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Tech bros ruin everything: not content with destroying democracy, intimate relationships, art, and our very sense of self, they’ve now come for hallucinogenic drugs. It used to be that head shop clerks and psytrance drifters had something of a cultural monopoly on ‘shrooms and DMT. Now, Silicon Valley CEOs are taking heroic quantities of psilocybin in a bid to flatten the hierarchies of our collective consciousness.

In March, venture capitalist longevity influencer Bryan Johnson vaporized his way into the spirit realm to find out what the machine elves and other psychedelic entities had to say about his ceaseless quest to live forever.

For the optimization generation, this live-streamed experiment might as well have been the Grateful Dead at Golden Gate Park. It’s no surprise to hear that, in the months since the stunt, premium psychedelic retreats have been inundated with biohacker fanboys asking to replicate Johnson’s personal protocol. The “Don’t Die” crowd can’t so much as order a hamburger without reference to cost-benefit analysis, so it should come as no surprise that there’s been much discussion about optimal doses—whatever happened to asking the acid casualty with purple dreads to load up the glass pipe, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best?

This week, Amber Rawlings tracked down a slew of professional drug babysitters as part of our Harder Culture series. These are people who make a living watching the world’s wealthiest people lose their minds.

So, presumably, they’re holding some pretty juicy secrets.

“It’s certainly a touch that someone with a Fortune 500 company can shit themselves without it getting back to shareholders, but what the clients are really paying for is the feeling of legitimacy. Somewhere with linen sheets as opposed to a bloke who ‘managed to get [his] hands on a bufo supply and a crack pipe.’” 

Read the full article below.

If it’s something that rich people like to do, then chances are Drake will be into it—unless, of course, it involves as much as a microdose of emotional maturity.

Drizzy is never one to pass up a trend; in fact, he’s crammed most of the major musical ideas of the last 30 years into his new trilogy of albums, surprise released last week. But on the opening track of ICEMAN, he makes it clear that “I don’t do psychedelics / Because I’m too scared of unpacking.” Fair enough: shitting yourself in a swimming pool might not be for everyone, but it’s still more dignified than a lot of “this new toxic shit” that Drake just dropped.

I ruined a whole weekend listening to two hours, 30 minutes, and 37 seconds of Drake complaining about things while also being horny so that you don’t have to.

There was, unsurprisingly, much whining about Kendrick Lamar, streaming services, and how it should’ve been him that Rihanna married. But now a few days have passed since I wrote about all this for VICE, and I’m tempted to give The Boy another chance (isn’t that always the way with a “master manipulator”). Perhaps I’ll stick on MAID ON HONOUR later, it should be good for a bit of a laugh while I wait for the 60 grams of Tidal Wave to kick in.

“It wouldn’t be a Drake album if there weren’t plenty of moments where it sounds like his soul is about to be sucked apart by the hollowness of his nightcrawling lifestyle, and ‘BBW’ duly delivers, his ego dissolving upon contact with the rumbling sub bass. If I were being generous, I could describe this record as something like “a softcore Yeezus for the Hinge generation,” but Drake never really risks enough to take you on a journey as a listener.”

Read my full verdict below:

Adam Smith
Writer, VICE

To get past the paywall, sign up for VICE membership. A Digital Only subscription is just $2 a month (or $20 a year, if you prefer), while $70 a year also gets you 4 issues of VICE magazine, delivered straight to your door. (All three kill all the ads on this site.)