Twitter/X

AdamLehrerSP says the first VICE issue he saw was the 2007 'Drugs' issue, which…

2026-08-05 · 00:15 UTC ·@AdamLehrerSP ·2 min read

Brief

AdamLehrerSP and a PirateWires thread trace VICE from the transgressive 2007 'Drugs' issue to a 2010s corporate zenith and eventual collapse. Lehrer, a 2012 intern, says Gavin McInnes was gone and Shane Smith pushed the brand mainstream; insiders claim HBO deals and near $6B valuation gave way to chasing clicks, chaotic culture, and bankruptcy.

Why it matters

AdamLehrerSP says the first VICE issue he saw was the 2007 'Drugs' issue, which included a Jim Goad piece on methamphetamine, Lesley Arfin’s A–Z guide to rehab, a booze-tolerance test pitting a Black man against a white man, Larry Clark's Tulsa photos, and images of a high-income junkie's injection site.

Key details

  • By 2012, while interning at VICE, AdamLehrerSP reports Gavin McInnes had already left and CEO Shane Smith was steering the magazine toward corporate success, which Lehrer's account claims stripped away the original aura of freedom and rebellion.
  • A PirateWires thread and BCC_Mitchell insider account portray VICE's 2010s arc: an HBO show, investments from Rupert Murdoch and Disney, a near $6 billion valuation, then collapse a decade later; insiders allege drug-fueled editorial meetings, the CEO throwing $1M in cash at staff during a holiday party, staff chasing 'woke' clicks, and Gavin McInnes later founding the Proud Boys and being banned for hate speech.
Source evidence

The first issue of VICE I ever saw was the Drugs issue in 2007 and I absolutely loved it. There was a Jim Goad article about methamphetamine, Lesley Arfin's A to Z guide to rehab, an article testing a black guy and a white guys's booze tolerance against one another, Larry Clark Tulsa photos, photos of a high-income junkie's repulsive injection site. It was truly transgressive.

By the time that I was interning at VICE in 2012, @Gavin_McInnes was gone and I found myself surrounded by low income rich kid libtards as Shane Smith slowly attempted to drive the magazine towards a corporate powerhouse brand that it briefly achieved (sort of, at least numerically) while completely losing the aura of freedom and rebellion it evoked in that first issue. Generational fall-off.

Moral of the story: you're better off being successful on a micro scale while staying in touch with your origins then becoming something else to be more compatible with the mainstream without any of the energy that made you unique in the first place.

Pirate Wires (@PirateWires)

In the 2010s, VICE was peak hipster American culture.

The brand was known for loudly breaking taboos. Its cofounder, Gavin McInnes, would go on to found the Proud Boys and get banned from basically every social media platform for “hate speech.”

By the mid-2010s, what began as an alt magazine in Montreal had landed an HBO show and convinced Rupert Murdoch and Disney to invest. It was, at one point, worth almost $6 billion.

A decade later, it was bankrupt.

@BCC_Mitchell, the youngest employee at Vice in 2012, takes us inside their rise and fall — from drug-fueled editorial meetings, to the CEO throwing $1m in cash at staff during a holiday party, to the team starting to chase ‘woke’ for clicks…

…to, eventually, the CEO himself abandoning what made the company famous in the first place.

“Vice was a cult,” Mitchell writes. “It was also the best business school on Earth.”

Below, the deepest insider profile yet of a 2010s media giant 👇

— https://nitter.net/PirateWires/status/2084741919842898419#m