I TOTALLY WENT ON A PRESS JUNKET AND I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF ME

Well, I sure as hell hope you see what Vice did there, cheeky bastards that they are. In one deft headline, they cunningly issued a resounding “fuck you” and then nullified your retort.

Not content with being the derivative sell-outs that they’ve built their reputation on thus far, Vice wears their boorishness as a badge of honor now. To their credit, at least they didn’t try to justify their whoring as some kind of “investigation” and they rightly snarked everyone else who played along. But an asshole who walks around telling everyone what an asshole he is and can’t believe you’re surprised what an asshole he is, he told you he’s an asshole, is, sadly, still an asshole.

It’s a cute, if unoriginal gimmick, reveling in the angst of people who bother to care, worming a finger in the bullet hole just to watch your victim squirm. Vice perpetuates this on their readers and everyone who bothers pay them any mind with some regularity but it’s getting embarrassing to watch.

To be honest, though, the ironically mustachioed, skinny jeaned, trustafarian Brooklynites who guzzle this up like fluffers who’ve finally resigned themselves to never making it on camera are getting exactly what they deserve as Vice’s core demo. I suspect the magazine realizes this (they’re nothing if not self aware) and is only too happy to turn a buck, with the side bonus of cheap drugs and a stream of only-too-willing interns, on self-loathing hipsters secretly hoping to show up as a don’t if only for the ironic cachet.