Vice Media, once considered the millennial media darling, has had its luck turn drastically in recent years. Shane Smith and Gavin McInnes Vice co-founders Shane Smith and Gavin McInnes It evolved from a scrappy punk fanzine to a digital media colossus, valued at almost $6 billion by 2017. Fast forward to 2023, with the company now having filed for bankruptcy, in many ways the high-flying company’s fortunes have reversed sharply.
Shane Smith, architect of Vice’s growth, had big ideas. The new culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, suggested purchasing the BBC together with tech oligarch Elon Musk. According to the New Yorker, he even bragged about his plan to Eddie Huang. Huang is a filmmaker and television personality, most recently the director of a documentary Vice. Huang joked in reply, “Aren’t you supposed to be buying England already?” This exchange exemplifies the hubris that came to define much of Vice’s leadership moves in the past decade.
Gavin McInnes, who co-founded Vice along with Smith, was eventually banned from the company. After his expulsion, he went on to found the extremist far-right gang Proud Boys, which has gained a ton of disastrous prominence. The rift between Smith and McInnes highlights the inner workings, conflicts and tensions during the formative years at the company.
Eddie Huang is back in the news again. Now, he’s making public his still-unsettled disputes with Vice, which he says still owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from his wildly popular, long-running show on Viceland. This latest financial squabble underscores the company’s broader woes. It too is hard-pressed to maintain its standing and to deliver on everything it promises to authors.
Despite its journalism awards, Vice built up a reputation as an editorial disaster area. At times, the company produced sycophantic praise pieces paid for by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This should have raised profound questions about its journalistic credibility. The media outlet’s attempts to maintain a cutting-edge image were further complicated by incidents such as Dennis Rodman’s visit to North Korea to meet Kim Jong-un, which drew varying reactions from audiences and critics alike.
The rise and inevitable downfall of Vice is a powerful case study about ambition gone wrong. As one of the people interviewed in a recent documentary declared, “Coolness is not a renewable resource.” This expression shines a light on the momentous task media companies have ahead of them in today’s rapidly changing environment.