It’s Not Fun Anymore: A History of Vice magazine

Vice magazine, originally known as the Voice of Montreal, was founded as a punk weekly by three Montreal friends in 1994. Fast-forward to 2017 — Vice Media is valued at $5.7 Billion, having reigned over everything-cool in NYC since it relocated there in 1999. Then, in 2023, Vice Media declared bankruptcy, laying off hundreds of employees.

How did we get here? And what happened to the dozens of integral editors, writers, photographers and artists that made Vice the recorder of everything hip and happening in early-aughts NYC? We didn’t immediately know either, so we set out to track everyone down — including one long-ago expelled co-founder who started a notorious “Western-Chauvenist” group The Proud Boys in 2016.

In late 2023, longtime Vice writer and correspondent Thomas Morton tapped me to work as a researcher on the documentary he is executive-producing and hosting about Vice magazine. I was responsible for writing internal profiles, aiding in subject outreach, creating timelines, and digging deep into the Vice archive as much as that of the later work of many of the Vice diaspora. It’s Not Fun Anymore, funded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, will stream on the CBC’s Gem platform in autumn 2024.

The Narwhal’s Wake

In early 2023, I was recruited by director Ian Rowan as a producer to help bring The Narwhal’s Wake through production and into post. The feature film documents everything narwhal, from contemporary historical conservation victories to Medieval mythology. I was tasked with rounding out the chapters dedicated to both 13th Century Viking Sagas and Medieval German Folklore, in which narwhal tusks (yup, they’re actually teeth) were cynically traded mainland Europe as the horns of unicorns—an animal still thought to be existent.

Solving for Zero

In 2021, I contracted with Blue Chalk Media to associate-produce Solving for Zero. A feature-length climate change documentary, Solving for Zero is loosely based on Bill Gates’s book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Underwritten by Gates Ventures, the documentary streams at Wondrium.