As a freelancer in a different industry, experience suggests that some (not all) people doing “cool” things will ask for a cut rate and/or extra time to pay, usually with an empty promise of properly paid work in the future. We are so cool, being a part of the coolness for even a few hours or days should be worth half what you normally charge, right? They’re playing the “starving artist” card even though their real game is making money, sometimes plenty of it.
I will do cut-rate work for actual artists or arts organizations, if the work is interesting to me and my schedule permits; it’s the companies engaged in raw commerce with an artsy/edgy/cool veneer that need to learn to do business honestly and fairly.
So… never worked for Vice and will never even have the opportunity to tell them to get stuffed, but the story is depressingly familiar. People want you to work for peanuts, and they will use their edgy, counteculture image to lure you into it. If it doesn’t work on you, eventually they’ll find someone hungry enough to take the bait.
