Quote, unquote: On being the next MTV and why everyone in Canada is a C minus
“I want to be the next CNN and the next ESPN and the next MTV, digitally, and I know that sounds grandiose, but when we do our Google channels and our Chinese channels, we’re going to be one of the largest networks in the world. We will get there.”
-- Vice Media CEO and co-founder Shane Smith, quoted in an article in Forbes by Jeff Bercovici.
"I grew up being a socialist and I have problems with it because I grew up in Canada [and] I’ve spent a lot of time in Scandinavia, where I believe countries legislate out creativity. They cut off the tall trees. Everyone’s a C-minus. I came to America from Canada because Canada is stultifyingly boring and incredibly hypocritical. Thanks, Canada."
-- Vice Media CEO and co-founder Shane Smith, quoted in a sidebar piece.
It's a long time since Montreal....
Labels: quote
posted by D. B. Scott at
6:21 pm
13 Comments:
No doubt Mr. Smith will return all that government money?
once a douchebag, always a douchebag
His words hurt because they're true, my friends. Too many average haters in Canada—especially in the "creative" industry.
Spoken like a hater yourself.
If he wasn't the co-founder of a media empire whose content was originally one small step up from fart gags, he may be taken more seriously.
what on earth is an "average hater" ?
I coulda been SO much greater if I didn't have the handicap of being born in Canada!
Man, dude is even fat like an American. For some reason, I pictured the Vice guys as skinny and non-goateed, sort of like the Beastie Boys
Sorry, didn't have time to read the piece... Why does Larry The Cable Guy hate Canada so much?
Fromt the Forbes story...
"Eventually, the 41-year-old settles on a Gewürztraminer and a request. “Sometimes they make the little bread into toasts for the caviar,” he says. “We’ll get the caviar with extra crème fraîche and extra onions, and if you can just toast those little bastards, that’d be great.”
Now if those aren't the words of a true ass... (And the kicker? Dude drinks Gewurztraminer).
I actually met some of the Vice guys at a trade show once. They aren't really the douche's that you think they are. But, they can be. Vice is a success story and it is a money making machine. I recall reading Vice when it was published on newsprint. I always caution people to never forget their roots. There are some staggeringly amazing creative things happening in Canadian magazine publishing and there are some really boring things. Just like in the USA...and everywhere else in this world. Canada remains a pretty sweet place to live...and I'll let this guy pull a Conrad Black...
Meanwhile, I have the best of both worlds...I live in Canada and make most of my money from the USA.
That's the best adVICE I can give....
Anyone who has seen Page One, the recent film about the New York Times, has seen Shane Smith receive a comeuppance from NYT media columnist David Carr. Here, from a story by Anthony DeRosa at Reuters (http://blogs.reuters.com/anthony-derosa/2011/06/14/page-one-film-breathes-life-into-the-new-york-times/) is the gist:
"There’s a scene midway through Page One when David Carr goes to meet the guys who run Vice, a brash and unvarnished multimedia content company that CNN just partnered with in an effort to court a younger demographic. “I don’t do corporate portraiture,” Carr tells them as they attempt to give him their pitch. Vice co-founder Shane Smith tries to make a case for why Vice is doing the job that the New York Times failed to do. “Everyone talked to me about cannibalism! That’s fucking crazy! So the actual — our audience goes, “That’s fucking insane, like, that’s nuts!” And the New York Times, meanwhile, is writing about surfing, and I’m sitting there going like, “You know what? I’m not going to talk about surfing, I’m going to talk about cannibalism, because that fucks me up.” Carr interrupts Smith for a history lesson “Just a sec, time out. Before you ever went there, we’ve had reporters there reporting on genocide after genocide. Just because you put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do. So continue.”
Shane smith hangs out with a lot of older "CEO types"-
Astonishing that Charlie Rose validates this GenX -chasing media whore.
Disappointing. Deplorable and generally difficult to watch this douchebag.
No wonder his friend secretly want to sell the company and get away from him.
8:34 pm
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home