Vice

The precursor to Vice magazine was founded in October 1994 in Montreal under the name Voice (later Voice of Montreal), by Interimages Communications. 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, under the name Voice of Montreal. Issue no. 1 lists Laurent and Ollivier as publishers, with Suroosh Y. Alvi as editor and Gavin McInnes as assistant editor, with Shane Smith joining the magazine's staff later. The magazine was established under a job creation program of the Quebec government to allow social welfare recipients to gain work experience. It focused on Montreal's alternative cultural scene, including music, art, trends and drug culture, to compete with the already established Montreal Mirror. During the 1990s, Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal/Mile-End neighbourhood was home to a burgeoning subculture with the advent of collectives such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Dummies Theatre, Bran Van 3000 and later Arcade Fire. Alvi, McInnes and Smith bought out the publisher and changed the magazine's name to Vice in 1996.

Richard Szalwinski, a Canadian software millionaire, acquired the magazine and relocated the operation to New York City in 1999. Following the relocation, the magazine quickly developed a reputation for provocative and politically incorrect content. 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. However, due to the end of the dot-com bubble, the three founders eventually regained ownership of the Vice brand, followed by closure of the stores.

The British edition of Vice was launched in 2002 and Andy Capper was its first editor. 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.

By the end of 2007, 13 foreign editions of Vice magazine were published, the Vice independent record label was functional, and the online video channel VBS.com had 184,000 unique viewers from the U.S. during the month of August. 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. Alvi explained to The New York Times in November 2007: "The world is much bigger than the Lower East Side and the East Village."

McInnes left the publication in 2008, citing "creative differences" as the primary issue. In an email communication dated 23 January, McInnes explained: "I no longer have anything to do with Vice or VBS or DOs & DON'Ts or any of that. It's a long story but we've all agreed to leave it at 'creative differences,' so please don't ask me about it."

At the commencement of 2012, an article in Forbes magazine referred to the Vice company as "Vice Media", but the precise time when this title development occurred is not public knowledge. Vice acquired the fashion magazine i-D in December 2012 and, by February 2013, Vice produced 24 global editions of the magazine, with a global circulation of 1,147,000 (100,000 in the UK). By this stage, Alex Miller had replaced Capper as the editor-in-chief of the UK edition. Furthermore, Vice consisted of 800 worldwide employees, including 100 in London, and around 3,500 freelancers also produced content for the company.

In February 2015, Vice Media named Ellis Jones editor-in-chief of Vice magazine and former UK editor-in-chief, Alex Miller, was appointed to the position of global head of content.

In 2018, the magazine switched to a quarterly publication schedule, though issues still generally explored a single theme. The publication was put on hiatus in 2019.