The Strangest Person I Know is a new VICE column, in which we interview strange people and then ask them who the strangest person they know is so we can interview them too, creating a never-ending daisy chain of spiraling human strangeness in an increasingly square world.

Next up is Dr. Rodney Rodderson, a 43-year-old mortician and part-time scuba-diving instructor who relocated from his native Isle of Sheppey to Izberbash some time ago. He got in touch offering to speak with VICE after seeing an iteration of this column on the internet.

VICE: So, undertaking. How do you get into a profession like that?
Dr. Rodney Rodderson: That’s a great question. I guess you could say that I [REDACTED] a few incidents at school when I [REDACTED] and things progressed naturally from there. It’s not for the faint hearted but after I had already [REDACTED] five or six times before the age of 12, I [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. I guess you could say I was born to work in death!

That’s a neat turn of phrase. I guess my next question would be, how did you find yourself in Izberbash? There can’t be many people who’ve moved there from Kent.
There was a [REDACTED] with a [REDACTED] that I [REDACTED] with a [REDACTED]. Obviously, I feel bad about it. But we must all live with regrets: our mistakes shape us. Thankfully, the good people of Izberbash welcomed me with open arms. Dagestan has a very forgiving culture—even when you’re fleeing [REDACTED] from the Crown Prosecution Service just because you happened to [REDACTED] the wrong [REDACTED] wife’s snorkel on the wrong way.

What was that, sorry?
The time when I [REDACTED] the [REDACTED]?

Yes, what happened there?
I mean, there are people you meet in life who just really [REDACTED], you know? That said I would never have risked endangering my professional reputation in the scuba-diving industry on purpose. It was just [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED] at the wrong time. Shit happens.

“Dagestan has a very forgiving culture—even when you’re fleeing [REDACTED] from the Crown Prosecution Service just because you happened to [REDACTED] the wrong [REDACTED] wife’s snorkel on the wrong way”

But surely you could just have [REDACTED] the [REDACTED] and none of this would have happened?
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. You can’t let your life be defined by your mistakes.

Earlier you said more or less the exact opposite.
Did I? Classic me!

Just before going to print, VICE was contacted and informed that we should not, under any circumstances, publish the information divulged to us by Dr. Rodderson, by lawyers representing his estate and former employers.

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post The Strangest Person I Know: The Busiest Mortician in Dagestan appeared first on VICE.

The robots that were meant to take over the housework are giving people psychosis, our democratic rights are being deleted to launder the reputation of history’s most tasteless colonial project, and the planet is so doomed we’re going to the moon. As the vibe of the 21st century continues to scare the hoes, it’s looking increasingly like the 1990s—age of dial-up internet, Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the enormous jean—were the closest we came to creating an earthly utopia. And maybe there’s a lesson in that.

Popular fashion is often a rejection of what came before, and baggy pants first emerged in the late 80s as a reaction to the skintight jeans that had defined cool for the better part of the decade. MC Hammer’s infamously large trousers eventually evolved into the baggy, low-slung denim worn by his proteges, Tupac and Biggie, and as hip-hop style seeped into the mainstream, the spray-on jeans of thrash metal bands found themselves thrashed into the dustbin of history. 

Although heritage denim brands such as Levi’s, Wrangler, and Calvin Klein soon released looser styles in line with emerging trends, there is only one name that comes to mind when talking about enormous jeans: JNCO. Allegedly, this stands for “Judge None Choose One,” which sounds like one of those acronyms they make up afterwards until you realize the phrase is essentially meaningless and it’s impossible to say JNCO without sounding like you’re Dutch or sneezing. Founded in 1985 by the Moroccan-French Revah brothers, the trousers were inspired by the Latinos the recent arrivals saw walking around their new home in LA. The brothers cemented their pan-Latina belt credibility by commissioning local graffiti artist Joseph “Nuke” Montalvo to design their four-pronged crown logo. The look was quickly embraced by the rave crowd, with skaters and surfers soon following—not only for the aesthetic, but because the loose fit allowed for comfort and flexibility while doing kickflips, scaling fences, and so on.

In 1996, when JNCO’s distributor Merry-Go-Round—a retail chain and teen hangout—went bankrupt, the brothers brought in marketing mogul Steven Sternberg to reimagine the brand. Sternberg became responsible for “retool[ing] JNCO from an urban to a strictly suburban line,” as he put it in a 2015 interview with Racked. He recruited lame people that only provincial children would ever think of as cool—breakdancers, graffiti artists, DJs, Limp Bizkit—as proto-influencers, took out ads in Thrasher featuring underground skaters like Jimmy Moore and Sam Hintz, and began stocking the jeans in Hot Topic and PacSun. Many of the ads featured “JNCO girls,” who typically paired them with halter tops and thin straps in a silhouette that would foreshadow the “big pant tiny shirt” combo currently ubiquitous everywhere that people read this magazine.

It worked. JNCOs became synonymous with the angsty, impetuous world of nu-metal, and soon enough they were the weapon of choice for slacker middle-class white kids hoping to piss off their parents by traipsing through the house with sodden trouser hems that had soaked up every last droplet of moisture and speck of dirt from the pavement. Schools in the U.S. flat-out banned them, deeming them a health hazard due to the risk of tripping, but also because they feared the 18-inch deep pockets could be used to conceal weapons. In reality, the massive pockets were merely being used to carry clunky Discmans with a Korn album inside. (The band themselves, for what it’s worth, were not directly involved in the trend: “I never wore JNCOs, I can honestly say I did not partake in it… who started that?” frontman Jonathan Davis asked in a 2019 interview with KISW FM.) Obviously, this moral panic immediately made the jeans a symbol of anti-establishment rebellion, and thus even more desirable to teenagers. 

The brand peaked in 1998, raking in $186.9 million in yearly sales; by 1999 this had dropped by nearly half to $100 million, and a year later, they were forced to shut down their LA manufacturing facility. The jeans had gone mainstream (derogatory), and for women the Y2K trend cycle rocked on to low-rise and bootcut jeans worn by the rising crop of pop princesses. Still, JNCOs, and big pants in general, remained an alt-kid favorite for several more years, as evidenced by the vintage photos of Avril Lavigne, Juggalos, and teenagers in Deftones tees lost in the swamps of Ozzfest 2001. 

“This moral panic immediately made the jeans a symbol of anti-establishment rebellion, and thus even more desirable to teenagers”

Streetwear wasn’t ready to let go of the extra legroom either. Brands like FUBU, Ecko, and Phat Farm kept rappers in loose, graffiti-motifed “three-quarter lengths” that actually swung around the ankles. Chingy wore an orange pair on the red carpet at the BET Awards as late as 2005, but the second coming of the skinny jean was just around the corner.

For the next decade or so, during what Instagram historians are now calling the “indie sleaze” era, the baggiest trouser silhouette you could find on the high street was the “boyfriend jean.” Jorts were consigned to the realms of dads on holiday, Adam Sandler, and the Twilight wolf pack. Levi’s cutoffs, Daisy Dukes, and tiny American Apparel hotpants (barely) covered arses during the summer, and in the winter they were paired with tights and sodden ballet flats.

Eventually, though, the ouroboros of fashion came full circle, along with a global pandemic and the reincarnation of Chingy (who, for legal reasons, I would like to clarify is still alive) in the body of a white teenage girl named Billie Eilish. Stuck at home rewatching RHOBH on the sofa, nobody wanted to wear anything that clung to their bodies or had a non-elasticated waistband. By the time it was safe to go outside again, skinny jeans had become the preserve of Love Island contestants, best accessorized with a mouthful of fluorescent teeth and a flash-on Instagram story of a tray of Apple Sourz. 

Streetwear’s influence had seeped up into high fashion and back down to the high street once more, and baggy jeans adorned the legs of everyone from the male models on JW Anderson’s runway to Ganni girlies. Although JNCO haven’t quite managed to recapture the zeitgeist in the same way since relaunching in 2019, their influence is evident wherever you look. 

“Schools in the U.S. flat-out banned them, fearing the 18-inch deep pockets could be used to conceal weapons”

Bella Hadid, her sister Gigi, EmRata, Kendall Jenner, and Hailey Bieber have all swapped denim cutoffs for loose, knee-length jorts. A growing desire for comfort, Y2K nostalgia, and a shift towards gender-neutral dressing took hold, and today the ‘vest and jorts with carabiner clip accessorized with an iced matcha latte’ has become a uniform for both masc lesbians and performative males who pretend to read feminist literature in public while swiping through Hinge. Jorts and their longer counterparts have also partly been embraced by Gen Z women as “anti-male gaze” dressing, and though I’m sorry to have to break the news that there is no way to successfully divert unwanted male attention through clothing, they are undeniably a cooler and more flattering option than the Mennonite-chic long skirt and headscarf combo that had London, New York, and rural Indiana in a chokehold last summer. 

As the third summer of beautiful girls walking around unironically dressed as the replica Fred Durst back-up dancers from the “Rollin’” video comes to a close, it seems fashion’s love affair with the decade that gave us grunge, nu-metal, and 50-inch-circumference trouser hems isn’t going anywhere. But just in case trouser trends do change faster than expected and slim is back in by next year, some good news: JNCO sells skinny jeans now too.

Follow Niloufar Haidari on X: @niluthedamaja

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post Jorts and All: A Cultural History of Enormous Jeans appeared first on VICE.

Ivar Wigan

Photographer and filmmaker Ivar Wigan was born in Scotland and grew up in the UK before sensibly moving to Los Angeles where Seasonal Affective Disorder is less prevalent. Ivar made his name shooting a project called “The Gods,” exploring the lives of the characters of the night that work the club scene of the American south. He then moved to Jamaica to develop a second ongoing documentary project. Although there have been numerous attempts on his life he persists, more or less unscathed. When we heard that the Americans were culturally appropriating the rich British tradition of “dogging,” Ivar was our first (and only) choice, due to his unusual knack of being sexy and also a pleasure to work with—almost always mutually exclusive attributes. We set him up with a long lens, some night vision goggles, and an intern who signed a watertight liability waiver and sent him on his way. 

See A Park Despoiled

Amber Rawlings

Amber ‘Bean’ Rawlings is a writer who lives in London and who’d like to be referred to as a Londoner even though she grew up in Kent. She says she feels uncomfortable calling herself a “journalist” because her biggest bylines concern things like rats and maggots—the latter of which she metamorphosed in her home for this issue. She’d like to write a memoir one day because she’s good at talking about herself and it’s not like there’s not enough memoirs by people of her demographic. She wishes Adam Sandler had been appreciated for his contribution to cinema before Uncut Gems. It’s Amber’s first time in the magazine, so we have no idea if ‘Bean’ is one of those nicknames that people just pick out one day—like when you see recovering plant food addicts you went to school with calling themselves Jason ‘Dubstep’ Watkins on Facebook—or a legally ratified middle name chosen by her parents at birth. But formatting it like the former is definitely funnier.

See My Pet Pink Maggit

Ahmed Alramly

We first met Ahmed Alramly in Tokyo, paying a Romanian in a GTR with sus graphics to take him for a joyride. Ahmed is from Greenford in West London (important). He epitomizes the word “shenanigans.” If shenanigans were a person it would be Ahmed Alramly. One minute he’s walking for Vivienne Westwood, the next being mentored by Richard Hell. The minute after that he’s starting an influential fashion publication (Naima), moving to LA, moving to Paris, getting arrested and unarrested, starring in a movie, searching for a cure for a brain condition with exorcists in Egypt, escaping Yakuza, and partying with Malia Obama’s security detail. The VICE office is powered by excess energy generated by Ahmed Alramly. We packed him off to LA where he rounded up the finest team for a photo story and mini-documentary on roughly three days’ notice and zero days’ sleep. Be more like Ahmed Alramly. 

See Angel Eyes

Been Shill

Been Shill (real name) is an artist from Kansas, thriving and surviving in Donald Trump’s so-called United States of America. He was born in a hospital. Been Shill’s early life was spent in Special Education from 1–12th grade, a testament to both psychiatric medication and the will to not succeed academically. However, as is sometimes the case, he overcompensated in the sports hall, playing basketball at Division 1 college level. He has since marked this period of his life in the form of an artwork called “Retard”: a red basketball with the word “Retard” written on it. After a stint in the U.S. Marine Corps, he turned his attention to art as a way of coping with PTSD from missing the tail-end of the GWOT. He is now a successful artist. One of these facts is not true. 

See Every Type of Deftones Fan (and more or less the entire print issue)

Robbie the Maggot (RIP)

Not many VICE contributors can say they made the ultimate sacrifice for the betterment of this magazine. Yet Robbie the Maggot was no ordinary VICE contributor. Almost totally inert, incapable of speech, and possessing a thorax covered in a metallic turquoise sheen, Robbie stole the show as Amber Rawlings attempted to raise her own brood of disgusting airborne sons across the span of 15 heady days at the end of a halcyon English summer. Sure, others may have pupated better than him. And others may have flown better than him. Others may simply have shown that they were able to move at all. Yet for a fellow who was almost certainly born in carrion or fecal matter, East London’s very own ‘Miracle with the Spiracles’ came a long way, won a lot of friends, and died as he lived: disappointing everyone, motionless. RIP to a real one. 

See My Pet Pink Maggit

Thank you to our contributors to the fall 2025 edition of VICE magazine: THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE. Get four issues each year, sent straight to your door, by subscribing here.

The post Employees of the Month appeared first on VICE.

DAY ONE

Robertsons Fishing Tackle in Dagenham, East London is a vast establishment. A maze of hooks and chairs and various little sections presumably dedicated to more niche aspects of the hobby. I have no fucking clue what anything is, but I’m here for one reason only.

“Hi, I spoke to you on the phone?” I say to the guy behind the counter. “I’m here for the pink maggots.”

I only need one, to raise as one would a child, but he shunts about 70 my way. Apparently it’s not possible to buy single-digit quantities of maggots. “Could they escape?” I ask. This makes a Robertsons regular wearing a Gucci sidebag laugh. I ask a lot of questions, but the important facts are these: there are two types of maggots—actual “pinkies” (greenbottle larvae) and maggots that have been dyed pink. The more I take, the better my chances are of producing a fly. I don’t need to feed them. 

I emerge from Robertsons with a green tackle box containing a mix of both types of pink maggot, squirming around in a load of sawdust to “stop them smelling.”

Back home, I separate four (two of each variety) into individual containers. The pinkies are named Howard and Gary, the dyed maggots Robbie and Mark. The main one is obviously Robbie. The 60 left in the tackle box are dubbed “the hive,” which I scrawl on a label.

I leave my children to settle in.

DAY TWO

I’m drawn to Howard. To the untrained eye he is dead, but when I give his pot a shake he springs into action, writhing around before burrowing away again. He looks cozy. If he were a human, he would be tucked beneath a blanket burning a candle with an autumn-themed scent. 

Checking on the hive is my least favorite task. The maggots make the sawdust undulate and looking at it too long makes you feel like you’re tripping. It’s also hard to gauge what the atmosphere is. Is there a sense of freedom in the air? Or have I callously separated them from their maggot brothers over at Robertsons? The hive is the perfect microcosm of society. Some will take things in their stride. Others will go to therapy in their twenties.

In classic performing monkey style, Robbie comes alive as soon as I move his pot. He can’t help but entertain.

Mark has something stuck to his arse. He seems embarrassed and wriggles away as quickly as he can.

Gary’s still hanging in there. Shame. 

DAY THREE

I wake myself up at 2AM audibly groaning. I’d been having a nightmare about the maggots doubling in size and becoming quite menacing. Before bed I’d asked a man on Instagram who’s into fishing for advice, and he told me a story about a maggot factory near him that stinks due to the rotting cow flesh they feed them. I begin to regret this whole thing, by which I mean my life.

DAY FOUR

There’s a good vibe in the hive today. If it were a club, I’d walk in and be like, “Okay, this is cool.” I’d stay for at least three drinks. It’s nice to see some actual pinkies still knocking about, too. They’re considerably smaller than the dyed maggots and the obvious underdogs, but it’s very “one love” in the hive.

Over in his pot on the kitchen counter (where else would you keep them?), Robbie stirs.

“Before bed I’d asked a man on Instagram who’s into fishing for advice, and he told me a story about a maggot factory near him that stinks due to the rotting cow flesh they feed them”

DAY six 

We’ve hit a critical point. Either all my maggots are dead, or they’ve entered the chrysalis stage. They’re no longer pink and wriggly, but still and brown. I call up Robertsons. The man that answers asks if I’m the one feeding them to spiders. “No, I’m the one that’s raising them,” I reply.

He confirms what I fear: flies are on the horizon. I must get rid of the hive. I feel bad that I didn’t spend more time with Robbie when he stirred yesterday. He clearly must have known. 

DAY seven

I dump the hive in a bin in Hackney Wick. It might constitute bioterrorism, but that’s not my problem. 

DAY eight

Howard lies awake, his eyes boring into the dark (of his chrysalis). He knows the hive is gone. ‘Why have I been chosen to stay?’ he thinks. ‘Am I next?’

DAY ELEVEN

There hasn’t been much activity the last few days. Without thinking, I go into the kitchen, pick up Gary’s pot, and give it a shake. It is second nature, like when a mother involuntarily produces breast milk when a baby looks in her direction.

“I dump the hive in a bin in Hackney Wick. It might constitute bioterrorism, but that’s not my problem”

DAY THIRTEEN

Oh my fucking God. 

There, in Howard and Gary’s tubs, are fat bluebottle flies. They’re surprisingly still, adjusting to the addition of six legs. Howard callously steps over his chrysalis as he limps around his tub, desperate to get out. Gary’s always rubbing his hands together, like he’s up to something. I must release them. There’s so much rotten food and dog shit out there calling their name.

I imagine myself opening their lids and one of them will land on my arm, like a bird, wanting to snuggle into my bosom one last time. I open their lids and they just fly off.

DAY FOURTEEN

Mark is fucking huge. ‘Now this is a fly,’ I think to myself. If someone were to draw a fly from memory, they would draw Mark. 

I free him without much ceremony then rush back inside. Robbie is hatching. 

It’s nauseating. Robbie uses this horrific semi-translucent sac to push his way out. There’s a lot of flailing. He finally emerges, but something is wrong. He’s still very maggot-like, like he might be undercooked. I desperately give the pot a few shakes. He lays motionless on his back. I fear that Robbie has died.

DAY FIFTEEN

Robbie lives! He is a fly! However, his back legs are lame. They drag behind him, slightly mangled. There’s a bit of matter from his chrysalis that he’s failed to get rid of stuck to one of them. I contemplate intervening with tweezers, then remember that he’s a fly. “Survival of the fittest,” my flatmate reminds me.

I take Robbie outside and gently shake him from his pot. He drags himself around in the rain, unable to fly. “I think he’ll die soon,” my flatmate says. The mood is somber.

Suddenly, Robbie takes off. He soars high into the sky until he becomes but a speck in the distance. ‘Goodbye,’ I think. Then I realize he’s getting closer. I can see his translucent wings fluttering. His red eyes come into focus. We are face to face. “Thank you,” he whispers. We linger for a moment like this, before he takes to the skies once again.

“Amber?”

I jolt back to reality. 

“What are you thinking about?” my flatmate asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I reply. I turn my attention back to the ground. There’s Robbie, still lumbering along. 

Robbie ‘The Maggot’ Maggit passed away, Saturday, September 6, 2025. He was born a maggot but died a fly, fulfilling his destiny, and achieving the ultimate honor of his people.

Follow Amber on Instagram: @amberawlings

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post In Honor of Deftones, I Raised My Very Own Pet Pink Maggits appeared first on VICE.

“Twenty tongues / Moving at once…”

What the hell? He pressed repeat and listened again. Daniel had heard the new Deftones song enough times by now that he could sing along. He tapped his computer awake and opened a Word document titled “Gore Portal (working).” A short story he’d been writing, inspired by the band. He wasn’t 100 percent on the title yet, so had made note of other possibilities. Alternatives included: “Twenty Tongues.” He’d written that months ago. There were other lyrics in this new song that seemed to reference his story, too. And other words he couldn’t quite make out, not yet anyway. Sure, some were sort of abstract, could be interpreted differently, maybe. But “twenty tongues”? That was pretty damn specific.

“High marks… / ‘Cos you made it, Count…”

“Of a membrane, peeling… / Straightforwardly…”

Daniel’s story was about an obsessed Deftones fan getting drawn into a… cult? The cult was called ‘Gore Portal,’ though he hadn’t actually decided yet whether he was going to use the word ‘cult’ in the finished thing. He also wasn’t sure whether ‘Gore Portal’ should be the name of the cult, the name of one of the cult’s rituals, a sacred place, some divine entity, or any/all of the above. Anyway, in the story this fan-protagonist starts to think he’s hearing coded messages in Deftones’ lyrics. The lyrics, as he interprets them, allude to Gore Portal, their beliefs, their practices and promises, and the means they use to recruit. The fan comes to understand through the music that new initiates, before they even know they are initiates, are visited by a sequence of arcane seductions. A figure called ‘The Count’ acts as a kind of messenger. The name of the first ritual? Twenty tongues.

Daniel closed the Word document and opened MSN Messenger. He needed to talk to someone. He saw Jack had changed his username to… ‘The Count.’ What the hell? The Count was busy, apparently. Daniel sent Jack a text message, ordering him to get his ass online. About ten seconds later the little dot icon by Jack’s username went from red to green.

“Weird stuff’s happening today. Why are you called Count??”

“That’s the name of my cat dude. She’s Countess.”

Daniel remembered now, Countess the cat. Maybe that’s where he got the name for the story in the first place. Jack typed out a string of punctuation that meant ‘pussy.’ Daniel typed an eye-roll back. 

“What?? Cats are very sensual creatures. And so am I…” Wink.

“Jack, did you hear the new Deftones?”

Jack’s dot turned red: The Count is Away. Fuck’s sake. Jack was so… distractible. Daniel leant back on his tatty office chair and sighed. His bedroom was covered in picture cuttings, collaged together and stuck directly to the wall with glue. He’d fixate on a specific image, scouring magazines, old books, newspapers or whatever, and cut them out over and over. He’d started arranging them by type, so that each image-form proliferated over time, growing like mold across the walls. A hundred crescent moons, for example, created a dark and glittering firmament over the bedroom door. Elsewhere, he’d gotten preoccupied with reptile anatomy and built a mound of rheumy eyes and plasma-slicked eggs in the corner of the room opposite his computer (on top of the mound he’d erected a scaffold out of snake bones, stacking ribcages upright on top of one another in a charnel tower).

“Your bones broke / Then we made a tower…”

Daniel looked at MSN again: Jack’s dot had turned back to green.

“Still working on your deftones shrine?” asked Jack/The Count. It was always so humid in the summer. The heat made the glues seep, like the room was breathing.

“I haven’t got band pictures up, give me a break… It’s like an artwork. Or mood board or something…” That was true. No pictures of the band. Pictures for the band. Jack hadn’t been in Daniel’s room for a while, and it was different now, but you could call it a shrine, he guessed. The area around the bed looked sort of shrine-like. Above the headboard he’d stuck red, pink, and green flowers, aglaonemas and chrysanthemums mainly, mixed with plastic gore from back issues of Movieworld.

In Daniel’s story, the final ritual has the fan-initiate make a bizarre shrine out of papier-mâché and floristry foam. The construction incorporates spidery stilt legs, a seating platform, a backboard panel just above the seat, and a little Perspex window embedded in the pulp. The window is decorated with fan-made cum, produced each morning by the seated initiate. Pink and green chrysanthemum stems are stuck into the shrine’s surface; these are also replenished daily. Special care is taken around the Perspex window to create a subtle pink/green illumination. This routine eventually culminates in the initiate shooting themselves, adding to the composition.

“You’ll find your true reflection in the splatter…”

“Have you ever had a prostate exam?” asked Jack/The Count. Wink.

“No,” lied Daniel. He remembered the nurse spoke so softly. She told him to get on the bed, pulled on a glove and rubbed lube over her fingers, using her other hand to spread his cheeks apart slightly. She kept talking to him the whole time, softly softly, pushing her fingers inside him mid-sentence. He made a sound of involuntary excitement the nurse either didn’t hear, or just ignored.

The main riff drops out and a filter turns everything to metallic clatter and ice. The drums were recorded in a morgue, apparently. In Daniel’s story, Gore Portal have a whole procession of nurses finger-fucking the initiate, and he describes the ceremonial aspects of their costumes, including capes, cuffs, pleated face masks made out of latex and straw, and rubber gloves going up to their biceps. Before each round of administrations, the nurse puts their hand into the initiate’s pocket and pulls out a surgical tool.

“Because you brought your own… instruments”

He pressed repeat. Listen again.

“So you know I’m writing this Deftones story?”

“Yeah, I read some of this… Gore Portal?”

Jack/The Count’s dot turned green to red. The Count was Busy. Now The Count was… Away. Busy, Away, Busy, Away.

“Fuck’s sake!” typed Daniel, to no one. The Count’s status icon alternated red and yellow, red and yellow like traffic lights, and then: green. The Count’s dot turned green. The Count was — available.

“I’m available, Daniel,” said The Count. Daniel was starting to understand what The Count really was, and wasn’t: “I know.” The Count asks Daniel if he’s ready.

“Ready for what?”

“A sticky bloom, above your head,” said The Count.

Daniel looked at the chrysanthemum and aglaonema blooms above his headboard. He unwrapped the gun he’d hidden under the bed, and started squeezing his cock through his jeans. The Count’s status flicked faster and faster: Busy, Away, Busy, Away, Busy… Away. 

“Ready?” asked The Count.

In Daniel’s story, fan-Daniel imagines a gradual papier-mâché encasement, seated astride spider legs, oasis residue sprinkled on his face. The Perspex window illuminated just so by fresh flowers. The chrysanthemums had been replaced daily, up until now.

Daniel was ready. Daniel was… Ready. Daniel was Busy… Daniel was Away.

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post Gore Portal appeared first on VICE.

Deftones are loved because of the ancient curse which dictates that every teenager must be sad, angry, and horny, both constantly and all at the same time. Their music meets the needs of this type of person perfectly, and after more than 30 years as a band, the formula is only getting more potent: The theory has now been proven true for four different generations of teens.

As such, many people—from keg-sucking Gen X bookworms allowing themselves a rare moment of sincerity before the Soviet bombs drop to today’s Twitch stream psychos stick and poking each other for playground clout—have decided to get a Deftones-related tattoo upon their skin. While fans of lesser bands are forced to make do with lyrics and album titles (boring), Deftones have something way more magical up their sleeve: For 30 years, the White Pony silhouette has been out there moving through the distressing noise and darkness of the world, guiding people towards each other, a conversation-starting emblem that has surely sparked tens of thousands of marriages, lifelong friendships, enmities, fuck parties, and whatever else humans get up to.

In the summer of 2025, VICE went to the band’s big outdoor mega concert in Crystal Palace, South London to meet those people and ask them about the pictures on their bodies. 

Danielle, 39 & Grace, 31

D: I was at this house party. A band was playing in the conservatory and people were crowd surfing, it was insanely sweaty.
G: I was walking through to the kitchen to get some cans, and Danielle was like, “Is that the White Pony tattoo?!”
D: We realized we had the same White Pony tattoo in exactly the same place. We stayed up till the sun rose talking about Shrek, became inseparable immediately, and went to Las Vegas. The rest is history. 

Jade, 20

“I didn’t really like school, everyone classified me as ‘the emo girl.’ I wanted this tattoo for years and got it as soon as I turned 18. I just love the music so much. I wanted to show that on my body. Chino’s voice…”

DREAMY!

Mo, 39

M: “I got the tattoo a week ago. I’m a tattoo artist and I had a cancellation in the morning, so I thought I’d just tattoo myself. There’s an outsider element to Deftones. It wasn’t the cool thing to listen to where I grew up, in Glasgow. But still, you feel something in it.”

VICE: Do you feel there’s any significance to it being a white pony?
M: I’m not sure. Doesn’t it mean cocaine or something?

Joe, 29

“I once had to rent a pig for a photo shoot to promote Busted’s reunion tour. Years before that, I’d heard their singer Charlie Simpson talking about how much he loved White Pony on the radio. I ran into him shortly after I got this tattoo. I had a few pints and went over and said, ‘I once had to book a pig for you and you got me into my favorite album ever,’ and showed him my arm. He said it was the best opener to a conversation he’d ever heard!”

Will, 19

VICE: So what got you into Deftones, Will?
W: The Matrix!

Jess, 18

J: I got mine for my 18th birthday!

Scully AKA ‘Ciaran,’ 25 

“When people see my tattoo they’ll try to start up a conversation. It’s usually in a pub smoking area and they’re just happy to speak about Deftones for like 15 minutes. If you like Deftones, you really, really like Deftones, you know? I can’t think of any other band that makes you feel like you’re levitating.”

ZAC, 29

Why do people love Deftones so much?

“ASMR-coded perverts, I reckon!”

Follow Ashton Hertz and Jak Hutchcraft on Instagram

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post Everybody’s Got a Deftones Tattoo These Days appeared first on VICE.

LATERAL THINKING

To whomever, where ever,

“Community Reinforcement Approach” is allegedly how to break free from my Meth Use. Great, I can ‘break free from meth grip it has on my life,’ said sarcastically. It involves coping skills: training and social, recreational, vocational ‘Reinforcement,’ Focuses on replacing substances with ‘positive, healthy behaviors’

What if my meth use is what my positive healthy behavior is, cause I cant get a dr to prescribe me the ADHD meds I desperately need to be able to function daily? Helps me be able to be in social situations and show up to work, eat, and more. They always bark at me saying one day it wont be like this, it will all come crashing down eventually. Really in the last 5 years I been able to maintain this through Harm Reduction practices has keep me at a level thats maintainable. 

‘You just need some’ FUCKING ‘rainbows, flowers, and happy thoughts and you will see the light’—No i fucking wont the light has burnt out a long time ago I just havnt gotten around to change the lightbulb plus SPIDERS have made it home. I guess what am trying to get at is the world is fucked cant we accept that? Here in BC were going 10 years into a public health emergency of toxic drug poisonings. We are losing loved ones daily so thinking fucking rainbows and happy thoughts will be the fucking answer…

For shit’s sake, wake up and smell the death we been surrounded by for the last 10 years. The government has given up on us. We are saving ourselves. So i may use meth daily but at least in a way it helps me cope and function. Thats what makes me pretty fucking cheerful cause it dosnt tell me to ‘Stay Positive’—if it ever does then I will know am fucked and lost it…..

Always and tommorow,

Kay 
Via email

While ‘What if the crystal meth is actually holding my life together?’ feels like exactly the kind of galaxy-brain take that would come from huffing too much crystal meth, your letter’s more cogent than 99 percent of what we receive in this accursèd inbox, so kudos for that. If you ever start believing that you’re being followed around by helicopters, it might be time to knock the crank on the head. Hope things get better up in BC.

TALKING LOVE WITH DR. FUNK

Dear VICE,

Some thoughts about love from a 33-year-old:

• Opposites attract, but sameness lasts.
• Find someone who share the same values as you.
• Love is a muscle. You have to workout everyday to keep it strong. Communication is key in any relationship.
• Life is short, but love makes it long.

Thank you for reading.

Jaye Funk
Sent from my iPhone

Thanks for the insight, Jaye. Please write to us again in ten years’ time to see if ‘some thoughts about love from a 43-year-old’ are any different. We’ll put them on the cover and devote the entire magazine to breaking them down in forensic detail.

COUNTRY LUMPKINS

Hello,

My name is Adam Lumpkins I am reaching out as a member of Gretna Fire Dept in Gretna Va. 

We are having a golf tournament Sept 13th 2025 to help raise money for our operation cost.  We are looking for any type of donations to raffle off at the tournament to go towards operations. I know it is a long shot reaching out but we are growing as a department and trying to keep up equipment and trucks has been hard too do with grants not being accepted. Please feel feel to reach out if you have any questions or need any further information. 

Thanks in advance,

Adam Lumpkins
Via email

Hi Adam. Sorry we couldn’t get you anything in time for the big day. If it’s any consolation, I just had a look around your hometown on a YouTube video with 751 views and it didn’t look like there was anything there worth burning down. We hope you guys manage to stay out of trouble until those misers at city hall loosen the pursestrings.

UNRAW-FUCK YOUR MIND

To VICE,

In praise of telephone poles-

Don’t we all prefer telephone poles, decorated with tattered paper and old tape? Isn’t the rust of ancient staples better than this, an overrated LED gizmo that wants to raw-fuck our minds? The telephone pole, that innocent tree, does not make king’s gold off you looking at them (ignore the wires, pls). Telephone poles; they do not target you, consume you, or tell you they are more than what they are. Here’s to the telephone pole! That trusty and faithful friend to the artist, the activist, and the lay-about. Here’s to taking back bulletin boards, dumpster bins, and urinal walls. May I see you there!

This account will self-destruct in 24 hours. DM for my email if you don’t have it already. 

Calvin Bright
Email Withheld

This is all very nice. But you think telephone poles are harmless? I’ve got two words for you: ‘Targeted’ and ‘individuals.’ When the helicopters start following you home from work you’ll be eating your words, Calvin ‘Not So’ Bright!

A MISSIVE FROM THE ABYSS

Dear VICE,

What’s your top 10 celebrity meltdowns?

What is a meltdown?

Why haven’t I received a single Vice magazine yet?

Are you interested in featuring artists living in a dying nyc scene that’s getting swallowed by trust funds, the rich and those who are looking to pay their way into nyc ‘cool’?

Has the heart of nyc stopped beating or is there still a pulse? Have we addressed the mass of new apts threatening the last of true nyc underground music venues and art spaces that are being pushed out by the most greedy landlords?

Can you live in bushwick? How many dildos you own will truly tell.

Ew, this isn’t about kink shaming you asshole.

Thank you,

For taking the time to let your brain rot a little.

Travis

PS: Where’s my f#$kin’ mag, guy.
Via email

The issues you don’t have, we will sort. The issues you do have may be less resolvable.

AN A-GRADE SUCKUP

Dear VICE,

The Reasons to Be Cheerful Issue [v29n2] reads like a jar of fresh water in the desert of desperation. I drank every word to quench my thirst for hope and joy. 

It feels like we live in the era of “Joy is Punk” (or something like that), alongside “Print is Punk”. I’m here for it. However, I was pleasantly surprised to have my perspective shift by the piece Touch Glass. As someone who prides herself in having uninstalled Facebook and Instagram from her smartphone (and having no TikTok account), I found that Katherine Dee made a compelling argument for honouring cyberspace. As for everything though, moderation is key; I still believe in a balanced diet of touching grass and glass.

So, I guess Cyberspace can also be Punk… if you stick it to the algorithm!

Christine Beaudoin
Via Carrier Pigeon

The torrent of positivity that has followed in the wake of our contrarian-blast-of-optimism summer issue has left us feeling sick as pigs. Thank you for writing to us, Christine. We agree that a balanced diet is key. Which is why we’re going all out to horrify as many people as possible with our next issue. Hope you hate it! I miss the even keel.

A FAN WRITES

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for fucking my girlfriend. I think she really enjoyed it.

I’m getting in touch to talk to you about a project I’m currently working on that I think would be a great fit for Vice. Over the past almost decade now, I have been writing a series of novels inspired by the most influential discography in alt metal history. I see private music as a milestone for me personally, marking a very special time in my life, so I think now is a perfect time to draw the Deftones project to a close. 

The pitch: a cycle of ten novels based on the Deftones’ catalogue, one book per album, with each of the novels drawing themes and imagery from its counterpart in chronological order, possibly with accompanying features and profile running in the magazine? As you will see from the brief synopses below, the content of each novel reverberates with the content and atmosphere of each respective record.

In the first novel (Bowl, based on Adrenaline), we are introduced to the cycle’s main protagonists, a group of young Deftones acolytes who are surprised when the lead single of the band’s forthcoming album seems to take them as its subject. Is this the ultimate gratification? Or an irreversible confusion of fandom and reality? The emphasis shifts from novel to novel, with some volumes boasting innovative structural devices and narrative conceits. For example, Guiders, the second novel (based on Around the Fur), wherein our young protagonists decide to form their own band. The interpersonal drama takes place entirely during the 27 minutes and 44 seconds’ silence between the last track “MX” and the hidden track “Damone”. In the third novel Angel/Street Team, based on White Pony, the main riff drops out, so to speak, and a filter turns everything to metallic clatter and ice. Set in a morgue.

In the fourth novel Abscissa (based on Deftones) unexpected success also leads to paranoid fantasies. The glinting edges of a diagrammatic conspiracy is uncovered. In the fifth novel Sheen (Saturday Night Wrist) mind-reeling jealousies and ecstatic trysts create a sense of delirium, upending the character’s lives and formal prose conventions (the opening line of my letter is actually from this novel, Kevin). Graphic.

Across Pranks (Diamond Eyes), Paper Melt (Koi No Yokan) and Gore Portal (Gore) — which I see almost as a self-standing trilogy within the wider cycle — pulpy narratives start to fold back in on themselves, coming to a twisted conclusion in Gore Portal, a kind of erotic Deftones fan fiction about an aspirant writer’s erotic Deftones fan fiction. The penultimate work: Infinite Edit, based on Ohms. A slick but haunted tale told from the perspective of a decommissioned microphone (the microphone was used to record post-mortem exam reports, but has since developed a voice of its own). 

The final novel, as yet untitled, will be based on/inspired by private music. The snake featured on the album art is very fitting, with elements of the last novel in the sequence echoing the first and generally dealing with themes of rebirth and repetition. The tenth takes the form of an unsolicited proposal to a magazine editor/book publisher from an unknown writer, pitching a ten-book cycle of novels, each based on a Deftones album (including itself). 

Let me know when would be a good time to get started on discussing a release schedule, design, marketing etc and when you would need to look at the completed and in-progress manuscripts. I’m sure budgets are tight, but it would be good also to discuss rates given the ambition and scope of the project.

Yours, 

Steans
Via Wattpad

Steans—only a total moron would ever commission a pitch like this. Count me out.

This readers’ letters are taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post VICE Mail: Reader Letters from the Fall Issue of VICE Magazine appeared first on VICE.

“She wasn’t a whore at all,” a disembodied female narrator insists over footage of someone pulling on over-the-elbow leather gloves. “She liked fun, she liked excitement. Is there anything wrong with that?” These are the opening seconds of Roxanna—a 70s porno about a young blonde whose out-of-control libido plunges her into despair, insanity, and loneliness over 51 minutes of trashy, mostly-lesbian softcore with an acid-washed soundtrack. A freeze frame of her face, thrown back in ecstasy, would end up becoming the cover of Deftones’ Saturday Night Wrist.

Described by Chino Moreno as an album of “straight evil music,” Saturday Night Wrist was written when tensions between the band were at an all-time high, and the excesses of sex, drugs, and booze that fueled previous albums were wreaking havoc on their personal lives. It’s a bleak body of work that fires indiscriminately at everything around it. While it may begin with a pint-launching guitar riff and a “Woo!”, the first words Moreno utters on opener “Hole in the Earth” are a curdled, desperate plea: “Can you explain to me how / You’re so evil, how?” 

The album mulls this question as Moreno plunges himself into despair, insanity, and loneliness over 56 minutes of mostly miserable songs with a sinister erotic charge. Sex is conflated with sickness on “Pink Cellphone,” an injured woman wearily “haunts the roads” on “Riviere,” and “Drive”, a cover of The Cars, also works in a sample of Massive Attack’s “Protection”—a story about the impulse to shelter a wayward girl from harm, until the line between concern and possession begins to blur (“Who’s gonna drive you home… tonight?”). On “Beware,” Moreno moans over jackhammer guitars while repeatedly asking if “you like the way the water tastes.”

These tracks were almost certainly influenced by the ongoing dissolution of Moreno’s marriage, but crucially the emotions that come through in the abstract—obsession, danger, abjection—are the same ones that sit at the darker end of sexual experience. The uneasy thrust of songs like “Beware” almost veers into the gothic horror terrain of Ethel Cain, which perhaps helps explain Deftones’ venerated status among e-girls. Basically, loads of it is about women in a way that completely transcends gender because the songs are often written from the female point of view, and the lyrics are so cryptic you can never be certain what they mean anyway. The artwork was pulled together by designer Frank Maddocks, but its contents do coincidentally mirror-flip Roxanna, with psychodrama at the front and sex as subtext. Like, what if a B movie adult actress was also the frontman and primary lyricist of an alt-metal band?

Deftones’ reputation as a “sex band” has been around almost as long as they have. Granted, they’re not as on the nose with it as some of their “horny metal” peers—like Nine Inch Nails, whose breakout single had Trent Reznor threatening to “fuck you like an animal,” or Type-O Negative, whose 6’8 viking of a frontman, Peter Steele, appeared in Playgirl clutching a bouquet of pink flowers in one hand and his rock hard boner in the other—and the singles that first made Deftones massive, “My Own Summer (Shove It)” and “Back To School (Mini Maggit),” lumped them in with late 90s/early 2000s wallet-chain rebellion more than anything else. But you don’t have to dip your toe far below the surface to feel the erotic undercurrent.

“What if a B movie adult actress was also the frontman and primary lyricist of an alt-metal band?”

A lot of it is in the storytelling: a woman kidnapping a guy on “Feiticeira”; half-remembered fragments of “floating underwear” and “hours of pleasure” on “Sextape”; the Ed Kemper-style fantasy of electrocuting a girl to death and then re-dressing her on “Digital Bath.” But, even without all that, there’s something about the atmosphere of their music that has made it the primo ‘fingering at a house party’ soundtrack for four decades, and prompted sexual awakenings across three generations and counting.

For millennial goths, that awakening was likely delivered by Queen of the Damned, the 2002 vampire film in which Aaliyah has violent sex in a bathtub filled with rose petals to “Change (In the House of Flies).” For Gen Z, it straddles two separate trends—shoegaze and male-moaning ASMR—that have permeated social media since 2020. (In 2023, someone posted a long X thread where they went through every Deftones album in order, leaving annotated timestamps of when Moreno does his finest whimpering.) Gen X skaters and metalheads would, of course, have been dry humping to “Mascara” at Ozzfest long before that.

Yet while Deftones often reference sex and drugs, they’re hardly “a sex, drugs, and rock and roll” band. With the notable exception of “MX,” which Moreno opens by groaning about “your pussy and your bones,” their handling of sex is more subtle and cerebral than Mötley Crüe banging on about “Girls, Girls, Girls” or Lil Jon compelling the club to “Bend over to the front / Touch the toes!” Deftones have the effect of making you feel a certain way without really knowing why. The lyrics are all suggestion, and the rest is pure vibe. The phrase “around the fur,” for instance, is supposedly about the dark underbelly of the beauty industry. But it also makes you think, invariably, about pubic hair. The cover of the album does much the same.

“There’s something about the atmosphere of their music that has… prompted sexual awakenings across three generations and counting”

That’s what Deftones are best at. They place an image in your head, and leave you to do the rest. That cocktail of indirect references and gentle provocation accounts for their erotic pull across basically every demographic, from hot girl TikTok influencers to Iraq war veterans. One of the earliest architects of Deftones’ ascent was Madonna. She was passed their two-track demo by a friend of a friend of the band when she co-ran her newly minted entertainment company Maverick, which had already established itself as a purveyor of “risky business.” (Their first two releases were Sex, Madonna’s 1992 coffee table book of explicit self-portraits, and its accompanying studio album Erotica—both works of sexual taboo equally lauded and slammed by critics for their “audacity.”) She prompted the call that got Deftones signed for their first five albums, then gifted them an autographed, semi-naked poster of herself.

Obviously, you could also throw all this out of the window and simply say their music “fucks,” which it does. It boils with rage but blisters with tenderness at the same time, owing to the fact that they write monolithic metal guided by the yearning hands of trip-hop, shoegaze, and Sade. The result is a sound that feels like two people fucking in a burning building at the end of the world. There’s suffering there if you want it, pure animalism there if you want it, and male sensitivity there if you want it. A real gooner’s buffet. Moreno’s lyrics, though rarely fun, are predominantly made up of fantasies and fleeting impulses. They find a kind of excitement, evil or otherwise, everywhere from the strip club to the passenger seat. And as the faceless narrator wondered of Roxanna, “Is there anything wrong with that?”

Emma Garland is the author of Gabrielle, a newsletter about sex culture and desire. Follow her on Instagram: @emmaggarland

This essay is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post Deftones: Anatomy of a Sex Band appeared first on VICE.

Eternal Suburban Teenagers

As long as there are suburbs, there will be teenagers who hate living in them. Nobody understands them and nobody ever will, apart from Deftones, whose music is eternally teenage because it is sad, angry, and horny all at the same time. Until they ride out of town in a fast car with their crush in the passenger seat and the local bully’s head mounted on the grille, they will pass the time loitering in parks; booting up the PS5 at whoever’s parents are away; engaging in pyromania; and, when they’re old enough, getting sold oregano instead of weed by evil bigger boys from the next town over. They might vape now as opposed to necking an entire flagon of cider and being sick down themselves like they did in the 2000s, but the ‘burbs never fails to produce a new generation of teens ready to take up the mantle of dangling their legs over the local vert ramp wearing an American Idiot hoodie and some Converse they’ve scribbled dicks all over.

E-Girls

Deftones intersects with the meme economy on multiple fronts, from the opening drum hits of “My Own Summer (Shove It)” being used as the soundtrack to some sort of slapstick accident (e.g. someone getting hit in the face with the microwave door), to their reputation as a “sex band” beloved by horny dudes and hot girls alike. The latter demographic includes thousands of e-girls streaming ASMR ‘live reactions’ to their biggest hits on Twitch, laying “Sextape” over Instagram posts of their leg bruises, and calling people “foidcels” on X. As I wrote in the last issue, “Their role in society is to make men horny and irritated at the same time,” which coincidentally is when men most want to listen to Deftones, making e-girls’ relationship with the band symbiotic, like mongooses eating parasites off of a warthog’s back. 

GLOBAL War ON TERROR Veterans

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought by a particular breed of American soldier. In the wake of 9/11, a significant portion of new recruits were between the ages of 18 and 21, and they took youth culture’s cocktail of glorified ultraviolence, Jackass buffoonery, and sexed-up pop culture with them into combat. Half of them went from playing Metal Gear Solid 2 in bed to ripping through Fallujah listening to “Chop Suey” in the space of two months. Tragically, this demographic also suffered the highest casualty rates in both of these dubious conflicts, but there are plenty who made it home and can now be spotted knocking about in hardware stores wearing camo jorts and sunglasses on the back of their heads, or jacking it in the parking lot to the kind of high definition pornography no one does better than the States. God bless America!

Strippers

The relationship between Deftones and strip clubs is extremely creatively bountiful. Occasionally described as “stripper metal,” the band has songs both inspired by strippers (“Korea”) and seemingly designed for strippers to pay down their mortgage to (all of them). Allegedly, the working titles of the demos for their ‘lost’ album Eros were named after strippers—“Dallas,” “Destiny,” “Melanie,” etc. Strippers, in turn, love Deftones. Source: me, you, and every sex worker on Instagram.

Drainers

Drainers have a finger in every subcultural pie going. The same way Drain Gang makes a strange, digitally native potpourri of rap, pop, hyperpop, R&B, and metal, their fans pinch bits and pieces from all over the place like sartorial magpies. If Deftones has become a subculture unto themselves at this point, beloved by an impossible-to-categorize array of people that somehow includes paid killers, Time Team fans, Trippie Redd, and Adam Sandler, there’s no reason Drainers wouldn’t wiggle their fingerless gloves to tap in as well. There’s a modestly popular TikTok of a teenager clutching some CDs in his bedroom, overlaid with text that says “shoegaze deftones fight club donnie darko radiohead taxi driver american psycho drain gang breaking bad yeah i play guitar,” which frankly does the same job as this entire issue in way fewer words.

Elder Greebos

Typically found roaming the streets in lonely bands of one or hanging out in small groups at board game cafés, the elder greebo is a powerful specimen. They enjoy zip-up hoodies, TV shows where people dig stuff out of the ground, drinking artisanal beer in camping chairs at metal festivals, not knowing their own strength, and the films of Rob Zombie. They love Deftones but hate it when their music is called “sexy” because it “trivializes the craft.” On a similar note, casually mention a metalcore or emo band around them at your peril, because they will follow you around scoffing “Really, really? What about Fleshgod Apocalypse???” for the next 45 minutes until they run out of puff or blood sugar and have to take a sit down. 

Fashion Gays

Deftones has a good aesthetic, ergo, they have discerning gay fans. The amount of moaning Chino Moreno does—combined with the fact that he’s had many different hairstyle eras—already placed Deftones squarely in cunt-serving territory, even before the 2023 campaign for the Heavn x Deftones capsule collection featuring Tara Reid cemented it forever. Have you noticed the uptick in fashion stories in this issue? Let’s just say it wasn’t hard finding the staff.

Blog-Era Millennials 

No one claims Deftones harder than someone who grew up stuffing a pin-badge-covered pencil case into their Jansport while the new video for “Back to School (Mini Maggit)” blared out of MTV. Their early teen years are immortalized in 4×7 glossy prints taken on family holidays by relatives who snapped them sulking at a theme park in a pair of Berny’s and a graphic T-shirt that says something like “EVIL INSIDE” in the Intel font. Now, they all work in digital marketing and social strategy and deploy those on Instagram Stories with an ironic caption ahead of every Live Nation Presents [Insert Warped Tour/Ozzfest Band Here] gig they paid $200 to be in a good row for because fuck standing for three hours. They used to wear knock-off Slipknot hoodies but now they mostly wear Carhartt and have beef with a particular Pitchfork review from 13 years ago that still keeps them up at night.

Petrolheads

This guy loves three things: cars, America, and “the Deftones.” His first exposure to them came through hearing “Tempest” on the Furious 7 soundtrack and now he likes to listen to it doing 100mph down the freeway in a classic car or Dodge Challenger, the strap of his wrap-around sunglasses whipping in the wind. His “Hey, I’m just asking questions” politics have made him a staple character at his favorite dive bar, where locals know all his lore and he is personally responsible for putting at least nine people off ever coming back. 

American Pie-Era Frat BROS

The commercial dominance of pop punk and nu-metal around the turn of the century briefly collapsed some of the cultural barriers between popular and unpopular crowds in educational facilities. Football players were wearing wallet chains, taking up skateboarding, and shouting along to “Last Resort” along with the skinny freaks and that one girl who pretended to be a cat. Formerly the keg-sucking, money-having useful idiots of college parties soundtracked by Sugar Ray, Xzibit, Limp Bizkit, and Third Eye Blind, they are now most frequently spotted talking about TRT at NFL games, or driving a Tesla Model X blaring a Spotify playlist called “Greek Lyf 4 Lyf” and singing the riff to “My Own Summer (Shove It)” when it inevitably comes on—“baw na-na-na-naw, baw na-na-na-nawwwww.” 

Ukrainian Goths

Contrary to popular belief, war doesn’t put an immediate stop to daily life. There are teenagers in Ukraine, there are goths in Ukraine, therefore there are teenage goths smoking weed and getting off with each other in town squares, on playground climbing frames, and at warehouse shows as they would anywhere else in the world. [See the cover story of VICE Magazine, v29n1: The Rock Bottom Issue.] The main difference is they pair corpse paint with Adidas tracksuit bottoms and have grounds to interpret “Rats!Rats!Rats!” as being about the Russian armed forces. 

Normie Influencers

earThrowing up the peace sign for a GRWM video in an Around The Fur T-shirt, a balayage, and some Vans classics, probably in a pastel colorway, this breed of influencer deftly betrays two previously warring subcultural factions at once. With a working knowledge of nu-metal gleaned from growing up a “mosher” yet the same “Sundays with this one” sensibilities you see on people with gray plush living rooms, they have workshopped what is essentially an alternative ‘clean girl’ aesthetic. Ceramic boob plant pots, millennial pink books, and a framed reissue of Significant Other on vinyl populate their otherwise minimal living spaces, but behind the scenes there is a very expensive inbred dog and a Peloton subscription. 

Chicanos 

Everyone loves Deftones. There are even more micro-subcultures than we have space to name in this already sizable list. However, not a single one of them has a stronger claim to this band than a Latina woman with a neck tattoo.

This story is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

The post Which One Are You? Here’s Every Type of Deftones Fan appeared first on VICE.

Daniel Kilburn used to be a drill sergeant in the U.S. Army, but has since retired, and now tries to help people not die in his job as a “disaster preparedness strategist.”

He dispensed his wisdom to VICE on the condition we mention the company he founded—Emergency Action Planning, LLC—just in case anyone reading this somehow finds themselves in a position where they are responsible for other people’s lives.

Elevator Crash

What people think works: Jump at the last second before impact, like Neo from The Matrix.

What actually happens: You’re not Neo from The Matrix. You’ll mistime it, break your legs, or crush your head against steel walls in mid-air. This would be bad news for your brain.

What to do instead: Lay down flat on your back to spread the impact across your body. Or squat with your knees bent, back to the wall, arms overhead. Your legs are your shock absorbers. Don’t lock your joints unless you want them snapped like twigs.

Jumping From a Building 

Spoiler alert: There is no good way to jump off a building.

The better (still bad) option: Aim for anything not concrete: dumpsters, bushes, awnings, parked cars. Keep your body loose. ‘Rigid’ means snapped bones. ‘Loose’ means maybe still breathing. Land feet-first, knees bent, then roll—like you’re trying to electric boogaloo. Use your legs as your shock absorbers. Even 20 feet could be fatal depending on how you land.

Indoor Fire

First mistake: Standing up and breathing yourself to death. Hot smoke kills way before flames do.

Your move: Hit the floor: the air’s cleaner down there. Touch doors with the back of your hand—that way, if it’s hot, you won’t instantly burn your palms, and you will likely need those if you want to survive. If you’re trapped, seal the door, wave your shirt out the window, and take calm breaths. Panic = hyperventilation = die fast.

Tornado

The rookie move: Dumbly recording it on your iPhone from your porch. 

Reality check: If you can see the funnel, it can already eat your house.

What saves you: If you can, get underground. If you’re stuck in traffic, abandon your car. If you’re outside, find a ditch, lie flat, and cover up.

Avoid: Overpasses. They become wind tunnels. You’ll get sucked out the sides like an ant in a hoover.

VICE: Why a ditch?
Daniel Kilburn: They’re below the Earth’s surface, which gives you a greater opportunity not to get picked up. A tornado is like a big suction cloud so you don’t want to be standing up. Things are flying about, right? You don’t want to be hit by that cow that’s swinging around out there.

Home Invasion

The myth: “I’ll fight back and be the hero.”

What’s smarter: Live to tell the story.

Best plays: Escape—through a window, a back door, however you can. Can’t run? Hide in a lockable room, turn off the lights, and pipe down. Remember: one stray fart could kill you. If confrontation is unavoidable and you’re trained, act fast and decisively to subdue the fucker(s).

Mass Shooting

Natural hope: The police will handle it.

In reality: Kick into gear as soon as you hear shots.

The key: Know where the exits are ahead of time.

VICE: That sounds quite boring but it’s important, isn’t it?
Daniel Kilburn: You should do it when you go into any building: find the exits. If you’re in a restaurant, escaping through the kitchen is actually what I teach my kids to do. I usually try to sit close to an exit looking at the front door, but hey, that’s me—‘Drill Sergeant Dad!’

Crowd Crush

People think: I can squeeze my way through. Everybody else is just going for the wrong gap!

Think instead: Can I get to the side?

What to do: Get to the periphery. Back out of the crowd. If you’re in the throng and everyone starts falling, try to fall on your side so your diaphragm can expand, and you can breathe.

This handy guide is taken from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE, a Deftones special. We’ve sold out our copies, the only ones left are in stores—perhaps there’s one near you? Secure yourself the next 4 issues by subscribing.

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