The Null Device

VICE Magazine's latest piece of exploitation journalism: Babes of the BNP, in which they get a number of young female supporters of the far-right party, each of them as thick as two short planks, to disrobe for the camera and answer a few gentle interview questions:

When people say the BNP is a fascist party, what do you think?
Fascist – I don’t understand that word.
Think of Nazi Germany, or 1930s Italy.
I can’t even remember when that happened really, but I’m against them anyway.
You’re against who?
The Germans. I know that sounds evil… I was brought up that way.

Are most of your friends BNP?
Some of them are. I kind of got into it through my friend Danny. He’s really racist. Everyone calls him “Nazi Danny”. He started telling me about them, and it made a lot of sense.

In terms of the BNP’s repatriation policy on immigration, if you had to choose, who would you repatriate first – Dizzee Rascal or Tinchy Stryder?
Dizzee Rascal. I know this is gonna sound horrible, because he’s the one who’s the most, like… because, my problem is that when immigrants come over to this country, they try and bring in their own churches and languages. And I think he expresses himself more as like an African or whatever he is, whereas Tinchy Stryder is more American. That’s the difference.

Peter Andre – hero or villain?
Aw, hero.
Jeremy Clarkson – hero or villain?
Hero.
Enoch Powell – hero or villain?
Hero.
Nelson Mandela – hero or villain?
Villain.

But would it be possible to maybe come to a compromise with a noble race like the Chinese? Perhaps keep them on as a sort of servant class?
Yeah. I wouldn’t mind them if they actually worked and didn’t take all of our jobs, basically.

(via MeFi) ¶ bnp fascism racism stupidity uk vice 0

Kele Okereke, the frontman of new-wave-indie-art-rock band Bloc Party, has expressed his regret at signing to Vice Records, because of the, umm, vicious qualities of the Vice brand:

"The people that we work with are lovely, and they're a separate company from the magazine, but Vice the brand just fills me with dread, really. It's a real kind of nasty vortex, where any decency and general compassion to other people has just been completely obliterated."

(via last.fm:datakid) ¶ carling-indie culture vice 0

The latest social pastime for privileged kids in Britain are chav parties, where they dress up as stereotypes of unruly proles. Apparently even Prince William (he's the sensible one who doesn't go in for Nazi uniforms) has gone to a few.

There were various things on display," he says. "Pictures of rugby teams, of parties and discos. But the one that really jumped out was of a chav-themed school disco: all these rosy-cheeked, foppish-looking public schoolkids dressed in baseball caps and Adidas tracksuits. It looked a bit pathetic; at first I suppose I felt slight pity for them. But then I thought about it another way: here were the most privileged kids in Britain pretending to be poor people."

¶ bogans chavs culture hipsters irony kill whitey sloanes slumming vice 0

As part of VICE's "Kill Your Parents" issue, Jim Goad sets the record straight on a number of baby-boomer counterculture heroes:

He was many things … a First Amendment warrior, a womanizer, a hipster and a junkie … but the one thing a comedian is supposed to be—funny—he wasn’t. “Take away the right to say ‘fuck,’ ” came one of Lenny Bruce’s most famously self-serving lines, “and you take way the right to say, ‘fuck the government.’ ” Thanks, Lenny. We’re now allowed to say “fuck” in certain special circumstances. But the government fucked you harder. You turned rat on your drug-dealing friends, and it’s safe to assume your morphine overdose in 1966 was a hot shot delivered as street vengeance.

The Beatles were a great rock ’n’ roll band except they couldn’t sing, play their instruments, or keep a beat. Despite claims of being a “working-class hero” after he’d salted away millions, and in spite of his prophet-of-peace shtick even though he was an overweening sourpuss who couldn’t even get along with his bandmates or wives, this sanctimonious junkie is still embraced as a beacon of childlike truth-seeking. He was shot dead by precisely the sort of true believer his massive ego helped spawn. His murderer, Mark David Chapman, reportedly used to lead schoolchildren in singing a parody of his hero’s signature song: “Imagine there’s no John Lennon.” It wasn’t hard to do.

(via VICE) ¶ baby boomers contrarianism jim goad john lennon lenny bruce the beatles vice 0

You know those American Apparel "sweat-shop free" T-shirts with the reality-porn-style ads in VICE Magazine and such? Well, apparently the company is not quite as ethically sound as it claims to be:

According to a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board and settled by the company, American Apparel engaged in tactics of intimidation to bust an attempt at unionization, including interrogating workers about their support for a union, soliciting workers to withdraw their union authorization cards and threatening to close the facility if a union was formed. The company also allegedly printed armbands to be worn at work which read, "no union," and forced employees to attend an anti-union rally.

As a result of their settlement with the National Labor Relations Board, American Apparel signed an agreement promising not to engage in union-busting tactics in the future.

(via imomus) ¶ american apparel dishonesty ethics hypocrisy industrial relations vice 2

A fascinating history of London's vice cards; the small printed cards used by the local prostitutes and dominatrices to advertise their services in phone booths, once whimsical and suggestive, but these days glossy, and about as subtle as internet porn banner ads: (via bOING bOING)

Although produced in the 1980s, the early cards were distinctly Fifties both in tone and design. Many still used foundry display types such as ATF's Brush, or Stephenson Blake's Chisel and Open Titling. Alternatively, they used Baskerville or Garamond, two of the most pervasive text typefaces of the 1950s; as a result they retained an old-world charm. The techniques behind their production were rudimentary: illustrations were hand-drawn, traced, or photocopied. Type was seldom set: it was either rubbed-down, cut out from magazines, or sometimes hand produced. Images and type were pasted together and handed to the printer.

Teachers and parents at one London school complained that pupils as young as five had invented their own version of the Pokémon card using prostitute cards that they collected, then swapped. There has been more than one model that has been alarmed to find her photograph used without permission on the cards.

Vice cards have become fascinating cultural icons. For some, the cards are interesting because they are trackers of technology: they show when specialised production equipment became available, quite literally, at street level. To others the cards are artistic or typographic curios with a unique linguistic and visual vocabulary. The cards are also sociological and cultural records of the late twentieth century, mirroring the changing sexual attitudes and practices of the past 20 years.

¶ culture graphics london prostitution vice vice cards 0