vice magazine says, "fuck you, political economy of media!"

some thoughts on vice magazine.

the fact that it's free: let's face it, vicemag is full of advertising. it's not exactly a reasoned rebuttal to the creed of the commodity-fetishist religion. it's encouraging product consumption, just like everything else does. but it's free. vice breaks the illusion of the sovereign consumer. the price tags on magazines are meaningless, but a tiny fraction of the publisher's revenue. basically they're a symbol telling us that we are privileged to be subjected to scads of juicy ads. (why do i always rhyme unintentionally? it's like i'm channeling pope.) by shattering this stupid illusion, i feel like vice stakes itself a position of semi-ironic detachment. why? because of

the content: this content is the kind of shit that you just don't see or hear in corporate media. this is stuff that would make howard stern blush; and the fcc would brew up a shitstorm. so what the fuck, how is it here, in the middle of all kinds of *gasp* .... advertising!?!? it's like a big 'fuck you' to noam chomsky. let's look at this month's issue, for example. it's critical of unoriginal corporate-shitbag design whores. it glamourizes non-consumption (or perhaps ironic postconsumer accumulation?):"They don't buy any magazines or make any money and their place looks like a magical blowjob made of shit" ('magical blowjob made of shit' is probably my favourite expression ever). and, as always, the do's and don'ts are delicious parodies of corporate-shill fashionistas and their changing buy-new-stuff trends. vice's trendiness is, i think, one of the mechanisms of its relative freshness in the face of corporate co-opting. vice's edgy content can survive by simultaneously creating and participating within a cliqueish entourage of designers and labels and media. instead of having to run to corporate scumbags for advertising dollars, they're getting it from joey the tweaker from the apartment above the takeaway whose t-shirt label suddenly blew up. ads create more revenue for these semi-alternative advertisers, thereby encouraging further investment in these edgy media. then when joey gets bought out by a major corporate distributor, he becomes passé and mocked without mercy. thereby allowing the magazine to avoid co-opting to some extent let's face it, people love buying stuff.

commodity-fetishism, the inescapable religion: no matter how much marx i read, i still like to buy things. socialism might sound nice in terms of citizen-welfare, but a whole nation of malnourished comrades wearing eating and believing the same thing just doesn't sound like much fun. and dammit, if some little third world children need to starve for my commodity-lovin' fun, so be it. that's how the proverbial cookie crumbles, OK? vice is in many ways the perfect participant within the corporate media and the corporate model as a whole. it shows me, the vaguely sovereign consumer, all kinds of cool shit that i can buy. it doesn't really make any serious taste judgments on my behalf, unless i'm stupid enough to take the "do's" seriously. and unlike a tired old cow chewing the cud that is television, i've got some distance. print ads might be pretty, but that doesn't matter much if i choose to turn the page. (note my careless shifting between first and third person. note the general disjointedness and frivolity of this post altogether. i've got fuck all to do, seriously.) the communications theorist who doesn't recognize the differing powers of ideological indoctrination inherent in print versus broadcast (push/pull if you will maybe?) media, is the communications theorist who doesn't know what he or she is talking about. but at least vice is straight-up about its commodity status, honest about the fact it's shilling all kinds of different shit to you, pulls no punches, and is just plain funny as hell. so, like i said, it's not exactly a reasoned rebuttal to the capitalist mode. but that's not the point.

um, that's about the end of that train of thought. what is the point, you may ask? well, uh... that's for you to figure out.

to belabour the train analogy, it's more like the train of thought that i was on had a malfunction, and a whole shitload of the cars came off the end. because i think there was a bigger point to this post but i kinda forget it.

ahhhhhh.

all is well.

rethought:

all is never well, but its failure to be well is merely a facet of its greater wellness.