[smacktoward]

A closer historical analogue to what Vice has tried to do is probably Rolling Stone. Today Rolling Stone is utterly dispensable, so it can be hard to imagine; but in the '70s it was what Vice so desperately wants to be today, a sort of journal-of-record for youth culture. If you wanted to know where the edge was, Rolling Stone had writers like Lester Bangs and Hunter S. Thompson who could show you.

[reaperducer]

Or like a combination of Playboy's non-pictural literature with Spy magazine's insider snark.