Being one of the few pre-Internet media companies to still be around in some form today, their story is pretty fascinating. It clearly hasn't worked out for the better though. Vice on HBO, while covering a massive breadth of topics, suffer from their presentation; their nasally-voiced mid 20s employees they send on documentaries are mostly boredom-inducing, and their various online news outlets are Buzzfeed-tier clickbait with the occasional well-researched piece.
IFC's documentary parody series Documentary Now! (https://www.ifc.com/shows/documentary-now) did a great episode in its first season called "DRONEZ: The Hunt for El Chingon" that is an hilarious, pitch-perfect sendup of the Vice documentary style. It's on Netflix, if memory serves.
I somewhat prefer the parody Juan Likes Rice and Chicken from Documentary Now! to Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the fiction is sweeter and less cruel than the reality of a decade of training to get qualified to learn to cook an egg.
That's the crux of relying upon transgression for value--it ages rapidly and if it obtains mainstream success, dies on the spot. You can see it happen with authors, musicians, writers, essentially any creative output.
In terms of popular media, the early seasons of South Park and the Simpsons look absolutely saccharine compared to where culture's Overton Window is today. "Don't have a cow, man!" is positively benign.
> In terms of popular media, the early seasons of South Park and the Simpsons look absolutely saccharine compared to where culture's Overton Window is today. "Don't have a cow, man!" is positively benign.
I'd argue that South Park actually matured and toned things down on one hand, and amped things up on the other.
Their early episodes relied heavily on shock value. The later seasons are more nuanced, and rely less on gross out, bodily humor, or people laughing at cartoon kids swearing.
To think I was once taken to the principal's office for wearing this on a bart simpson t-shirt, which they told me to turn inside out. I of course refused, culminating in a very difficult day for the authority figures involved.
I love what VICE was ~2005-2010. VICE and what it has become today (see: VICELAND) is... nothing what it used to be. I love their documentary style from the 2010 range. The NK documentaries on YouTube were my favorite. They've turned into like you said a buzzfeed-tier garbage.
I was a student in Montreal in the late 90s, and was on to Vice before it was cool, when it was just a free alt-weekly punk-ass print rag. It was from outer space. I read it religiously.
Really? Because their dispatches from Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, etc are all pretty great. Isobel Yeung, Hind Hassan, Michael C. Moynihan, Simon Ostrovsky, are all pretty solid. There are some corespondents and hosts that are horribly bad, but Vice has some huge talent....which makes BuzzFeed News (not to be confused with BuzzFeed) look like NowThis. Vice (not Vice News) is horrible though, Vice News is the jewel of that org. It's when they do things that aren't from their dispatches that they really struggle. Their commentary on Vice on HBO is often cringe inducing.
second for the north korea documentary on youtube. in my opinion it's still one of the best, even so many years later, at showing what lengths they go to in building the facade for tourists and the rest of the world.
sidebar: i still feel bad about that poor tea girl.
I actually watch Vice News Tonight every night. I'm a well off 29 year old white male for demo info. I find they often cover stories I haven't heard about and their foreign war reporting I think is fairly unique outside of like a dedicated Frontline episode.
There are definitely reporters I like more. For instance Ben Anderson always brings a lot of context to the minutiae of the many wars. Elle Reeves (charlottesville) also usually has interesting stories, lots of times focusing on kind of the opposite of my morality; Showing perspectives from the racist right and people like the 'pick up' artist who is actually more a misogynistic pimp.
I also consider myself a fairly heavy news consumer as I work in politics and read throughout the day.
Previously they were curiosity driven on unique documentary topics, now they just become an endless left wing guilt channel. Your examples illustrate this really well.
I remember the days when Vice let people freely decide what to think about child soldiers, drug smugglers or donkey lovers. Today their one-sided ideological perspective makes it just cringeworthy to watch.
not necessarily child soldiers but i've noticed a tonal shift from "this is something that's happening, here are the facts, we sent a guy in with a camera to check it out" to "this is happening! you should feel horrible about it! if you don't, you're a monster!"
I find their news program on HBO quite good actually, despite their younger journalists who may occasionally fall flat in their interviewing. I can think of numerous interesting stories across the globe; interviewing foreign (I’m American) politicians and people to give a deeper perspective that goes beyond simple headlines.
