Many media outlets have style guides, which governs all matters related to writing style. We got a copy of Vice's style guide. Here it is.

Vice confirmed for us that this is the current style guide for Vice.com. Though we have written extensively in the past year about various forms of fuckery at Vice Media, we do not claim any special scandalous angle here. This is just their style guide—yes, the very style guide that helped to produce "Sugar Cum Made My Jizz Taste Like Jamba Juice." Respect that.

A few key elements of Vice style:

  • "Avoid corny colloquialisms like bucks, smackers, or samoleons."
  • "—Trannies
  • If someone is transgender, use the pronoun of his or her preferred gender."
  • "Limit use of really, very, kind of, sort of, gonna, kinda, literally, apparently, and so on. Similarly, chill out with all the cunts and fags you fucking cocksuckers. Keep it punchy, but avoid writing in an edgy voice like some people who wish they wrote for us tend to do."
  • "A handful of websites are actually becoming legitimate, respected news outlets; some might even call them 'online magazines.' On a case-by-case basis, we will italicize those.
  • For example:
  • 'The Huffington Post ran an interesting rebuttal to an essay from the LA Review of Books, but Gawker made fun of both of them because those guys are mean.'"

The entire 26-page style guide, which clarifies the difference between come (vb.) and cum (n.), is below. Enjoy.

Update: We've learned that the actual human author of this style guide is Nicole Jones, a former Vice copy editor who now works at Vanity Fair.

Vice Style Guide

[The apocryphal Gawker Media Style Guide sits in a long-dormant corner of the mind of Choire Sicha.]