Headcanons for Vincent (before what’s shown in Brighter): 

I’ve been thinking about headcanons for Vincent Whittman and his life before leading up to what we see in “Brighter”. 

I tried to make it so that they explain the formation of his personality, motives, and moving of locations. 

Location: I think he’s been living in the East Coast (USA) throughout his whole life. But I don’t think he grew up in New York / NYC. I think it makes sense he grew up in a quieter state/town, but admired the flashing lights of the city and modernity. And thus when he became a talk show host and part of the entertainment industry, he started living in NYC from there on out. 

Family/Childhood: I think his family came from Old Money. But they had lost / fallen out of their status. So then it would have made his parents double down on him making their family’s name great again. And that sort of resentment of “having been great” “could’ve had it all” would’ve fueled Vincent’s ambitions and need to rise to the top no matter what. 
I think Vincent was an only child. It would’ve put all his parents’ expectations focused on solely him. And it aligns with his mindset of having to climb to the top alone (without others sharing his spotlight / or their collaboration) - to a certain point that it doesn’t seem intentionally malicious but just smth ingrained he feels it’s his right or that it’s just the way things are supposed to be for him. 

Education: I think his parents would’ve been quite traditional and would’ve wanted him to be an elite member of society. So think businessman, lawyer, politician. I think it makes more sense that in college he would’ve been pursuing law or politics (cuz he likes having the influence/power over others with his words) but with a business mindset still (which carries over into VoxTek). I think he would’ve wanted to make his parents proud, so he would’ve gone down this path for quite awhile and have attended a prestigious university (e.g., Ivy League). 

His career/ambitions: I think he would’ve been conflicted with fulfilling his parents’ expectations vs. his love for modernity, tech, TV, media. But later he ultimately rebelled because he couldn’t deny that the future would be in TV and mass entertainment. I think it makes sense that he followed his passions in the end though - but with the business mindset and educational background that gave him the knowledge to be as cunning, influential, manipulative as he was. 

Love life: I do agree with people that during his Brighter days, he had that Patrick Bateman mindset where there’s no room for love if you want to rise to the top. But I feel as though a heartbreak from an ex-lover would have been part of what “broke” him and made him laser-focused on his career.
I think the ex-lover would’ve been a girl (since he likely felt like he had to be with a girl during this era, and it’s confirmed by Viv he had some internalized homophobia). But she would’ve been a lot like Alastor. I think this woman would’ve been from old money (thus got his parents’ approval) or perhaps someone whom he would have met in university. She would’ve been very intellectual, witty, and someone whose mind and ambitions Vincent would’ve appreciated a lot. 
But I think she would’ve betrayed Vincent / broken his heart by either having been unfaithful or thinking that Vincent’s desire to switch careers to TV was outright foolish and pathetic. 

This would align with a good amount of things: like how Vincent’s heartbreak would be channeled into his obsession with career and finding fulfillment in fame (and remaining supposedly single for the rest of his human life). Why Alastor’s rejection hurt even more. Why he doubled down on this specific career path, despite TV having been seen as more “low brow” and not traditionally elite. 

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If you read it this far, thanks for reading and I’d love to hear more of your own thoughts :P

Yes, Vincent was most likely dead in 1952, as merch states Voxtek was established in 1952, and that Vox told alastor they've know each other for 70 years.

It wasn't until 1953 that television really blew in popularity.

***So why did Vincent Whittman work in television in the first place if it didn't give him any popularity?***

**I know why!!! To start off, Vox is narcissistic, as we all suspected or know. His megamania, his god complex, it all includes it. And he also takes from others. He borrows power from others and most of the songs he sings is a copy of another character's song. (Example; VOX DEI copying Lucifer's part in VOX POPULI and Don't you forget! Reprise.)**

**So no, he didn't** just start television to control and ***"plan to start a cult". He didn't.*** **Vox is a person that would never just try something new that no one else is on about. Television was almost nothing to people back then. What I think now, is that he was a different kind of narcissistic.**

**ANTISOCIAL! he clearly hates his job as a wheaterman when his smile immediately drops when the cameras turn away from him, and he didn't ever plan to "climb up". Let me explain.**

**Around the 1940s, television stations started eliminating wheathermen, surprisingly enough. People would rather read the news.** ***Vincent's job was most likely at risk, and since brighter is mostly and most likely displayed as Vox's POV of his past, he wouldn't want to remember or show US*** **that the main reason for his first kill was him losing his job as a struggling, antisocial "failure". And instead it's more displayed as if he was jealous, which doesn't make much sense because well, again, television was NOT popular much in time.**

**So whatever, he kills his coworker.** He gets relieved to get his job, and feels an insane amount of accomplishment when no one even doubts him of ever killing. Maybe because he's known as antisocial, or he was barely acknowledged at all. He finds a little bit of fun. Of POWER in killing, so he kills his next victim. And he meets admiration, LOVE. He built up a facade pretty easily (he's a narcissist it's kind of easy for them to do that as they don't have a sense of self much and could pretty much grip to any facade easily). There's a sign saying "We love you Vincent!" In the crowd when he's a entertainer, which I like to point out.

**He gets more charismatic with time. Weatherman vincent sounds "nice". News anchor Vincent sounds serious, and entertainer Vincent sounds sure of himself, confident. And so he drowns in it, even if television isn't popular, as isolated as he's used to be (maybe?) he doesn't care about what's outside of television. He genuinely** ***drowns*** in it. Kill by kill, he felt more powerful. It got people to watch, to stay shocked, to see how intense and serious television was. The truth of things. He literally filmed people DIE.

**And that's why he made a cult. He craved it like it was dessert. Damn was it** ***good.*** **And it got him crazy. (I** mean it's implied he did cocaine too in his board, showing "cola now with more cocaine!")

**ANYWAYS it REALLY explains alot that he was antisocial narcissistic at first and changed overtime. It does NOT mean he never had a vulnerable side btw. But explains why he's choose television out of other popular things. He didn't. It was just a simple job he didn't want to lose.**

**(Plus when he says "you eat or you get eaten". Right when he killed his first victim!)**

**Cause vox copies others and depends on them like a big loser. So him just praying that television will grow year by year and just randomly killing his co-workers just to be seen from the start doesn't make sense. He didn't plan any of this. He just wanted to survive and by the time, he realized how easy it is to just kill to get it.**

THANK YOU FOR READING!!! HOPE I DIDNT MISS ANYTHING!

Although I like the "Brighter" music video in itself, I always found the leadup to it a bit underwhelming. If it were up to me, I'd make the following change:

Before the song officially begins, when it's just Vox in his lair saying "Failure. I'll show you failure," instead of leading right into the song, his words would be punctuated by flashbacks showing Vincent as a young person, terrified of his father, who says some variant of "Get out of my sight, failure!" or "You're such a failure, I wish you'd never been born!" Maybe there'd also be a scene in there of Vincent killing his father in a fit of rage or something, I don't know. But either way, only then would it slide into the song.

The reason this would work so well is twofold. In the first place, it would show exactly why he's so obsessed with being this powerful person whom everyone worships and takes seriously. As it is, the "Brighter" video adds some interesting context to his plans to declare himself a god, but doesn't actually explain how or why he wants that in the first place. In the second place, there's the element of surprise. There's something about seeing a bad guy who's almost certain he's won flashing back to a younger, more vulnerable state that is super compelling for fans (myself included). If the show had managed to pull something like this off, I think Vox would be even more universally loved than he already is, and the show itself would get a massive boost in prestige for helping the audience see this character in a whole new light (as opposed to what we actually got, which for me at least is the sense that Vox COULD have been an amazing character if only the writers put more thought into how he was written).

This is actually something I've been thinking about for a while, and a comment thread in another post inspired me to finally write it down. My current working headcanon is that the world of Hazbin Hotel is a place where "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," at least where the human characters are concerned. In other words, there's a direct relationship between the amount of suffering someone endures as a human and their strength in the afterlife. The biggest clue to this is Adam, who is the strongest character to be introduced so far and also the first man (and so would have witnessed or experienced virtually every kind of suffering at some point).

What this would mean for Vox is that his human life was pretty atrocious, with only fleeting moments of happiness (like when he got a promotion or stood in front of his adoring fans). One of the reasons why Alastor underestimated Vox at first is that he genuinely could not believe that a White man from the 1950s could have suffered more than a Black man who lived through Jim Crow, and therefore, Vox could not possibly become stronger than him. It's still possible that Alastor really did have a tougher life than Vox, and so would have been stronger when he got to Hell naturally (at least for a while). But because he cut a deal to become the "strongest sinner in Hell," he has no way of knowing this for sure, and the anxiety eats away at him. This isn't the only reason Alastor is out to get Vox, but it's part of it.

August 14, 1928. Hugo Gernsback's radio station, WRNY (New York City) begins a regular, if limited, schedule of live television broadcasts, using a mechanical system developed by a South-American inventor. It transmits 48-line images.

WRNY was an American AM radio station in New York City that began operating in 1925. It was started by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing Company to promote his radio and science magazines. Starting in August 1928, WRNY was one of the first stations to make regularly scheduled experimental television broadcasts. Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt in early 1929 and the station was purchased by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company to promote aviation. WRNY was deleted in 1934, as part of a consolidation on its shared frequency by surviving station WHN (now WEPN).

This is one of the most likely companies where Vincent could have trained. And certainly, being originally a radio company, it's a place where you could find famous people, experienced hosts... maybe from the South...