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No one likes it when I say this, but you get the algorithm you deserve. Generally speaking, what you get served on social media is a reflection of the things you’ve engaged with the most combined with predictions of what you would engage with based on your age, gender, location, and so on. Hence, my Instagram Explore page is a shameful buffet of women in those shorts Shane Gillis is afraid of providing “glute activation” gym tutorials, clips of Florence Pugh talking about food in a vaguely erotic manner, and drunk Americans belting Alice In Chains in the back of a pick-up; my legitimate interests merged and warped by the digital marketplace of sly OnlyFans promotion and adverts for perimenopausal supplements.

Others, however, might find their timelines filled with other things. Bloodshed, for instance.

In an essay for the latest issue of VICE magazine, The Self-Destruction Issue, Mattha Busby looks into the rise of so-called “fight porn” on social media. That is, the constant barrage of videos of bar fights, dog fights, schoolyard brawls, dashcam road rage, etc, that roll non-stop across our timelines like hot, cortisol-spiking dispatches from the frontlines of the War On The Societal Contract, delivered to us casually between celebrity gossip and photos of our friends’ babies. It begs the question: Are Western societies more violent than they were in the past, or is the algorithm pushing us all, gently, towards insanity?

Mattha writes:

“Perhaps the question isn’t whether we’re more barbarous than our grandparents but what the effect of being constantly exposed to barbarism is on our brains and societies as a whole. To be clear, there is little evidence that street violence itself has exploded in the West, but what has exploded is its visibility—and the way that visibility shapes what feels socially plausible.”

Read the full story in The Self-Destruction Issue or behind the paywall below:

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Is Fight Porn Destroying Us?

Also behind the paywall this week, you’ll find what is perhaps the spiritual inverse of CCTV footage of Americans punching each other: artistic interpretations of sex in China.

Lao Xie Xie has been photographing Shanghai youth since 2019, following Gen Z through a pandemic and tightening moral codes. Capturing people in their homes, in public spaces, at underground shibari parties and more, his series Shanghai No Why offers a glimpse into the lives of young microcommunities thriving beyond censorship and cultural stereotypes.

Speaking to VICE writer Tom Veréb Czibolya, Lao says:

“To me, these photos are about freedom, freedom to present your body differently […] What I can say is that many of the people I photograph belong to a generation obsessed with images. It’s social media and its hyper-aggressive push toward self-representation, and clearly, this influences how they approach relationships and sexuality too.”

Check out a selection of Lao’s work and read our full interview with him behind the paywall:

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Gen Z Are Leading a Sexual Revolution in Shanghai, Apparently

Emma Garland
Deputy Editor, VICE Magazine

To get past the paywall, sign up for VICE membership. A Digital Only subscription is just $2 a month (or $20 a year, if you prefer), while $70 a year also gets you 4 issues of VICE magazine, delivered straight to your door. (All three kill all the ads on this site.)

The post A Generation Obsessed With Images—This Week On VICE: Members Only appeared first on VICE.

To get past the paywall, sign up for VICE membership. A Digital Only subscription is just $2 a month (or $20 a year, if you prefer), while $70 a year also gets you 4 issues of VICE magazine, delivered straight to your door. (All three kill all the ads on this site.)

It’s rare that a distinctly British phenomenon crosses over to North America. While U.S. artists are exported fairly easily to the rest of the world, because it is culturally dominant and now half of the Earth’s population knows about Pete Buttigieg and “cilantro” whether we want to or not, the idiosyncrasies of other cultures don’t translate so easily in the other direction. So it’s always fascinating to see what sticks and what doesn’t. Based on the bewildered reception to his biopic, in which he was played by a CGI chimp, Stoke-on-Trent boybander turned crooner Robbie Williams has zero traction across the Atlantic. The Stone Roses never achieved the same level of familiarity as other Factory-era Manchester bands, and Charli XCX only really just “arrived” there despite being a cultural institution in the UK for over a decade.

For reasons that are hard to pinpoint, one artist the U.S. does seem to have embraced immediately and without reservation is the masked Liverpudlian rap sensation EsDeeKid.

It seems unlikely, given his thick Scouse accent and colloquial lyrics, but EsDee has jumped directly from the Mersey to New York Fashion Week, Marty Supreme promo, and parts of the U.S. that by rights should have absolutely no point of reference for what “birds” and “bizzies” are. In fairness his unique mix of goth and trap, chainmail and streetwear, is just as esoteric at home as it is anywhere else, but the question remains: What do people make of EsDeeKid outside of a British context?  

Raised in Merseyside and currently living in Indiana, writer Charlotte Landrum traveled to the Chicago date of his Council House Rat tour to gauge what EsDeeKid’s U.S. fanbase looks like. What impressions do they have of Liverpool? What touchstones are they fucking with? And do they know what a council house is? One young fan mused:

“A bunch of rats, a bunch of wizards, a bunch of medieval shit.”

Read Charlotte’s full report from Chicago below:

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These Americans Love EsDeeKid. But Do They Really ‘Get’ Him?

Speaking of U.S. exports, Azealia Banks may or may not have relocated to Israel. The New York rapper and inflammatory opinion-haver posted a photo to X this week of the inside of a building—which looks like it could be either a new-build apartment or a tech start-up office—announcing that she had “moved” to Tel Aviv and was “liking it.” Fact or ragebait, it’s certainly true that Banks has vacated the Washington Heights residence where she famously sacrificed live chickens for spiritual purposes. (A video shared by the rapper in 2016 showed her going at her closet with a sand blaster to remove layers of dried blood and feathers.)

It’s not uncommon, in New York City, to move into a place previously inhabited by a celebrity. But as Eamon Levesque put it in a report for VICE:

“For Harris Ansari, discovering ‘what celeb used to live in my apartment’ helped him answer another question: ‘Why does my closet smell like this?’” 

Levesque continues:

“In May, newlyweds Harris and Avani moved into their 3-bed 2-bath on Pinehurst Ave in Washington Heights. There was plenty to love about the space—natural light, high ceilings, ample space for their cat Chutney to explore. One small concern: the floor and baseboards of the guest bedroom closet were caked in a mysterious black substance…” 

Read the full story behind the paywall below:

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We Just Moved Into the Azealia Banks Animal Sacrifice Apartment

Emma Garland
Deputy Editor, VICE Magazine

To get past the paywall, sign up for VICE membership. A Digital Only subscription is just $2 a month (or $20 a year, if you prefer), while $70 a year also gets you 4 issues of VICE magazine, delivered straight to your door. (All three kill all the ads on this site.)

The post There’s a Scouse in the House—Last Week On VICE: Members Only appeared first on VICE.