VICE Culture Club

Two Vice hosts collide in a weed shop!  Taji Ameen comes on to smoke weed with us.   We play one star or five star with a range of topics.   We get incredibly high and talk about Tajis career and where he is going next. Taji tries Thick water for the first time and becomes quite the spokesman.  Join in the blunt rotation with the Vice boys.   Special thanks to Team Moezaic The stoner gaming lounge for casuals and competitors in Williamsburg, BK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We sat down with Sumo legend Konishiki and his sumo boys.  Konishiki was the first ever foreign sumo champion and at the time the heaviest to ever sumo wrestle at 633lbs.  It’s the start of Sumo season and he is back in his home country introducing Americans to Sumo culture.  He brings with him his two top students, Osaka Joe and Ruru.   They talk about the strict code of conduct in Sumo, and what it would take for the sport to catch on in the U.S.   They also answer listener questions and play either or.   Our host Jackson put it all on the line by getting in the ring with not 1, but 2 sumo wrestlers.   Konishiki warns him that he better sign his will and kiss his wife goodbye, will he survive?  Find out on this episode of VICE Culture Club.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We sat down with Maks “TRAXNYC” Agadjani to talk about the viral brawl that went down in the diamond district.  Maks walks us through a blow by blow description of what led up to the moment millions saw online.  We also get into the diamond industry, working with celebrities, and what it’s like to get mugged for his chains.   Jackson asks him listener questions and also plays Do’s and Don’ts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Swiping onto Parker Edmondson’s tiktok page is like stumbling into a time vortex.  Parker has created a lifestyle and a following based around living in the 1920s.   His apartment looks straight out of the past, and people online love his tours.  He has an infectious passion for all things old.  He is a unique person and likes it that way.  Jackson gets a private tour and Parker even breaks out a full dance routine at the end. Check it out.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Courtney Allan gained notoriety in 2024 for hitch hiking with her friend Timo De Jong from Southampton U.K. to South Africa.   A wild journey utilizing what we thought was a nearly extinct form of transit, asking strangers for rides.  Courtney and Timo documented the whole trip on social media and caught our attention. Courtney is now hitchhiking solo from China to Cape Town, an even more ambitious journey that we had to ask about.   Courtney tells us about what inspires her to travel like this, if she recommends it to other women, her safety precautions, and she highlights her best and worst moments.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We took a field trip to the Bone Museum in Bushwick, Brooklyn.   Jon & Masha run the museum and gave us an hour of their time to tell us about all the human bones they have on display.  We talk grave robbing, medical history, the market for human bones, what to do if you find a skeleton, and we hold an alive man's leg bones that were donated to the museum.   We also go deep with some social surveys and listener questions.  What do you want done with your body after death?  Where do we go when we die?  All answers here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In part 2 of this interview we will dig into the world of cults with cult survivor and expert Daniella Mestyanek Young.  She answers questions from our Vice Instagram audience and goes through a long list of companies, religions and movements to give us her opinion on what is a cult or not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We sat down with Daniella Mestyanek Young she is a Cult Expert, Cult Survivor, U.S. Army Veteran, Harvard grad in the study of organizational psychology and author of two books on cults. Her memoir Uncultured came out in 2022 covering her experience growing up in the Children of God cult & comparing it to her time in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer.   She now has a new book coming out in January called "The Culting of America" where she better defines what a cult is using a 10 part framework. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We sit down with the leaders of "Stick Nation". The guys that have sparked a wholesome movement to embrace your inner kid and get out there and collect some beautiful sticks of all shapes and sizes.   Their Instagram account has earned millions of followers, celebrity reviews, and even an appearance on Jimmy fallon.   They are taking their reviews and a book on tour in 2026.  We get into what a stick even is.  We talk about the review process, how many stick reviews the receive a day, and from where and who.    Our host even brings his own stick to get reviewed and inducted into stick nation.  At the end we play a game to rank the best stick in literature of all time in  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We speak with Anthony Fantano, the internet's busiest music nerd.  He is one of the last great music critics left.  Love him or hate him, people want to hear what he has to say about their favorite bands' music.   We get into algorithms and the death of monoculture.  Fantano fights back about there not being a song of the summer and crowns a song for 2025.  We talk about the end of rap in the billboard top 40, boyband comebacks, hyper pop, and if ska will ever return.   Fantano breaks down what it will take for Kanye to come back and be reviewed by him.   In the end we play some games.  Fantano rates our host’s Spotify wrapped and plays real or fake with music genres.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part 2 of this week's Vice Culture Club is Kala the tiktok tunnel girl, also known as Engineer everything.   She went viral in the last couple of years for using her free will to play minecraft in real life.   She has been digging a tunnel system under her suburban house in Virginia.    Is it legal?   is it safe?  Does she have experience doing this kind of work?  What is the end goal?  Will she get shut down by the government?  Should she be shut down?   All questions that drove the internet crazy.   We chatted with her to answer all these burning questions and get to the bottom of where she is digging too.   She also gives us a grand tour of the tunnel itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oobah Butler is an international prankster/hoaxter/journalist/filmmaker.   He is known for his outlandish schemes that expose the nonsense of our modern society.  He has created many videos and schemes with vice in the past.  Most recently he took on Amazon.  Now he is putting out a documentary where he turns his sights on the money making, greedy, get rich quick schemes.   He puts aside his usual morals to attempt to make $1 million in 90 days.  Spoiler, he pulls it off.   He goes through several schemes.  Bank loans, asking for money outright, crypto, selling courses, selling outrage, child sweat shops, eventually selling himself and exposing in the end the tax free loop hole that many powerful people in America use known as "buy, borrow, die".    He also reflects in this interview on what it means to "Punch up" as a prankster.   He talks about pranks that didn't work out, how this all started, and why it's important to grab people's attention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices