfy, even in the middle of winter when they’re constantly dragging through half-melted snow and picking up entire extra pounds of sludge.” It’s kind of like the moment when punks stopped wearing bondage pants because it freaked out older people and started wearing them because that’s what punks are supposed to wear. Actually, I’m starting to think that through the same sense of alienation that led to punk (but this time stemming from being made fun of by the well dressed instead of mainstream society), lazy normal people have formed their own subculture and will soon begin producing a distinctive style of music, art, and literature.

In conclusion, people who dress comfortably are the new punks, they’ve already hit their UK82, and you guys are responsible.

Think about it,

CHRIS FARNSWORTH

Minneapolis, MN

FEMALE TROUBLE

Dear

Vice

magazine,

I just picked up your March issue, flipped through it, and teared up a little. It wasn’t the “FLASH!” fashion spread with the photos of girls, all smiles and tits, that broke my heart, but the fact that you so blatantly placed the article “A Flux of Pink Indians” immediately after it. I understand nudity is no new concept to your publication, nor is the regular trivializing and desecration of foreign issues. However, I was surprised that after thumbing through page after page of the two seemingly different subject matters, you had no intent of suggesting that they actually go hand in hand.

What I mean is this: It’s really fucking easy to read a piece on women—long-distance, exotic-looking, openly oppressed women—and take them seriously. But it is not so easy to understand that the preceding pages of sex-selling are just as disturbing.

I guess that’s where we as a public—and perhaps you too—decide to feign ignorance of how harmful our customs can be not only for ourselves but also worldwide. Sure, we can throw those girls up on magazine pages and claim it as “art” or “fashion.” The attention’s pretty cool, right? Fuck it, let them take the pictures themselves. It’s 2008, baby, and if men are kings at dehumanizing women, then tell them to move over ’cause we can do it ourselves! Right?! Wrong.

Whatever the justification, the images of “FLASH!” resulted in a demeaning portrayal of what being a woman means. The intentions were most likely harmless, but one doesn’t need to see the bright pink drapery to notice a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You inform us that the Gulabi women struggle at a chance for education and are silenced while they attempt to cry out against rape. You say they “hate men, and rightfully so,” but where is our social piety? There are women in America—maybe not club-going, scene-seeking women—but women, nonetheless, who are regularly punished emotionally, financially, and physically for the representations of their gender.

My apologies,

Vice

. Maybe I’ve made much too big a deal of the situation. Besides, I’ve got boobs. I should have just showed you those instead.

Thanks anyway,

MORGAN EL-SHAFEY

Via email

Blah blah blah. I guess we could trot out the age-old line about women voluntarily posing for photos that were fun for them to be in and that made them happy to see in print, but fuck it. Tits is pretty. Isn’t that enough? (And yes, you should just go ahead and show us your boobs. We MySpaced you and you look all right.)

DEPT. OF BREASTS ARE DIRTY

Dear

Vice

,

I am disgusted at how your magazine is so sexist and exploitive of women. It’s shameful and downright idiotic. The lack of insight only reveals how little creativity and intelligence the editorial team has. But I suppose it’s too much to ask an independent magazine to have smart photojournalism. Why not have a different perspective on youth culture other than the sexualizing of young women that the public sees everywhere else?

CATHERINE BOUTWELL

Via email

Christ, you broads are relentless. Listen, lady, we don’t feel even a tiny twinge of guilt about the photos you’re talking about. Oh, and we know a lesbian who jerked off to them. Doesn’t that make you feel a little better? (And PS: We won’t be needing to see your boobs. We MySpaced you and you aren’t our type.)