Vice Is Broke (2024)

[bunniefuu]

You know,

I'm curious though.

You are actually

the number one employer

- of human beings

in Williamsburg.

- Yeah.

How does it feel?

Good. But we first

came to Williamsburg--

it's a good story.

So we started in Montreal.

And we came down to New York

in the dotcom sort of era.

So we moved to North 4th

'cause Triple Five Soul

gave us part of their

warehouse for free.

And at the

time, this is like 2000

and all the crack wh*res

were down there.

And they were like $5 blowjobs,

like the lowest common

denominator sh*t.

We used to be extorted by

a crackhead named Crazy Larry.

And he would literally sh*t

on our stoop

unless we paid him a dollar.

So we had to pay him a dollar

a day, extortion,

or he would sh*t on our stoop.

You know what I loved about it

is Manhattan was right there,

and here was completely lawless.

Like, there was no law,

there was nothing.

Like, there was

a coke place here,

stayed open all night,

you could go buy coke.

What was it called?

Kokie's.

My favorite bar was,

there was this--

- ...you ever hear about the Chex Cash?

- - Yeah.

So Chex Cash was

two 16-year-old kids.

They took an old, deserted check

cashing place on the water.

Ninety-nine cent beers,

punk rock on a jukebox,

and, f*cking, you'd just sit

by the water and drink Pabst

Blue Ribbon for 99 cents.

Boom, that's f*cking Brooklyn.

Brooklyn was,

for I'd say a decade,

the coolest 20-block

radius in the world.

I like how you just put the...

Can we get a shot of him

putting the bone on the table?

This is a guy who grew up

in a steak house here,

where he's just like, "I'm gonna

put the bone on the table now."

I came up as a chef

in an era

where everything was shifting

underneath my feet.

And I'll show

you what you do.

Yeah!

After watching

Food Network dominate

food culture in America

for the better part of a decade,

food and travel

exploded on the internet

with websites like Eater

and apps like Yelp.

It was a hit, I mean a big hit.

With all these new options,

Food Network was

becoming a joke.

Oh, Lord.

And a new

voice had arisen.

What do you think about

these guys like Emeril Lagasse

and those guys

on the Food Network?

Well, you're asking me to

kick Santa Claus in the

crotch on television.

I mean...

I idolized Tony

because he humanized people.

How long you

been surfing now?

You were the first.

He broke stereotypes

and centuries of preconceived

notions and prejudices

with each one-hour episode.

In the wake of his success,

the Food Network scrambled

to find the next Tony Bourdain.

They even started a new channel

called The Cooking Channel

that went after young chefs

like myself.

How the hell have

you been making money here

with all these deals?

We have a good product.

At one point,

I was offered a series

called Cheap Bites

with The Cooking Channel,

but I balked when

a producer said,

"You could be the next

Asian hip-hop Guy Fieri."

Every executive started coming

to my restaurant,

but so did Tony.

- What's up, Tony?

- How are you, man?

How's it going?

- All good, how's things?

- Good to see you, man.

Good, good, good.

Delicious.

I didn't really know

what the f*ck I was doing

with all the attention

and started to say wild things.

I was like Rudy Gobert

touching all the mics

during the pandemic,

not understanding the gravity

of the situation.

But Tony did.

He saw the food establishment

trying to k*ll my career

before it even really got

started and got my back.

Tony took me to dinner on the

second floor of the Spotted Pig

and told me one thing:

"Eddie, at every turn,

"they're gonna ask

you to bite the d*ck.

"And no matter what you do,

never bite the d*ck."

And I didn't.

I'm Christine Laskowski

with Signovision Journal,

and tonight we're in Soho at

the McNally Jackson Bookstore.

We're going to be hearing

from Taiwanese-American chef

and author Eddie Huang

about his new memoir,

Fresh Off the Boat.

Let's go have a seat.

I published a memoir

called Fresh Off the Boat.

Then ABC bought my memoir,

which became the first

Chinese-American

sitcom of all time.

- Excuse me?

- It's the American way, right?

You know about that.

Fresh Off the Boat .

Life

started to get weird.

Executives tried

plugging me into boxes,

but I never fit.

I got a TED fellowship

and lost it about 48 hours

into the conference

because I left to do a podcast

with Asa Kira and David Choe.

I lasted about one week doing

a new show with Meghan McCain

before they replaced me

with Baratunde.

And despite Fresh Off the Boat's

success, I hated it creatively.

I was out before the end

of the first season.

At every turn,

I stayed true to myself,

and the one place I felt at home

was a place called VICE.

I'm Shane Smith.

I'm Gavin McInnes.

I'm Suroosh Alvi.

And we're VICE Magazine,

and we're moving

to New York City!

"V".

VICE

was a lot of things.

A digital content creator.

Three million

subs across brands

and something like

half a billion video views.

An ad agency.

- Another round?

- Nah.

I'm taking it slow.

A news organization.

A media empire.

What's the mission?

The mission is to become

the largest media company

in the world and to not suck.

But originally,

it was a magazine started

by Haitians in Montreal.

We were working at a

place called Voice in Montreal.

It was a make-work project

for Haitian immigrants and us.

And then after a while,

they owed us money,

and they couldn't pay us,

so we took it,

we dropped the 'O',

and called it VICE,

and then that was it.

So you stole

the magazine from a

non-profit organization

that was trying

to help Haitians?

Correct.

Dude, that's kind

of not that nice.

Yeah.

VICE was

successful for several reasons,

but what they were selling,

if you ask Shane Smith,

was cool.

Every generation,

you have a changing of

the guard immediately.

Woodward and Bernstein were

the punks of their generation,

and now they're the old guard.

By definition, when you have

a changing of the guard,

you have a different language.

This sales

pitch took VICE at one point

to a $6 billion valuation.

And Shane was looked

at like this Professor

X-like media mogul

who could get along with mutants

and businessmen alike.

What a f*cking guy.

Thank you.

Then it went bankrupt.

The VICE publishing

business is now

going to operate as a smaller,

break-even business.

A lot of

people lost their jobs.

A lot of people lost money.

And some people like myself

never got paid what was owed.

You could read about it here,

and here, and here.

And I'm sure there'll be

an Alex Gibney-esque documentary

with talking heads sitting

on stools, cutting the story

into bite-sized pieces

from mouth breathers

like this was WeWork or Enron.

These people are risk takers.

They're impulsive.

But VICE was different.

At one point,

this was a free magazine

that meant a lot to people.

Not investors, not the market,

not the trades, not demographics

or numbers in a spreadsheet,

but actual f*cking people.

VICE's existence challenged

everything we knew

about journalism and brands.

We invested in story.

And character.

And showed that

with a "DIY f*ck what you heard,

"I'll see it for

myself" attitude,

you could get

closer to the truth.

But once it caught fire

and Shane saw the value,

we all fell victim

to a resource curse.

The thing that I could

see happening was we

get to New York,

we lose our focus,

and we start sort of venturing

off into the side projects,

so much so that

we forget the mag,

which is the root

of our everything.

Looking at Shane's face,

you could tell

this thing meant so much to him.

It meant something to all of us,

and we give our

youth to this place.

But I swear to f*cking god,

it didn't have to end like this.

I'm sorry I need you

to clear this shot.

Yeah, thank you.

Zach?

Stay next to this

dude, and then keep taking

pictures of the frame.

I wanna see what it looks like.

What're you looking

for in the frame?

- Just got to look fly.

- You got to look fly?

I feel like it's

a nice shot on you, bro.

Yeah, it's a nice shot.

Looks great.

- Let's do it.

- Alright, good.

- Dave approves the frame.

- Alright, let's go.

Wait, I hate like at the

beginning of documentaries

we can't use any of the "Oh,

do I look good? Oh, cool."

Cut to the interview.

I hate that sh*t.

None of that.

We start, we talk.

You don't want foreplay.

You just, like,

- rock it and roll.

- No foreplay.

Yeah, so what was the

last year you worked at VICE?

Oh, wow. Okay.

So, you like dumb, early VICE.

Started in... I want to say '98.

Oh, wow.

Still in Montreal.

In the early days in Montreal,

I remember the loft,

and it was a bunch

of like punk rock dudes

who really loved Wu-Tang.

Like they loved Wu-Tang.

And that's why they

gave me the platform.

So, my first column

in VICE magazine was called

"Ask the Poindexter."

And it was fake letters

written to me, the Poindexter,

about like the most

obscure hip hop facts.

It evolved into

an ad hoc position

of hip hop editor.

Because they were like, we need

someone that's a hip hop nerd

that's going to write about this

from a unique perspective,

even though my perspective

wasn't that unique,

because I was just

trying to pay homage to

Ego Trip and On The Go.

And I have to say this,

because it's really like

those magazines raised me.

Ego Trip specifically

was a massive, massive,

massive influence on VICE .

- High concept .

- Yeah, satirical .

So that humor,

that kind of self-awareness

was missing at the time

in a lot of hip hop journalism.

So, when I came on board,

what I kept saying was like,

"rappers are the funniest people

on earth."

Like they are the most vibrant,

funniest people

with the best sense of humor,

the best references.

All you need to do

is transcribe.

- That's sick.

- - And that started in '98,

and I went until 2007.

And then when the band

became bigger,

I was like,

you know, I'm an artist,

I'm signed to the label.

I don't really need to be

writing music criticism

for the magazine.

- For the magazine. You know?

- Yeah.

Wanna be by yourself

And no one else

Alright

Alright

Your quarantine album

you start writing,

you just, you want wax now, you

know, like you're good, dawg.

- That's different.

- That's better.

Congratulations, man.

Looking back

in VICE Magazine,

they let me do whatever I wanted

because they knew that

they did not know this music

and they did not revere

- ...the music as much as I did.

- Yeah.

And you would think

that you would write

an article, it's VICE,

people thought we just

wrote this and sent it in.

Like no way.

Revisions, edits, this

paragraph needs to go there.

Like really, you know, rigorous.

People never knew that

or it didn't come off

because the tone

was so spontaneous.

But these things were really

labored over, at least for me.

You know, Jesse was a

really, really rigorous

and demanding editor.

- Pearson?

- Yeah.

Yo, Jesse Pearson

brought that literary bent.

Him and Gavin merged and they

did something really special

that should not be overlooked

because like--

But that story gets eclipsed.

At that time already, so 2000,

it was already starting

to rumble under the surface.

I remember reading

Gavin's "VICE Guide to Hate".

That's a very important

article in the sort of

journalistic bent.

I remember reading that

and being like, "This is weird."

Like some of it's funny,

some of it's,

you know, today you would say

like edgelord or whatever.

I don't know what he does now.

I don't follow.

But in those days,

he was a hysterically

funny writer.

So, when he wrote the "VICE

Guide to Hate", it was funny.

You know, so you kind of like,

you felt uncomfortable.

You were like, "This is weird."

Like, "What does

he really think?"

I think that was the question

on our minds.

Does he really think this,

or is he being funny?

Which as you know is

the strategy behind a

lot of hate speech,

even today, right?

It's 4chan.

It's the Pepe meme, right?

"I'm just joking."

- Yeah.

- That's classic. But...

before it went to

sh*t or it went too far

or before it became

even just corny,

Gavin was a really,

really funny writer.

Like truly, a really,

really, really funny writer.

Speaking of Dave 1

got me thinking.

I knew that Gavin got kicked out

of VICE before I got there.

And people actively

tried not to mention his name

around the office

like he was Voldemort.

But I never knew why

Gavin got kicked out

or how VICE ended

up in Shane's hands.

And watching this cautious,

fantastic, curated man

who was literally checking

the frame of the shot

dance around the topic of Gavin

while simultaneously

dropping hints,

made me realize I

had a lot to uncover.

I really

liked that article.

- I grew up orthodox Jewish.

- - Yeah.

So feel free

to ask me questions.

But growing up Orthodox Jewish,

I would say...

sort of led the way

to working at VICE

because I did not fit in there.

I was a total misfit.

And I was so sheltered.

As soon as I was free of there,

I was like,

"Get me the hell out of here.

"And I want to do everything.

"And I want to do the

weirdest sh*t I can do."

I was always drawn to things

that were frightening

because I just wanted to

experience life outside

of this tiny bubble

where everyone liked

and did the same thing.

Jesse Pearson,

who was the glue for everything

in the early days,

he and I both worked at this

magazine called Index ,

and he brought a copy of VICE.

It was the year 2000.

And I just remember looking

at it and thinking, "What?

What is this?

"Oh, my God, what is this?"

So I thought,

this is like a zine,

but somehow with like,

amazing production values.

Was the beauty of VICE that

you could just talk about

anything you wanted there?

Yes. I don't think they

ever said no to anything

I ever wanted to write.

The stuff you were doing, like

the guide to female ejaculation,

I have been seeing stuff

that you should be proud.

So, you had

the VICE guide to,

you know, all

different sexual acts,

but they didn't have one

for female ejaculation.

So I said, "May I please add

this to the fantastic guides?"

'Cause those were all

pretty good. They were funny

and the advice was pretty solid.

So I just wanted to,

you know add to it.

I realize talking

to you that I'm still

really figuring out

how I feel about

my time at VICE.

They created this

place that young people

got to write and create

and be right and be wrong

and figure their sh*t out.

Yeah, it's a very

different time now.

There wasn't really

any canceling, I guess.

I mean, you could,

just because it wasn't so...

it was such a small audience.

And it was a free magazine.

You could either pick it up

and look at it and like it

or throw it in the garbage.

- Yeah .

- That was it .

At the time,

I had a lot of different jobs.

I also had a blog

called Teenage Unicorn .

It's not online anymore.

I scrubbed it.

But I have a picture

of a really fun barbecue

that Gavin had where he, like,

he put his d*ck on a bun.

And then he put ketchup on it,

which is actually more offensive

because you don't put ketc--

- Mustard.

- Mustard all the way.

So, you know, I was more mad

about the ketchup than anything.

I don't know. Does it

sound terrible if I

just say it was funny?

I'm sure somebody

can figure out an equation,

like politically,

where that is wrong.

And there's probably

many reasons--

Well, it's wrong

if it's not your friend

And you explicitly ask

them not to.

After Jesse Pearson

left and then I left,

they got this giant

influx of money

and suddenly you could do

these crazy things

but for a much bigger audience.

And I kind of feel like

that's where things got iffy

because suddenly you had like

a lot of people in the office

who aren't all friend--

like long-time friends

and you can't do the same

kind of crazy sh*t

because you'll offend someone.

Gavin likes rules, obviously.

"Do's and don'ts."

Some of the do's and don'ts

were hilarious and right on.

But a lot of the do's and don'ts

were very much like

how to be a woman,

how to be an attractive woman,

how to be an attractive

woman to men.

But Gavin wasn't mean to me

or wasn't scary enough

- To make me be like, "whoa."

- Yeah.

He would have

stupid sh*t on his desk,

you know... r*cist stuff,

and I would just roll my eyes

'cause I was like,

- He's like an edgelord, you know?

- - Yeah.

He'd say something

shocking and I'd say like,

"Alright, Howard Stern,"

- Like it just was his shtick.

- Yeah.

Did you ever hear about

the... VICE initiation thing

where they gave out like rings

and pins and stuff?

I mean, I got a ring,

but I don't know how you guys--

See, I never got a ring.

I got a pin.

And that's f*cked up.

- I've never heard

about the pin-- - I

didn't want a ring.

- Damn. You can think about it

- Let me tell you--

while they do the new card.

So Gavin had this thing where

he would hand out these pins,

and he had like a Hitler doll,

and he would be like,

he would dub you with it.

And I was like, "f*ck no."

Mark.

What was I saying?

Something came up

with my therapist where I said,

"Oh, but you're not

supposed to do that

"when you're my age,"

she was like, "Where are

you getting this from?"

And I was like,

"Holy sh*t, from Gavin."

Like 20 years later,

I've internalized...

these rules that are absurd.

And there's a very

infamous... story.

It's so stupid.

Jesse and Lesley,

and me and Gavin

were hanging out.

Gavin just went on

one of his comedy bits

about like how a

woman should look.

- Oh.

- And when he got to um...

the labia, he said,

"Ugh, labia has to be

perfectly symmetrical.

"Otherwise, it's

just disgusting."

And I just was like, "Ugh, I

keep-- like, come on already."

And they were like, "Oh,

someone has asymmetrical labia."

And I was like, "I don't know,

but like I'm just enough."

Despite

knowing what Gavin became

after his time at VICE,

hearing Amy talk about

his errors is shocking.

It's one of those things

that doesn't feel real.

It doesn't make sense until

people like Dave and Amy

paint the portrait for you.

Looking at it in retrospect,

you may be wondering why

any of us went to work

at a place like this.

For a lot of us,

we were rejected everywhere

and spent most of our

youth looking for a

place to be ourselves,

even if the place

was founded by a guy like Gavin.

You could see Gavin as a savior,

a cult leader,

or maybe just a chilly pimp.

They never had a daddy,

so when they call

someone "Daddy,"

that's everything they got.

No matter what he does,

he was the first person to see

value in some of these writers,

and they'll always have

a place in their hearts for him.

It's a tough thing

for people to understand

who weren't in

situations like this.

Sometimes you love

people that hurt you

simply because they were

the first to love you at all.

I'm curious,

not just in the context of VICE,

like, what drew you to writing?

Reading, I think,

drew me to writing.

I was drawn to reading first as

an escape from my life as a kid.

You know, it was

like a safe place.

I think that if you read enough,

you've got a natural

inclination to write, it

just starts to happen.

But writing writing, you know,

in terms of,

like, prose, journalism,

started for me with punk

rock probably, with

zines, certain zines.

There was kind of a

zine expl*si*n for me.

And a lot of them were--

not even

what you might call punk.

They were more like, some people

call them hate literature,

you know to some degree.

I was attracted to that stuff.

Also, independent comics

were really big for me

in terms of inspiring me to like

know that I could do something

without having to

have permission.

When I read

the old VICE sh*t,

you weren't trying

to capture youth culture.

You weren't trying

to define youth culture.

You were just sharing the sh*t

you were interested in,

and because it was so specific,

it became representative.

I think Gavin started it

before we even met him.

And then I came in, and

then I brought in Amy

Kellner and Lesley Arfin.

And I think the four

of us defined a tone.

I always refer to it as, like,

hyper-intelligent valley girl.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know you can

drop continental philosophy,

but you also say totes.

When you were

there, it felt like the

wildest literary magazine.

You know, like, I would give

this sh*t to my kid to read,

to be like,

"This is the

literature of that time."

"These are the romantic

poets of the early aughts."

- That's

cool. Yeah, that's

great. - Right?

Like, you have

Miranda July in here.

You have Ottessa

Moshfegh in here.

Natasha Lyonne.

Like, this sh*t is

a time capsule.

So, those are,

those are of a certain era.

I mean this one was really

controversial with some readers.

- It's cops telling their own stories.

- - Wow.

"The bag is NYPD slang

for the full uniform.

"If your bag

is perfectly pressed,

"crispy condition,

you're probably a p*ssy.

"Real cops wear busted-out

uniforms as a sign of

experience and pride."

Do's and don'ts, baby.

"She's either an empowered sl*t

"or the kind of person

that will tell your boss

"you made up the

nickname Bald Hitler."

Wow.

And, you know,

a lot has been said about Gavin

and his political

views and as a person.

Oh, yeah. I mean,

there were pieces in VICE

that were starting

to indicate conservatism

even before I came in in 2002.

There were little

things here and there.

So, I think Gavin was exploring

these ideas way earlier

- than a lot of

people think he

was. - Yeah.

So, it was bubbling, yeah.

It was bubbling.

And I think Shane...

f*ck it, I'll just say it.

I think Shane was, like,

jealous of Gavin being the face

of VICE for a long time,

and he wanted

some of that shine too.

And he saw this as a way.

So, he made his move.

- Did you have a ring at VICE?

- I had a ring.

I lost it like a week

after they gave it to me.

- You didn't

give a f*ck? - f*ck, no.

I'm not gonna wear that.

To me, it would feel like

wearing your own band's T-shirt,

you know, which is a lame move.

I think they tried to

like, get our loyalty with it.

And the only people

that ever thought it was cool

were like the business

people that invested

and like got a ring.

And, like, of course,

you cornballs thought

this sh*t was cool.

- And you're

wearing it to

this day. - Yeah.

Shane was a good

businessman in a certain way.

Like, he could really sell.

But his approach to selling,

I always kind of liken it to

P.T. Barnum, you know?

Where you're like,

a carnival barker, you know?

Taking the freaks, who were us,

and selling them to the squares.

He wanted consciously

to win that sector of

culture over to himself,

you know what I mean?

I don't think it

succeeded, you know?

After you left,

it's just kids with g*ns.

Well, that's

kind of why I left.

I quit in 2010 because

the bosses at that point,

were wanting the magazine

to become kind of like

a catalogue for

the video content.

And it was like

these attempts at hard news.

Sending some kid to a country

that they'd never been to,

and basically the thrust

of these pieces would be

like, "It's scary here."

And I found that

really irresponsible

and really othering.

I was like,

"I don't want a piece of this."

And that's a filter they

chose to put on, you know?

To look at the world that way.

Somebody went to Liberia,

and they were talking about

how scary everything was.

This is like a civil w*r

on steroids.

It's a post-apocalyptic

Armageddon

with child soldiers

smoking heroin,

cross-dressing cannibals,

systematic r*pe.

It's total hell on earth.

And then

like a week later,

I saw an episode of Anthony

Bourdain's show at the time,

and he was in the same place,

walking down the street,

like, "It's vibrant

here, it's exciting.

"Gonna try some food

and meet some people."

Just these two completely

different approaches to

these places.

I think I even told Shane this

at some point like, 'coolness',

whatever you want to say about

that word and concept,

and how complicated it is

and how problematic it can be,

'coolness' is not

a renewable resource.

You know, if you have it

and you want to sell it,

you can sell it once.

Speaking to Jesse

reminded me of the time

I went to Jamaica

for Huang's World .

I didn't like VICE's coverage

of Black people

because it was always kids

with g*ns or dudes with drugs.

I grew up working

for a Jamaican chef

at my dad's restaurant

named Chef Andy,

and he was none of those things.

I wanted to show the Jamaica

that he told me about,

so I visited schoolchildren

and spoke to people

about Marcus Garvey.

There is way more to Jamaica

than just the whole party

and the hype life,

smoking weed and all of that.

There's a lot more.

But when I got back,

Eddy Moretti,

the number two at

VICE at that time,

went off on me saying,

"Where's the g*ns?

Where's the drugs?"

"Where's Trench Town?"

I told him I wasn't down

for his ghetto safari

kids with g*ns bullshit,

and he suspended me.

When I went back to Jamaica

for the reshoot,

I put this clip in,

but they took it out

because it made fun

of their approach to journalism.

Yo, if this was

any other VICE show coming here,

it'd be like this.

So, we are in the

mountains of Jamaica right now,

and this is very,

very dangerous.

Many people have died here.

Thomas Horton has

died here three times.

VICE: HBO.

We go there.

Now, I always think that

a lot of what VICE has done

has happened because

of your sheer will of it...

Yeah, I think that too.

I think...

I think because you're like...

I mean, you know, it's part,

like this sort of...

part you know, having a vision,

part P.T. Barnum hyping it

and you know sort of

willing everyone to you

know, to go along with you.

Yeah. When you're starting out,

you have to definitely,

you know be louder noise

than the other guys.

You freak me out.

No, I'm the only one

that doesn't freak you out.

- Oh, that's right.

- So, you've forgotten that.

There was

a writer, Christi Bradnox,

who wrote the

"VICE Guide to Eating p*ssy",

and I was like,

"This is what I want to write."

It was like telling guys what

to do, or girls or whatever.

I was like, "This is

exactly the type of sh*t

that I want to do

when I leave school."

It was so funny and really

like a celebration of women.

And I just wanted to

write the kind of sh*t

that VICE was writing.

So, when I first

started at VICE,

I told Gavin, I'm like,

"Look, I don't know who

Christi Bradnox is,

"but I want to... this is

what I want to write one day.

"Like, I want to...

I want to be her."

And he goes,

"I'm Christi Bradnox."

And I was like, "Well, I

still want to write like her."

Gavin was always

very, very funny.

He's a very funny,

very charismatic person,

for better or for worse.

- Shane isn't.

- Yeah.

He went out with my friend.

I don't give a sh*t

about talking sh*t about Shane.

- Yeah.

- He went out with my friend

and, like, bought her this

really ugly painting

that was like,

it wasn't a painting.

It was like a sand art,

and she was like,

"Oh, Shane got that for me.

"He said that, like,

Buddhists made it,

"and it takes them, like,

you know, seven years to

do every grain of sand."

And I'm like, "I saw

that at the airport."

"But of course

he told you that."

- You know?

- Yeah, yeah.

Like, I don't care

what you have. Be normal.

Even when you have dinner

with Shane, he always will

take my hand and be like,

"This is about to be

the best meal you've ever had."

- And I'm like, "Homie".

- Hundred percent, dude.

"We're at Nobu, dawg."

It's, like,

not even good anymore.

This is a Japanese

Cheesecake Factory.

So, in that sense, like,

both Gavin and Shane do have

like this cult leader thing,

and Gavin probably, like,

could have been,

like a really good cult leader.

But I don't really think

that Gavin believes in anything.

I think he believes in jokes.

My name is Gavin McInnes.

I'm judging the Air Guitar

Brooklyn Championships.

My brother has Down syndrome,

so I have a bit of a soft

spot for sh*t like that.

I don't know how you could

ever take this seriously

and not be a d*ck.

You were humorous like--

Yeah, it was like Mad Magazine

for grown-ups.

At VICE we weren't journalists.

In fact we probably

ruined journalism for

the rest of the world

- that came after.

- Yeah.

Because we were

not fact-checkers.

This was all,

"Let's go someplace

"and infiltrate and

become part of it,

"and then we'll report back."

You have a duty as a journalist.

We did not have that.

We did not have those skills.

We weren't interested

in being that.

We were biased. There was

nothing journalistic about VICE.

And I was super insecure,

you know?

Like, I just wanted to, like...

I just wanted like,

guys to like me

and to, like,

feel like I was good at my job.

And so...

Gavin, who was really

like a true believer

in, like anarchy and, like...

would make r*cist jokes,

I made them, too.

Because I cared more about

being accepted by him

and feeling insecure

and wanting to fit in

than, like what--

than actually hurting people

and what that meant.

And...

in retrospect...

I was wrong.

And like, it's not okay,

but also, I can't

go back in time.

I just wasn't as smart

as I could have been.

You know, like

I cared more about being cool

than I did about being right

or like kind.

So I was curious,

what happened that day

that Gavin left?

Okay, Gavin had been

gone for two weeks

because Sophie--

his daughter Sophie was born.

His first kid.

Prior to that,

Gavin had gone to,

I believe, it was like a...

a David Duke conference.

I just took it with

a grain of salt

because that's how I took

everything Gavin said.

So he goes to this

David Duke thing,

and they lose advertisers.

So Shane says, "No bueno.

"Jesse's the editor now.

You're not."

"Why are advertisers pulling?

This is what we do."

"Advertisers are pulling"

because you're associating

yourself with David Duke,

"and that's scary,

"and so they don't want

their product to be

advertised in the magazine."

"Okay, f*ck you.

I'll show you what's scary."

Right?

So then Gavin comes back

from two weeks,

and he's like, "Where

the f*ck is my desk?

Where's all my stuff?"

None of his stuff was there.

He's asking everybody,

like, "Where's my chair?

"Have you seen

my chair, my desk?

"This isn't my computer.

"What the f*ck?"

And everybody's quiet.

"What the f*ck is going on?"

"What the f*ck?"

And then Gavin just was like,

"f*ck this f*cking

bullshit, whatever."

Don't know the exact words.

Stormed out.

I don't think he ever

went back to the office.

It was a huge moment,

a huge, pivotal,

traumatic moment for his life.

His entire identity

was that magazine, right?

And he got booted out.

None of us

are born knowing the answers.

If people don't get to

express themselves

and they don't get to learn

through some of these mistakes,

then you're just bottled up,

and you're like,

- "Okay, I'm gonna keep

it to myself." - Right,

and then what happens?

- You're gonna explode.

- You explode and you start...

a group that is physically

scary, like the Proud Boys.

I went to America...

in the '90s.

Yeah. Boo!

Boo it up!

Free speech is very dangerous...

to the state.

The government

doesn't like free speech,

and they've tricked us

into culturally thinking

that we don't like free speech.

We don't like telling stories.

We're worried about

offending people.

But we're not.

What happened to the West?

We're fighting to be ourselves.

We're fighting to be proud

and unashamed of who we are.

And what are we?

We're Westerners!

If you want to come here and you

have those values, come on in.

But if you want to tell us

what to do, you can f*ck off.

I'm so nervous

about meeting Eddie.

Oh, my god.

Hope he likes me.

I don't know Chinese.

Does he speak English?

'Cause we could

use Google Translate.

As

I was getting ready to

enter the scene,

I could hear Gavin telling

jokes about speaking Chinese.

We've met before. Did you

know we did comedy together?

Where?

At Brooklyn Brewery.

- No way!

- Yeah. Everyone loved you,

which I suspect

is based on race.

Yeah, probably.

I

felt like his strategy

was to try and shock me,

like he shocks everyone else.

But I didn't want to get

caught in his vortex arguing.

Oh, f*ck, I got gum on my pants.

Do you-- you know how to

get gum off your pants?

The positions he

takes are so far outside the

realm of reason and logic

that you lose as soon

as you meet him on that ground.

- Do you want a drink?

- I'll have a drink.

What d'you have?

I'm having Coors Banquet 'cause

of the Bud Light incident.

I only wanted

to know two things.

- We got Gatorade. We got

Jameson. - I will have

the Malibu watermelon.

One, is this

truly who you are?

- This is all fake.

- Oh, f*ck.

This is a fake bar you're in.

You're in a studio.

- I'll come around

and see what's real.

- These are all lies.

I'll have a fruit punch

Gatorade with Jameson.

- Oh, that's a fun idea.

- Yeah.

And two,

how the f*ck did you let

Shane take over the company

that you gave your voice to?

The story of VICE

is there's really two stories,

and Shane is the backbone

of both of them.

So the first story is

my years at VICE,

and that was--

that culture was punk rock.

Like everyone's friends,

everyone hangs out, you know.

Open floor plan, no offices.

Everyone can hear

you on the phone.

So Shane managed to take

that esoteric, hardcore DIY sh*t

and make it profitable.

Then when I left,

Shane's attitude was,

"Where's the money?"

And the money

was with young girls.

"Alright, what are they into?

"I don't care what it is.

"If it's kiddie porn,

"if it's snuff films,

what are they into?

"Oh, they're into woke

sh*t. Okay, let's do a

bunch of woke sh*t."

Yeah, I know you got an NDA,

but it's like,

did you choose to leave,

or did you get forced out?

I just became

incompatible with the brand.

Like, you know,

I had an ad agency after that,

and it got shut down

'cause I said trans people

are mentally ill gays.

I think too...

the problem

with salesmen is it's not cool.

I think it is cool.

You make the world go round,

but used-car

salesmen ruined sales.

And I think Shane

hated being the like,

uncool guy for so long.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you

a very real question,

and it's like,

one of the main reasons I came,

'cause I watch all your sh*t,

and I see everything

you're doing, and I know

your old work at VICE.

My feeling is

you really are being the person

on some Life of David Gale sh*t.

What's David Gale?

I'm a m*rder*r

four days shy of his execution.

The

m*rder's way too clumsy.

This guy is a

major intellectual.

Life of David Gale is this film

where Kevin Spacey is trying

to overturn capital punishment.

So what he does is him and

his partner set up a m*rder,

but she's k*lling herself,

and he sets himself up

as the person

that did the m*rder,

and when he dies,

they release the video

and realize they k*lled

an innocent man.

So I'm playing a Hitler

character to expose racists?

That's what I think.

- That's a terrible theory.

- That's what I think, Gavin.

But, if you really

believe this sh*t, then--

Believe what sh*t, though?

Like well I mean,

like...

all of it.

If your boss grabs your a*s

and it doesn't hurt

and you don't like it, quit.

- That's harassment.

- Yeah,

- that's harassment.

- Okay, then quit.

I'm so glad you

found it out on TV

that you can't grab

somebody's a*s.

I swear to God,

I did not know that.

Do you think white

supremacy exists in the US?

Not to any measurable degree.

Women do earn less in America

because they choose to.

They don't go the extra mile.

They don't work all weekend.

Why am I sitting here?

I'm sitting here.

You're making a mistake. You

would be much happier at home

- with a husband and children.

- Oh, boy.

You're not supposed to say it,

but one of the biggest problems

with Jews is--

Ow! Ow! What the...

I was gonna say

the problem with Jews is

there's not enough of them.

I've never

met a bona fide r*cist.

Like, it's not a thing.

Yet it's all the f*cking...

Joe Biden says white supremacy

is the number one threat

to this country,

and you're like,

"Okay, can I meet one

of these f*cking guys?"

What is this issue?

Yo, I'm wondering if this--

you're taking this position

and being this character.

What character?

Like, what position?

I think women would be

much happier at home.

Is that sexist?

I can't tell you how

many women I know that

f*cking hate their jobs.

But there's a lot of men

that hate their jobs.

Generally men, when they

talk about work, they want

to help the other guy.

Women aren't into solutions.

They just wanna b*tch.

When you give them a solution,

they're like,

"What the f*ck are you doing?

"I'm going to

continue bitching."

I have an idea.

I think we should arm wrestle

to see what the truth is.

- Okay, I'll arm wrestle you.

- Let's f*cking arm wrestle.

So, one, two, three.

- Yes.

- One, two, three.

Women are happier at home.

Amelia Earhart.

Feminism has ruined women.

Gloria Steinem was

a shield for Shane.

Gloria Steinem

k*lled men's clubs.

That's why Proud

Boys did so well,

'cause men's clubs

are supposed to exist.

I'll never get to f*ck my wife

again if I lose.

This sucks.

This sucks.

I guess women are great

in the workforce.

- They're great in the

workforce, man. - I

love them suing people.

Their stupid HR jobs,

Controlling the company's

social media.

No, I really think everyone

should have the opportunity.

No one's saying they

shouldn't have the opportunity,

but women tend to

be happier at home.

You don't want government,

you don't like law,

but you love rules.

- Like, do's and

don'ts is rules. -

Yeah, but it's a joke.

I'm not trying to catch

you, either. I'm just--

Right, but I can't--

I don't enforce these rules.

But I can have rules.

I do think there is a

thing about you that

people are just scared of.

What kind of p*ssy

is scared of ideas?

Like a Holocaust denier.

That's a pretty horrible idea.

Pedophilia, terrible idea.

Say you think all Blacks

should go back to Africa.

That's a dumb belief.

It doesn't scare me.

I won't argue with you.

- No?

- Yo, you are consistent.

Well, I'm too lazy to lie, so.

I just wish I could argue

with people about things

I believe in, you know?

I think what I struggle

with personally

when speaking to Gavin is

the idea that he could

possibly believe this sh*t.

What do you think is in

the interest of your

country right now?

I've met

white supremacists.

I specialize in talking

to these dumb f*ck.

When I was interviewing a white

nationalist group, Forza Nuova,

on our Sicily episode,

a passerby recognized them

and challenged them about

their anti-immigration stance,

and they didn't like it.

Within minutes,

they phoned plainclothes cops

to arrest us and

take our footage.

Who cares?

We didn't do anything wrong.

Why did they say

they're taking you in?

I fought them

on giving my ID card.

Let's go, guys. Let's go, guys.

Bye-bye. Let's go.

I believe that

those people believe the

sh*t they're saying.

But there's something

about Gavin that makes me

feel he knows better.

He knows his

opinions are horseshit.

I think he's less a

white supremacist and

more of a nihilist,

cashing in on this

ridiculous caricature

he's turned himself into.

And I feel this way

because VICE was full of

people like this guy.

They get off on having these

ideas and being edgelords

because making people

feel uncomfortable

makes them feel powerful.

It's all a punk rock fake-out.

Gavin is still out here making

money, feeding his family,

telling incendiary jokes

because there's a large swath

of this nation

that takes it as the truth.

This guy's not crazy.

He's accidentally

representative.

But how the f*ck did Shane take

this man's voice and magazine

and sell it

to people like Disney?

I like being a dad

so far, like three months.

I've been enjoying it.

It's been cool.

Damn, three months.

You're new. You're fresh in it.

Hi, guys.

Thank you for

having us here today.

I'm happy

to meet you guys.

Yeah.

So I figured you could read my friend Dave's palm first.

- Oh, no.

- Can I see your palms?

- Yeah.

- Okay, close your eyes.

Well, I do feel

that you have a lot of

deja vu, a lot of wisdom.

Do you write a lot?

Well, yeah.

I used to write

for a magazine called VICE.

And I think

those early issues of VICE,

there was an issue

where I painted the cover,

and I wrote like three articles

in it under different names,

I did the comic

strip in the back.

You know, basically

whatever I want. I could do

a goofy hitchhiking show

and serious news.

What I loved

about your show though,

like, besides the camera work

which was phenomenal,

was it was honest.

You know what I mean?

You straight up went

to go find a dinosaur

and you were like,

"I can't f*cking find it."

We just said

we wanted to see the dinosaur

and they kept saying, "Do

you want to see the dinosaur?

"Do you wanna see

this dinosaur?"

"Yes, we want to

see the dinosaur."

So we had to do this ritual.

So they pour us

this clear liquid.

I don't know what

was in that stuff.

And then like some kind of dream

or something,

this thing just came out

and the people just screamed

and they were either

saying he's an evil spirit

or it's the dinosaur.

And I'm like, "Oh, I

guess that's the dinosaur."

And as f*cked up

as I was you know

I was believing it at the time.

But I'm going to say

you had a void.

There was a void energy,

like just a numb energy.

I can feel it, but you tell

me what it was.

Yeah, it was--

Can you tell if he's

still cancelled by

looking at his hand?

Well, I still feel

you have a lot to achieve

because you're very honest,

you're very pure,

and that's why people saw that.

You weren't there

when it turned to sh*t.

But you still told me not to go.

Yeah, 'cause I was like,

"You will get f*cked over."

I just thought

that because, like, I

had an attorney,

we had a contract,

they're going to owe me money

- ...because

legally in

America-- - They do.

they owe me money.

You knew you weren't getting

that money.

No, I genuinely did.

That's where I'm stupid.

No, you're not stupid.

I think he really did believe.

He really did trust them.

I saw Shane

f*ck a lot of people over.

- Yeah.

- And like, I didn't like it.

And I did speak up for them.

You know, at VICE they

would give everybody these

rings that said VICE.

- Really?

- And they gave me a gold one,

but they didn't give anybody

else on my crew the VICE ring.

So I went and I made 'Rice'

rings for everybody on my crew,

and I paid for it

because I was just like,

"Yo, all for one or

like none for all."

- You know, like Goonies.

- Right.

I don't know if you wanna use

any of this for the documentary,

but like how long do you want

to feel that for?

- Didn't you just have a baby?

- Yeah, I did.

- Yeah, you just had a baby.

- Three months old.

Yeah, three-month-old baby.

What a great time to make

a documentary about VICE.

- You got your baby.

- Go f*cking home

and be with your kid, dude.

This is a

weird ch*nk right here.

Well, you guys have

a connection though.

You know that.

Oh yeah?

I mean, he's pretty psychic.

He told me not to go to VICE.

When I met you, you had

just written Fresh Off the Boat .

And you were like a, you know,

it became a huge TV show.

ABC bought it.

But I told you from the

beginning, I was like,

"It's ABC, corporate America,

white television.

"You think they're gonna

make your book the way--"

It wasn't exactly how

you wrote it, right?

Yeah, and he got angry,

and I was like...

I always thought

I could persevere.

I thought I could

be like the change.

And so how long do you want

to keep repeating that and

feeling that feeling?

What is it that you

want to manifest?

No, my thing is this.

I don't think it's

about revenge.

It's justice.

Other people got f*cked

over more than me.

And I was like,

"Somebody got to say something."

- I believe--

- But why does it

have to be you?

Choe

f*cking pisses me off

because it's easy for him

to say, "Let it go."

Homie's got Facebook money.

But I also don't fault

Choe because he doesn't

know that I'm broke.

VICE owes me hundreds

of thousands of dollars.

My son was born

three months ago.

There's a triple

strike going on in LA

and I overdrafted

my bank account this month.

So yeah, I'm having a lot

of trouble letting this go.

And sometimes I wonder,

would life have been better as

the Asian hip-hop Guy Fieri?

Hey, I'm Guy Fieri,

and haven't been to a new

restaurant in 37 seasons.

But when I heard about Thai

Taco Tuesdays at Anajak Thai,

I just had to come

to Sherman Oaks and check out

what Chef Justin

Pichetrungsi's doing.

Come on in!

It's not f*cking open!

Hell yeah, brother.

I'm with VICE legend

Santiago Stelley.

- How you doing,

Santi? - I'm good,

buddy. How you doing?

Hell yeah, thanks for being

on Triple D, man.

Weren't you working on some

magazine called Colors before?

Yeah, so I worked for years

at Colors Magazine.

My first contact ever with VICE

was because they had taken

a page out of Colors magazine,

literally just ripped it

and published it in VICE

as some sort of an advert

for a shoe company or something.

Hell no, brother. I wouldn't

even do sh*t like that.

I haven't shown up on my show

for f*cking 10 seasons,

but you know not to take

a frame from another show

and put it in your show.

Right? So, VICE was just

starting to do video,

and after meeting them,

they asked me if I'd go

to Bolivia to sh**t

a documentary the next day.

Hell yeah, Bolivia, baby.

f*cking A.

And ended up going to sh**t

VICE Guide to Travel in 2006.

What are some of your

favorite pieces from that era?

I went to Colombia

with Thomas Morton

and with Ryan Duffy,

and in that sh**t,

I think we were there

for about two weeks.

We shot "Columbian's

Devil's Breath,"

which is the world's

deadliest drug,

on YouTube nowadays,

"The Sewers of Bogota,"

"Bulletproof Tailor,"

"The Donkey f*cking Piece."

It was just kind

of all on the fly.

And when you do

things on the fly, I mean...

it just has a different energy,

you know?

If you see the "Columbian's

Devil's Breath" piece,

there's a junkie who helps us

to go buy what we need.

We landed at Bogota,

and 20 minutes after that,

we were sh**ting with this guy.

And Ryan kind of built

the whole doc around it.

Those kind of moments,

that kind of spontaneity,

we kind of went into every sh**t

with that mentality.

It's hard because that's not

how content is produced, right?

It's not okay by the industry

standards or whatever.

You gotta help me

get something straight here.

Everybody always says,

"Spike Jonze, creative

director of VBS,"

but you're the

creative director.

Can you have two

creative directors?

Well, I mean, the whole

Spike thing was used for years.

We talked and--

you know, that was--

that was the sales department

or marketing kind of... tool.

I feel excited

and anxious that, you know,

just to make sure we

actually seize the

opportunity as well as we can.

I think we're just

at the beginning.

I feel like we've just built the

foundation of what it can be.

It's like Viceland

1.0 right now.

When we were

doing VBS for the first

five, six, seven years,

you know, I never had

any interaction with Spike.

Neither did anybody else.

But for the most part, those

formats that went on Viceland,

as little as I followed it,

were formats that had

been created on VBS, right?

They weren't even

VICE dot-com period formats.

And those formats, now

they seem like obvious things,

but they weren't at the

time. Nobody was doing

any of this stuff.

As a guy stuck

in a scripts format,

I was always very jealous about

the stuff you guys were doing

'cause you're breaking form

- ...and, you know,

subverting things, - Yeah.

and when I have to do my show

talking like this,

it hurts my throat, man.

f*ck. Gotta drink so much

water on Triple D just to

keep this voice up.

Alright, guys.

So we got noodle

supreme with shrimp.

Pad pong karee . It's like a

Chinese-Thai seafood dish.

And then we got,

you know, Dad's ribs.

Oh, hell yeah.

- So enjoy.

- Thank you. Appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, dig in.

I think at this point

I can cease being Guy Fieri.

- No.

- There you go.

The food...

Oh, man. Bro, it is so

hard to be Guy Fieri.

It's not even funny.

I have so much

more respect for that guy

after being Guy Fieri

for like three hours.

But the sh*t that

you and Jesse did,

when you were doing it,

what credit did you

get on each piece?

- There were no directors.

- Yeah.

But then when you're the guy

who went and spent a month

in prison in Colombia,

which is... you know, stressful,

interesting situation.

Happy I had that opportunity,

but it's a stressful

situation to be in.

And then you're not really

getting credited for it, right?

The show doesn't jump out

of a bush into the camera.

- That's right.

- It's directed,

captured, hosted,

it's lived.

And at VICE, the funny thing is,

no one got a director's credit,

but Shane and Eddie's names

are on every single piece

of content at VICE.

I personally

feel that they didn't

give director credits

because they didn't

want people to come up.

Not having the director

credit really hurt a lot of

young directors at VICE.

For production out in the field,

we were always trying

to send an expert, right?

Not somebody who's like,

camera-ready but just like,

somebody who has deep knowledge

on a subject matter.

For the most part,

people were journalists

or had some sort

of journalistic,

journalism background.

But in post-production,

all of our editors came

from film school.

And so for a long time, a lot of

the directors were the editors,

because they were

these kind of film school kids

who knew how to tell a story,

and they were the ones just

figuring out a pile of tapes.

What do we do

with this, you know?

And then Shane just kind of sits

in front of this bear

and regales stories of,

like, his adventures,

and the assumption is always

there that he's the guy who

went and shot this story.

- Because Shane is a sales guy .

- Yeah.

He wasn't

a creative guy.

But Shane was somebody who

you really just had to

give him a little script

or here's your stand-up,

you know,

and just bare minimum, man.

I mean, we shot a ton

of interviews where he

just didn't show up.

Not because-- I mean,

he made it all the way

to Guadalajara, Mexico,

but then he stayed in the hotel

the day of the sh**t.

And then after the

sh**t, he inserts

himself in post-production.

And stylistically,

that's off from what we do.

It's disrespectful.

Yeah, it was just

very performative, right?

It was like he would do

these kind of stand-ups.

He'd wait for the cop car sirens

to be flashing by,

and then he'd do his, you know,

urgent-sounding stand-up, right?

I went through that process

once with him and just

thought, "Man, I can't.

"Like, this, like,

I'm gonna k*ll somebody."

And I think he probably

felt the same way,

and we never did

a production again.

It's a totally different

type of production.

- Yeah, the Shane production.

- It's a totally different--

- Yeah, it's

"Weekend at

Bernie's." - Yeah.

Yeah.

How did the

VICE on HBO show come

out of your guys' work?

So I'm not credited

on the HBO show

because I left once

we'd finished it,

but my credit was removed.

But that was built

off of our story bible.

I mean, we kept a story bible

in the content department,

and you know, there were

stories that we looked at

for years to make, right?

And eventually when first the

"VICE Guide to Everything"

came around or the HBO show

came around,

we just opened up

that VICE story bible.

- And then repurposed them.

- And then repurposed them.

I mean, a lot of things

were reshot.

But when it was republished,

the credits at the end were

taken off of everything,

and mostly it was interns.

They'd have them set

up every one of these pieces.

It literally had been done

five, six years prior.

I'm Chantal from

the VICE office in Brooklyn.

I'm Katie from

the VICE office in Brooklyn.

I'm Chelsea from

the VICE office in Brooklyn.

- Brooklyn.

- Brooklyn, New York.

Our colleagues in China spent

some time with Enbo Fight Club.

Our colleagues over at

VICE Colombia explored the

Indigenous q*eer community

at an Amazonian beauty pageant.

This is VICE China's

Out of Place: Part One.

This is Indonesian Death Cult .

This is Templo de Lucifer .

- Stay tuned.

- Stay tuned.

Stay tuned.

Which, in fact, I

mean, was a part of why I left.

I mean, I had spent years

kind of not being

credited for my stuff,

not being reimbursed

for my stuff.

And on top of

it, like, you know,

I was told for a whole long time

that they were gonna stop

with this Spike Jonze

kind of pitch, you know,

and that they'd give

credit where credit was

due, and they did not.

I mean, there was none of that

at any point.

So at some point,

you're like, "You know what?

I'm out of here.

What's the purpose?"

Hearing Santiago talk

about the Shane production

reminded me of this infamous

David Carr piece on VICE.

It was the first time

I ever heard someone call out

VICE's bullshit style

of quote-unquote "journalism".

If you're a CNN

viewer and you go,

"Hm, I'm looking at human sh*t

on the beach."

I'm going to tell you one thing.

I'm a regular guy.

And I go to these places and

I go, okay, everyone talked

to me about cannibalism.

Right? Everyone talked to me

about cannibalism.

Now I'm getting a lot of

sh*t for saying what

cannibalism stuff, whatever.

Everyone talked to

me about cannibalism!

Yeah, most of my boys,

they would drain the blood

from an innocent child and

drink it before going to battle.

- So you k*ll the child?

- Yes.

- And then you drink the blood?

- Yeah.

I lifted it up to the temple.

I'm gonna eat it.

That's f*cking crazy.

So our audience goes, "That's

f*cking insane, that's nuts."

And New York Times meanwhile

is writing about surfing.

And I'm sitting there going,

you know what,

I'm not gonna talk about

surfing. I'm gonna talk

about cannibalism.

- 'Cause that f*ck me up.

- Just a sec, time out.

Before you ever went there,

we've had reporters there

reporting on genocide

after genocide.

Just 'cause you put on a

f*cking safari helmet and

went and looked at some poop,

doesn't give you the right

to insult what we do.

So continue, continue.

I'm just saying that I'm

not a journalist. I'm

not there to report.

Obviously.

This

interview really changed

the culture at VICE.

It went all around the office,

and for the first time,

we'd seen our bosses

get spanked in public.

The immediate reaction

from the top down

was that we needed the

respect of real journalists

like David Carr.

In retrospect,

it was the right instinct

to consider accountability

as journalists.

And this kicked off perhaps

the most productive era

at VICE since Gavin left.

Hi, I'm Shane Smith. We're

here in the offices of VICE.

We sh**t a lot of stuff here.

These are all the magazine

covers over the years.

We've been doing

this a long time.

We started out as a magazine,

then we went into online video.

Most recently,

our YouTube channels

like VICE, Creators Project,

Motherboard, Noisey.

But what I want

to show you today

is something brand new

and really exciting.

We're gonna go check it out.

Come with me.

Come with me.

After the rise of

VBS and verticals like

Munchies and Noisey,

Shane's next trip

was VICE on HBO.

And with the Dennis Rodman

North Korea episode,

VICE's power was undeniable.

I saw you there

You were walking

down the street

You stay awake,

Shane had combined

hard-hitting, front line news

with insane access

and entertainment value.

I saw you there,

You were walking

down the street

Walking downtown

Make me dance to the beat

While they preserved

the integrity of the

VICE on HBO show,

Shane spun a multitude

of businesses off the

reputation of that show,

and every investor

wanted a piece.

One of the most successful

ventures was VICE News.

And its most decorated

journalist was Simon Ostrovsky.

- Simon, hi.

- Yeah, hi.

My name is Shane.

I'm from America.

We're here with our friend

Simon. We've been on a

train for a long time.

We're going a bit goofy.

At the VICE office,

they had a screen at the entry

where you would see

a part of this story on loop

where I'm riding

the train with Shane.

The interim between

sort of mildly friendly drunk

and psychopathically

pull-your-eyeball-out drunk,

there's this sort

of level of like,

"I hate your f*cking guts.

No, you're okay.

"We're buddies, we're buddies.

I want to k*ll you."

So you've got to stay

somewhere in this gauge.

I remember

seeing this clip.

We were like, "Oh, sh*t,

this is Shane's, like,

serious news friend."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So everybody at VICE thought

me and Shane were super tight,

- Yeah.

- which was not the case.

How did you meet

Shane and come to VICE?

Shane saw something

that I put out on the BBC,

which was an investigation

into the use of North

Korean labor in Russia.

We headed further along

the road into the forest,

and before long,

we began to see signs

of woodcutting activity

in the area.

After four hours on the track,

we finally found a group

of North Koreans hard at work.

There were

these logging camps,

and these were

essentially, like labor

camps that were put together

with all the North

Korean propaganda,

and Shane's producer

saw that report,

knew that Shane was obsessed

with North Korea,

and he was like,

"Can you produce this for Shane?

"We'll do a whole thing

for this thing called VBS TV."

You know? And I'd never heard

of VICE at that point,

so I had no idea who Shane was,

and he comes in,

and the first thing he does is,

like, start telling me how...

awful and bullshit the BBC is,

because I think he had a

really big chip on his

shoulder about legacy media.

Yes. I was in a hot

tub with him once,

and he told me that him and Elon

Musk were gonna buy the BBC,

and I was like, "Isn't that

a government channel?

"Like, wouldn't you have

to buy like England first?"

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's a public broadcaster.

You can't buy the BBC.

It's, like, ridiculous.

Probably one of

the most embarrassing

incidents of my entire life

took place on that

very first sh**t.

We're standing in at one

of these remote North

Korean labor camps

and there is a North Korean guy,

and Shane walks up to him,

and he starts singing

this national Korean song.

And he starts going...

And I'm like, "What is happening

right now? What are you doing?"

Okay.

I think kind of nobody

knew what they were doing,

so there were no rules.

We could just do

whatever we wanted.

It was the Outback

Steakhouse of media.

No rules. Just right.

Until it all

f*cking went to sh*t.

- Yeah.

- You're an actual journalist.

In your opinion,

what do you think

was that secret sauce

that you guys figured out

on the news side?

Well, so we figured out,

A, that if you go places

and show things from the ground,

people will watch.

You don't even have

to release it on the same day.

You don't have to be first.

You just have to tell a story.

Let's say there was some

kind of a pro-Russia protest

that erupts outside

of a Ukrainian naval base

that's being held hostage

by the Russians, right?

In the

scenes of escalating

violence in eastern Ukraine

this one is

particularly sobering.

CNN has a 2pm deadline,

so they film a

few shots of B-roll,

they go back and they put it

on TV the same day.

We stayed there all day,

developed characters to see

what would happen to them,

like what was their fate.

A bunch of guys put him

into the back of the car.

It doesn't look

very official to me.

And we tried to use as

little voice over as possible.

You know, we tried to let

all of the people

that we were filming

speak for themselves.

And sure, we didn't

put it out as fast as CNN did.

We put it out the

next day or two days later,

even three days later.

Our viewers didn't care,

because they were

seeing something that

they never saw before.

Russia! Russia! Russia!

Like they

were seeing what people's

lives were actually like.

We didn't get a chance

to thank--

we wanna thank Eddy Moretti, we

started the whole show together,

and our show runner,

Vijay, who is awesome.

When the company

really got supercharged

and started to win awards,

a lot of it was your work,

you know, especially

in the Ukraine.

Thank

you for saying that.

It was really jarring

when VICE News got taken over

by this corporate hack

named Josh Tyrangiel.

The reason that HBO

and the Showtimes of the world

were interested in VICE

as a news outlet

was because of the

initial VICE News team

that I created with a bunch

of other people.

And so it was really

weird when the guys who

sort of created the buzz

around the news operation

at VICE all get thrown out.

It was all about

loyalty for him.

That was Josh

Tyrangiel's position.

"We have to get

rid of the old team.

"Everybody has to sort of follow

my each and every command,

"and I need to know that

they're going to be loyal

to me and to me only."

But he couldn't

like, really fire me

like he did the rest

of the VICE News team.

I was, you know, too big a deal.

I'd spent three days,

you know, in a cellar

with a bag over my head,

getting the sh*t kicked out

of me by militants in Ukraine.

Josh was not able

to fire me like you know,

because it would

have been a bad look.

So he just tried to make

my life so miserable

that I would want

to leave myself.

He made my raise conditional

on me moving to London.

He wanted to recalculate

my salary into British pounds,

but the pound was collapsing

at the time because of Brexit.

- Yeah.

- And I was like, "Okay.

"Well, you can't use this

calculation from a month ago

"when you gave me my raise.

"That's a twenty percent pay cut

into nothing."

- And you had to move to

London? - And I had to

move to London for it.

And you know who all

of this was being done through?

Nancy Ashbrook.

You know who she is?

The Harvey Weinstein...?

The Harvey Weinstein HR lady.

Tough as bricks.

I mean, she was...

I remember the higher-ups

at VICE were, like, quite

proud that they got her.

And I was like, "Dude,

it's the Harvey Weinstein--

"Like why are you

guys proud of this?"

Like, "Yo, she's f*cking sick."

Yeah, and Shane was

always saying stuff like

that about his new hires.

But, you know credit

where credit is due.

There was a sweet

moment in, like, 2015

where every legacy media

around the world

was, like, interested

in what VICE was doing.

- Which to me, only

makes it more tragic - Yes.

that as soon as they had

cracked that code,

they threw it all

out the window.

You know like some people

don't learn from their mistakes.

VICE doesn't learn

from its successes.

So we still have the long-form

VICE News documentaries that

you know us for,

but we're also gonna be doing

a lot more short-form stuff

breaking news,

live-streaming news,

and then we're gonna have a

whole halo of text and photos

and social media around it.

You're gonna get all that stuff

you know VICE for,

but also a lot more

VICE News. Bango.

2014 was the

beginning of VICE's

peak financial success.

Shane had convinced everyone

that VICE was not only the

future of digital media,

but also news and journalism

in this country.

Why is VICE worth so much

f*cking money?

- Yes.

- $4 billion.

- $4 billion.

- They got a word in.

- More than $4 billion.

- Okay. $4.4 billion.

- There you go.

- All right. Okay.

So that's $400 million.

- I'm not good at math.

- You just rounded it down.

- We rounded it

down. - Why? Because

you guys are mean.

- No. Okay. - If

you were nice,

you'd say "five."

- Okay.

- You'd round it up.

- Ten.

- Anyway...

- Ten.

- Ten.

- Ten.

- That's what I would say.

Yes.

'Cause I'm Shane.

So the whole thing is, is we

sit there, and we said, "Okay."

In 2014,

VICE sold a ten percent share

of VICE Media to A+E Networks,

a joint venture of

Hearst and Disney,

for $250 million,

valuing the company

at $2.5 billion.

In the same year,

Shane was compensated

to the tune of $78,482,292.

Then in November 2015,

news broke the A+E cable

channel H2 would be

rebranded as Viceland.

A month later,

Disney doubled its stake

in VICE Media to $400 million,

and the company

was valued at $4 billion.

The next year, in 2015,

it was reported that Disney

offered to buy VICE

for $3 billion, but

Shane declined,

claiming that in

the next decade,

VICE would be worth $50 billion.

I used to have a personal

relationship with Shane.

I looked up to the

guy and trusted him.

For years, I requested an

accounting of my residuals,

and there was no

response from VICE.

But I never bothered Shane.

When VICE started to

miss payments to

employees and vendors,

I caught wind and hired an

auditor to look into my case.

By the time the auditor

discovered that VICE owed me

hundreds of thousands of dollars

and never reported it,

they went bankrupt.

I reached out to

Shane about this,

and this was his response.

Eventually, the story became

bigger than my residuals,

and I started to ask questions.

But the only question he ever

bothered to respond to was this.

We're about to show you

financial documents

we received from a whistleblower

who declined to appear

in this documentary.

In late 2016, Shane and VICE

went back to Disney,

looking to be acquired,

but the jig was up.

By the time Disney

did diligence in 2016,

all of VICE's numbers

were down across the board.

At that point, when the

cracks started to appear in

VICE's financial picture,

Shane doubled down

on his bullshit sales pitch

and took on even more money.

But with that money

came the pressure

to continue scaling the brand,

and we all felt it as creatives.

VICE is one of the few brands

that really connects in a

meaningful way with millennials

as their center sweet spot.

So I think that's--

it's the millennials

that we want to get excited

about our business,

and so VICE is the perfect fit.

For me, going Viceland,

it was a big mistake.

We were crushing the Internet.

The Internet's the future.

Why would you go

backwards and partner

with this bum channel A+E?

Like, I don't watch

anything on A+E.

Doing the worst thing

possible is hot.

Like, doing-- like,

'cause that's how he got them.

'Cause he was like, "I

will get the children

to watch television."

And they were like,

"Oh, oh, oh."

That's what got

things to the four billy.

They had to take it there,

which I respect,

but it was never gonna work.

Do you think

it had to go this way,

or do you think the culture

that, like, we all contributed

to could have survived

without this f*cking flameout?

I just think like,

adults got in the room.

You know what I'm saying?

I think that grown-ups...

The cops came.

I think the cops came.

I'm serious.

And once the cops came

and were like,

"Let's do, like,

disruptive hyper-vertical

"like cloud-iterated,

end-to-end, snackable,

"stackable like

f*cking content," then

like you're f*cked.

People are like, "Alright,

how do we do this again?

"How do we formulaically,

algorithmically do this again?"

The way to stay ill is

to be like,

"No, we did that.

Let's do some new sh*t.

- "Let's do that."

- That's what I'm saying.

They were then being

like, "Well, here's

what the data says.

"Here's what the kids are into."

And then, like,

backing stuff into that.

That's not how you do it.

It really was coming from,

like Shane and Eddy Moretti

because they wanted us

to be more advertiser-friendly,

and that's when

we lost our voice.

In fairness to Gavin,

the reason he left was that

he didn't want any of this sh*t.

Bro, what do you think

Shane is doing right now?

Like, after going from

four billy to no billy

to like bankrupt?

If someone offers

you four bill, take it.

- Take it.

- Like, I get it.

It's kind of a flex.

Like, "No, $8 billion."

- Yeah.

- You know what I mean?

Like, that's sick,

but also like zero.

- I think it's gamblers'

way. - It's a

scam. Yeah. Go harder

I feel like Shane's gamblers'

brain was just like,

"No, I'm gonna f*cking win

the next hand."

Just go f*cking nuts.

I watched this fool

gamble in Vegas,

and it was like, we went for

the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight,

and we started

gambling before the fight.

He went down a

half million dollars

and then didn't even

go to the fight.

He gives me his

ticket, and he's like,

"Yo, go to the fight

without me, whatever."

I go to the fight, and

I'm there sitting with

f*cking Paulie Walnuts,

half the cast of "The Sopranos,"

watching the f*cking fight.

He went to his room

and got a private dealer,

opened up like,

nine bottles of f*cking DRC,

and was just gambling

the whole time,

- never made it to the fight.

- You have a problem, sir.

Sir, you have a problem.

Eddy Moretti to me

is the one that creatively

tanked the whole sh*t.

Eddy Moretti and

his stupid hat, man.

- Spaghetti Moretti.

- Spaghetti.

I think, like,

the number one moment for me

that was the most magical

is like,

we were smoking a dip.

We were smoking

formaldehyde like right

outside the VICE office.

What's that high like?

I just have to stop and--

It's just like, not that fun.

You're just like, "Ahh."

Like, you just don't feel good,

which is kind of cool.

And I remember looking inside,

and we were smoking,

and I'm like, "Who is that

sitting in the lobby? I

recognize that guy."

Turns out it's Rupert Murdoch.

He was sort of courting them

on some level.

I was like in that

moment, I think,

when you're, like,

smoking a dip,

basically next

to Rupert Murdoch,

- Like, that's the f*cking thing.

- - That's crazy.

But how long can

something like that last?

You know what

I'm saying? It can't.

As a person

who was at VICE for many years,

seeing how disorganized it was

and how a lot of it

was a house of cards,

I started to wonder

how this would end

and that it was possible that

there was a very, very bad end

because gamblers go up

and gamblers go down.

But once they go down,

they start to do crazy sh*t

to try and come back up.

When VICE started to experience

revenue shortfalls,

they began working in

the shadows with people

like Philip Morris

to create lifestyle campaigns

promoting vaping

as a healthier

alternative to cigarettes

because their metrics

said that vaping

was a more profitable business.

Miles Skinner worked on

the Philip Morris team.

I know a

lot of people who,

you know, have a bad taste

in their mouth about VICE.

I don't. I had a great time.

I had a great job.

I got to travel the world.

I got to be in really weird

rooms with interesting people.

You know, they had Virtue.

The version of Virtue

that was existing to that point

was more like, you

know, VICE content

that looked like VICE content

that was really ads.

This was creating

white label ad services.

In this episode of Rise As One,

our friends at Budweiser

sent us to Beijing

to see how a group

of local football lovers

are rallying their countrymen

to get out on the pitch.

Do you feel like

VICE pioneered a lot of

that, like, branded content?

It's funny because the

VICE I knew and loved

was a bankrupt magazine

that threw great parties.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know? And it was like...

hot girls, like good music.

Like, you know they had taste,

good photography,

all of that stuff.

I think they stumbled

into something that

became their future.

You know, we booked

nine figures in business,

and some of that was for Virtue.

And then some was when I

moved on to a different team

that was a... little

bit more clandestine.

- Yeah.

- You know?

And that was based around one

client, which was Philip Morris.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

You know how do we get

people to quit smoking

combustible cigarettes?

So, massive thought problem.

You know when they explained

their rationale,

it was of course,

get people to quit smoking

combustible cigarettes,

we create a market to sell them

non-combustible solutions.

And you know harm reduction,

you can spin it all ways.

You know Philip Morris has blood

on their hands.

Is the vape business

better for Philip Morris

than the

combustible cigarette--?

- Their metrics said yes.

- Ew.

We put together a strategy

that was around most

of these anti-smoking campaigns,

cessation campaigns.

It's telling people

to do something.

And that's what Shane

was always selling companies,

was that, "I know how

to speak to that kid."

What do you think is at the core

of that perspective?

To that kid you're talking to,

what do you think it is

that we were all selling?

Make the cool guy feel rich

and the rich guy feel cool.

- Yeah.

- And, you know, it's yours.

Yeah.

And you can rule, you know?

It's like, it works.

People were coming to VICE,

I felt, for two reasons.

One, 'cause it was cool and it

was like, "Tell us what's cool."

Two is, you figured

out the Internet.

And figured out you know,

how to get over on it.

You know? I mean, it was,

like, a lot of it was scam.

VICE

made a lot of money by

basically playing three-card

monte with Internet traffic.

And Taylor Lorenz,

who wrote Extremely Online ,

is an expert on this matter.

They did a lot of growth hacks

because they needed to,

because they had to deliver

those audiences.

So the metrics

were always bullshit.

Throughout like the early,

mid-2010s you know,

Facebook is just juicing traffic

to media companies.

They weren't able to

drive enough traffic

from their own pages.

So they would, like,

do these swaps,

where they would buy traffic.

Basically they would

like pay for traffic

that they could then

claim as their own.

It was like, "Well, let's

fudge the numbers this quarter.

"Yeah, we're gonna get

some traffic from here and there

"but like, it'll work out."

'Cause it was all like,

trickery and these like,

digital marketing,

kind of sleights of hand.

And it was about

sort of projecting success

and coolness and culture,

which is--

if you don't have the kind

of business to back it up

or the community to back it up,

then you're screwed.

I got an e-mail from

a VICE employee

that was very high up

in sales on an Apple campaign.

And Apple actually found out

that they were buying traffic

from Pornhub and

attributing it to their numbers.

Well, because they would do

VICE Media Network or something.

They had all these ways of,

like, obscuring that.

And then when you dug into it,

you're like, "Okay, but

that's not VICE dot-com that

you're talking about here.

"You're talking about all these

other weird websites."

So that you can claim

their numbers.

Yeah. It's insane

because the people at VICE

didn't even tag it to the dates

of the campaign correctly.

- Wow.

- Like, they

were that negligent.

Yeah.

Not only

was VICE negligent

in reporting fake

Internet traffic

on a million-dollar

ad campaign for Apple,

but it was malicious

in its direction of employees,

like Mitchell Sunderland,

who VICE f*cked so badly

that he ended up

having to change his name.

Mitchell Sunderland

was a staff writer

and an editor at VICE,

might have been 2018.

A mutual friend of ours walks

through the door,

and she goes, "Oh,

my God. What's this sh*t

going on with Mitchell?"

And I was like,

"What are you talking about?"

She's like, "Google it."

Every f*cking news publication

has an article.

"VICE's Mitchell Sunderland.

"Email thread with neo-Nazis,"

blah, blah, blah.

All this stuff.

So like it doesn't

look good for Mitchell.

Mitchell was given

a directive by VICE

to maintain relationships

with Ann Coulter

and Milo Yiannopoulos,

who had actually written

for VICE in the past,

to cede VICE

articles to Breitbart

and other right-wing

publications

because allegedly,

- they had better

traffic than VICE

did. - Yeah.

People who were studying traffic

at the time

were seeing that

right-wing people

would be more likely

to click on a VICE link

if they saw that

the person posting it

was railing on VICE

rather than if they were saying,

"Look at this great thing

that VICE is posting."

Nobody bothered us, you know

as long as we were earning.

I mean, you've been

to the London office.

We were in a separate building

like, down the block

and around some weird

little Shoreditch alley.

And, you know, our seats

in London were...

We were sitting with

or right above the guys

that were starting

the work with Saudis.

It was at the

Saudi consulate in Istanbul

that Jamal Khashoggi

met his brutal end.

He'd been lured there

to discuss paperwork

for his upcoming wedding.

But he was strangled as soon

as he entered the building

by a team of Saudi assassins.

- I was privy

to a little bit

of it. - Yeah.

You know. I saw maybe

one of those briefs, and

it was very, very early,

and it had to do with tourism

and their ultimate goals

of making it an inbound

tourist destination

for people under 35.

Camels hold a very special place

in Saudi Arabia's heart.

They've been used for

centuries as transportation,

food, even as currency.

This annual month-long

celebration of everything camel

is a chance to see and be seen

for the country's elite.

Saudi Arabia's tourism board

paid VICE millions of dollars

to make a video

covering camel races.

Arabian camel

racing has been around

since the 7th century,

but has grown in popularity

in recent years

due to the huge prizes on offer.

World leaders and dignitaries

enter their prized beasts.

They actually

trick a VICE journalist

to go post this episode.

I've learned, I mean,

they call us producers, right?

- I mean, I was a host.

- Mm-hmm.

I guess I was a content creator.

They've just decided

that I should ride.

The person had no idea

that it was a fluff piece

for Saudi Arabia's

tourism board.

This is a

time of massive flux,

so how better to deal with that

than to remind yourself

of your roots,

your regional identity,

and celebrate the camel.

They

would just film the person's VO

and have the person say things

that they needed

for this tourism video.

As I watched

the highly choreographed

closing ceremony,

it was clear that in

modern Saudi Arabia,

camels remain important.

They may not be a main source

of transport or food,

but to Saudi's elite,

like Naif and the

country's leadership,

they're a source of

national pride and even

regional solidarity.

You know, that's another three

card monte, VICE, kind of...

you know, that's

an old standard trick.

I haven't talked publicly

about VICE hardly at all

for, like, various reasons.

Oh.

But also because

I'm worried that if I do,

I'm just going to

talk so much sh*t

and I'm never going

to be able to stop.

Are you excited

of the idea of meeting MBS?

Of course.

He's our new king.

We are moving with him.

We are changing with him.

For the better.

What we look at

is saying, okay, when I

say partner with brands,

I mean partner,

like production partner.

So we make it together.

We exploit it together.

And that could be a TV show.

It could be a short form.

It could be long form.

It could be a film.

As revenue was falling,

Shane doubled down on the

further narrowing of the brand.

Everything needed to feel like a

sibling of the VICE on HBO show

because urgent,

salacious journalism

was the one thing investors

and legacy media understood.

Let's talk about

what you're doing.

Now, there's been, like,

90 articles about your efforts.

Mostly, "We're

going to f*ck sh*t up.

"We're going to f*ck the sh*t

out of things.

"f*cking sh*t, sh*t, f*ck,"

stuff like that.

So what are you doing?

- f*cking sh*t up.

- Okay. Alright.

What we're famous for is giving

over, Dylan going electric,

giving over the

company to people...

Like, for example, a lot of

people who are doing TV,

all the people

who are doing our monetization

have never done anything in TV

and, or TV monetization before,

and that's our strength.

- That you don't know anything?

- Exactly.

- Okay.

- Ignorance is--

Now, you do have some executives

they've brought in th--

Yeah, on the business side,

for sure, because as we grow,

we're doing a lot

of international TV deals,

a lot of mobile deals.

We don't want to get hoodwinked,

so we have people coming

over from Discovery and

other companies,

but I'm talking about

on the creation side.

So you have people

that don't know anything--

- Correct.

- And the point being,

we're so stupid,

we can't f*ck up?

- Correct.

- Okay.

It seems

strange watching Shane talk

about how he installs

creatives who don't know

what they're doing,

but it was code

for the existing VICE creatives

like myself and the people

who worked on our show.

It was all posturing

to make it seem like he

was going to retain the

punk rock essence of VICE,

but in fact,

he was installing

parrots on every show.

We ended up having to answer

to a show runner

that came from

Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer.

This guy was on this episode

encouraging my brother and I

to stay at the Sausage Castle,

despite our protests about what

Mike Busey was doing to people.

Now, that's what I call

"fresh off the boat", brother.

What's up, man?

And for some reason,

these white dudes always want

to remind me that I'm Chinese.

You gotta get control of

this sh**t, there's g*ns

going off everywhere,

and son's throwing grenades.

Someone's throwing grenades.

I mean, son was

throwing grenades,

and I was really like, man,

we really need better g*n

control laws in this country.

You're going to take

your finger, and...

- Wait, wait,

wait. Please don't

sh**t. - Oh, damn!

At one point,

they almost shot our DP,

- Christopher Valona .

- You okay, CV?

Yeah, I'm okay. I

heard, like, it's like the w*r.

Welcome to my house.

And we were

still asked to finish the scene.

I didn't know

that you were gonna sh**t.

I was going to come in

with a countdown, LA.

Okay. Like,

I'm getting ready to sh**t.

Everyone stand by,

so you don't sh*t yourselves.

This is

what Jesse was talking about

when he said Shane

became P.T. Barnum

selling the freaks.

It wasn't the same voice

that Gavin, Jesse, and Amy

had crafted with satire

and a subversive purpose.

It wasn't even weird for weird.

It was weird for money,

and I wanted out.

Go over to the camera

and say that in Chinese.

- Into the cameras.

- I don't--

Just make some sh*t up and say--

make it sound Asian.

Allow the sake

to flow down her juicy pooper.

Into LA's mouth.

Open up wide, LA.

- Sake fruit salad.

- This f*cking sucks.

This is the

sake fruit salad here.

I'm sorry. This sucks.

What's up, dude?

Hey, mind if I

talk to you for a second?

No, it's fine, man. I mean, my

thing is really, I just like...

You know, man,

this isn't my thing.

It's just like, I feel like that

you're a hilarious dude,

and all this sh*t is hilarious,

and it's fun to be here.

But you just got to be careful

not to use people.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you're using LA.,

and he's kind of this,

like, funny Black guy

with a big stomach.

You're using the Asian

girl to come, like,

speak Chinese on camera.

You just got to be careful

about the way you use people.

And the women like--

you know what I'm saying?

Well, behind all this

sh*t, man, honestly,

- we're all

from different

walks. - Yeah.

Black, white,

Christian, atheist.

You hung out with Jews today,

Asians, dumb like me.

- Yeah.

- And the whole thing is,

we all find a common ground

in our just being that outsider.

For me, watching and being

a part of it, I'm uncomfortable.

And I feel like people who watch

this are gonna laugh at you.

They're gonna laugh at LA.

They're gonna laugh

at the girl with the melons.

But I think you should

just think about, what is

it you're trying to say?

- I apologize for any

- Don't--

- But I do, man.

- Thank you. We're good.

Thanks for coming.

While VICE had me boxing to

sell ads at their upfront,

I was fighting their

lawyers behind the

scenes for my residuals.

We chased it for years.

But by the time VICE

finally acknowledged the debt,

they were bankrupt.

I challenged the bankruptcy,

made my claim,

and although

they never paid me my money...

I traded that debt

for the rights to my show

and cancelled out

my NDA with VICE.

By having that

footage and freedom,

I was able to make

this documentary.

I traded hundreds of

thousands of dollars for the

right to tell this story.

People ask me all the time

why I went to VICE

despite people

like Choe telling me not to.

I went to VICE

because at one point,

it was f*cking amazing.

It was a place you could

be weird and have a voice

and for lack of a better term,

be your g*dd*mn self.

It was like

Professor X's School for Mutants

or Bruce Wayne's

Gotham orphanage

or Derek Zoolander's School

for Kids Who Don't Read Good.

That's why we all went,

because we didn't

fit in anywhere else.

And despite this

insanely negligent,

borderline malicious

environment,

a lot of good people

did a lot of good work.

VICE gave us a home

to tell stories from the gutter,

and the hope was that

by telling these stories,

you could change sh*t.

We

had a purpose, and VICE

made a brand out of it.

But once that brand

became bigger than the people

and the stories and

the multitudes it

hoped to contain...

It's not this, like,

precious thing,

but it's this thing

that's like-- it's a, it's a...

It was worthless .

The world is full

of stories like this.

I saw a lot of them

on Huang's World,

and in the end,

there was one salt miner in Peru

that reminds me

of my time at VICE.

In America, if you sell

one bottle of this pink salt,

like, six to eight ounces,

people are paying

upwards of $10 or $12 for it.

Did you know that?

So you guys are not aware

of the amount of money

they sell your salt for?

The desire

to scale Peruvian pink salt

or VICE magazine so

everyone can experience it

instantly kills that

thing you loved about

it in the first place.

There's a magical

number of people

who are meant to enjoy

or experience something,

and the second

you cross that threshold,

it becomes a pumpkin.

VICE is broke

because greed scaled it

to a point where it mutated

and no longer resembled

what made it special in

the first place.

Not everyone is gonna

get to smoke formaldehyde

next to Rupert Murdoch

at the VICE office.

You kind of just

had to be there.

Oh, I mean,

but these pants are weird.

Alright, you pick where it goes.

- Okay, right side for sure.

- That's pretty big.

Is this the biggest one?

- That's the biggest.

- Okay.

Here, I'm

gonna keep it there.

I'm just gonna line it up

just a little bit.

Yeah, yeah,

'cause it's a little slanted.

But isn't it going to,

like, isn't your body just...

I still want someone

to claim the panties.

- Oh, you feel it, huh?

- No, that's good.

Alright, try not--

try to hold still.

I'll chill out if you

put a couple fingers in there.

I might have to do it

to hold you in place.

Was that Amber Rose

that was telling everybody

that Kanye liked fingers

in his a*s?

Yeah, yeah, she was

like, Mr. Finger in the

Booty Boy or something.

Most geniuses are left-handed

and like fingers in their a*s.

I know a lot of geniuses.

Woo was on an episode

with us too, right, Nick?

- Yeah. - Before

we went to Taiwan

as a pickup.

Yeah.

Remember the guy

in China did some sh*t like,

"You a party boy?

"Yo, you're a fun guy, right?"

Then you were like, "What?"

He's like, "Yeah, you're

like a fun guy, right?"

We were in that bar that

gave us f*cking... the balloons.

That was one of the guys.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

I remember, we go

to this underground f*cking bar,

and I think we're just

gonna drink and stuff

and I look at the tab,

but they started putting

balloons on it,

and everyone was doing

balloons, and I was like,

"Oh, this is so sick."

Nitrous you were doing?

It wasn't like any

nitrous I'd ever done before.

It was like Chinese grade.

That sh*t

was not nitrous.

Yeah, I don't

know what it was.

- Is the tattoo done?

- Yeah.

- Oh.

- How's it feel?

You know, the very end of it,

- I felt a little sting.

- Yeah?

- But like, it feels--

- That was the finger.

It looks really good, though.

Go look at it.

Go look in the mirror.

Stunning.