‘Vice’ Finds Own Medicine Hard to Swallow

We love it when cooler-than-thou magazines get caught in unpleasant situations involving their advertisers. It’s especially awkward when your magazine is practically predicated upon making fun of everyone and everything- like, say, Vice, which refused to run an ad for the Philadelphia hip-hop group Plastic Little’s debut album because it mocked one of Vice’s advertisers, Triple5Soul.

Reports the Chicago music blog Transmission: The first advert, which detailed a hipster’s homoerotic fantasies involving Jay-Z, largely passed without comment. But when a follow-up featured a passing dis of hip-hop clothing line Triple5Soul, the mag’s editors- fearing a loss in revenue from a staple sponsor—pulled the band’s card post-haste.

Yeah, it’s all fun and games until someone offends an advertiser.