It was a spin-off of the English-language portion of Images magazine, a multicultural publication founded in the early 1990s by Dominique Ollivier with Alix Laurent,[11] under the name Voice of Montreal.

[13][14][15][16] The magazine was established under a job creation program of the Quebec government to allow social welfare recipients to gain work experience.

Under Szalwinski's ownership, a few retail stores were opened in New York City and customers could purchase fashion items that were advertised in the magazine.

Capper explained in an interview shortly after the UK debut that the publication's remit was to cover "the things we're meant to be ashamed of", and articles were published on topics such as bukkake and bodily functions.

The media company was still based in New York City, but the magazine began featuring articles on topics that were considered more serious, such as armed conflict in Iraq, than previous content.

[27] In February 2024, The New York Times highlighted that "over the past half-decade, Vice has had near annual layoffs and mounting losses, and has filed for bankruptcy, making it the poster child for the battered digital-media industry" and that while "some observers hoped its new owners [...] would reinvest" in the company, Fortress Investment Group has instead "decided to make sweeping cuts".

Both Vice's online and magazine content has shifted from dealing mostly with independent arts and pop cultural matters to covering more serious news topics.

Due to the large array of contributors and the fact that often writers will only submit a small number of articles with the publication, Vice's content varies dramatically and its political and cultural stance is often unclear or contradictory.

The magazine's editors have championed the immersionist school of journalism, which has been passed to other properties of Vice Media such as the documentary television show Balls Deep on the Viceland Channel.

This style of journalism is regarded as something of a DIY antithesis to the methods practiced by mainstream news outlets, and has published an entire issue of articles written in accordance with this ethos.

In 2007, a Vice announcement was published on the Internet: After umpteen years of putting out what amounted to a reference book every month, we started to get bored with it.

[42] On 22 February 2024, Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon announced "several hundred" additional layoffs as the company restructures,[6] and that the website Vice.com would no longer publish content.

[48] As the magazine grew into a broader media brand, it struggled with "how to distance itself from its crude past, yet hold on to enough of that reputation to cement, and grow, its authority with its core audience".

[50][49] Also in 2013, Vice again gained unwelcome attention when the then-editor of the magazine joined millionaire software mogul John McAfee as he evaded authorities to avoid being questioned about a murder case.