TROLLING IS A ART

Throughout my prestigious and enviable career as a member of the metal-obsessed, I have taken on board a few of the stigmas that come with selecting such an untainted lifestyle (willingly, kind of like how they tell me Jesus was nailed to a few planks for a while).

The metal fanatics that fought bravely and apathetically to help keep the genre in relative obscurity are my idols. The metalheads of yore were required exclusively to either grow out or completely shave their heads (a paradox that to this day remains uninvestigated), wear at all times a shirt declaring their allegiance to their favourite band and sit in the passenger seat with crossed arms, hair down to their gigantic testicles and disapproving grimaces on their bearded mugs when their lame Pink-Floyd-Fan friends put “Another Brick In The Wall” on for the 30 millionth time, Iron Maiden shirt sporting the blood of those unfortunate enough to be caught in the wake of their antics in the pit, and you had better believe it had never been washed.

Metal fans of the 70’s and 80’s fought tooth and nail to keep the plebeian masses away from their metal. And the good news is… they won.

Yes, much in the same way brave young men fought and died for their countries in the great wars of our histories, the metal heads suffered their entire lives, ostracised from the day they first grew pubes. They went without jobs, without girlfriends, without the ability to walk into an airport and not be strip searched, all in the name of keeping metal pure to its very core, preserving the balls to the wall ferocity and uncompromising brutality that we true metal fans of today know and cherish above all else. Their sacrifices brought us the emergence of Thrash, and allowed Chuck Schuldiner to invent Death Metal, the best thing to happen to music since instruments. Even throughout the 90’s when many of our heroes declined into mediocrity, Pantera was there, ever vigilant, waiting for the day when true metal would rise again.

But then… Then…

This happened.

I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. It should have just been another phase, like Disco, but it has endured far more than any of us ever knew it should. It is an abomination to all that we believe in. It is the scene kid.

The battle was won. We were free to enjoy our metal free of any stigma above the public not enjoying our music. We became free to enjoy relationships, careers, education, thanks to the sacrifices of our ancestors. Then this mockery emerged.

To those of us who are enthusiasts of the rich universe that is heavy metal and its many facets and sub-genres, it might be hard to believe, but the general public tends to think of the most sacred of musical arts that is to be found in metal as loud, angry noise (which by the way is metal as fuck). Which is how they, in their infinite ignorance, easily confuse this:



…With this:





Back the fuck up. These are but two samples from opposite ends of the spectrum, but from these my point is illustrated. Moonlight Equilibrium is about a werewolf literally being torn apart during his transformation then going around murdering shit based purely on instinct. The other song is about a guy whose girlfriend left him (or died, I am not sure because these people cannot write songs worth shit) and he’s a bit sad about it.

There are literally about 20 million songs like the latter of the two I just presented. They are easy to write, easy to play and people buy the shit out of them because they are monopolizing on teenagers being sad about stupid shit, which is like monopolizing on water being wet.



The guy on the right is Trevor Strnad (don’t worry, I can’t say it either). He looks like the guy who heads the IT department at your local telemarketing agency. He is, however, the vocalist of The Black Dahlia Murder, the descendants of Thor himself behind the greatest Melodic Death Metal album in recent memory, a sample of which was just fisted down your throat. The man is more metal than most of us could ever hope to be, and he looks like a middle-aged Teletubby.



This is Shawn Milke, the ‘clean’ singer for Alesana (they are so terrible they need two people just to do VOCALS for fuck sake). He is an underdeveloped woman in a man’s body covered in tattoos. These are not metal bands. These are men in their 20’s who have figured out an easy, clever way to get laid. You play shitty, easy, downtuned chugga-chug riffs, throw in some emotionally touching (read: super homo) clean parts and yell the parts you really mean because you’re just so angry, yknow? And there you have a recipe for getting snapped up by a record label for maybe a year or two of the Warped Tour before being spat out like the worthless, talentless sack of hormonal shit you are. Sure, there are plenty of kids out there that pretend they like Kreator and Black Veil Brides, but really they are just insecure 16 year old girls, and there’s nothing 16 year old boys love more than literally anything that will make 16 year old girls touch their penis, but they are lying, because true metal is a spark handed down from your ancestors who thrashed unrelentingly in the most brutal pits of metal’s formative years before you were born, and it is not simply something you grow out of when it stops being cool, because let’s face it, metal has never been, nor will it ever be ‘cool’. The day that happens, I will throw myself in front of a train.

Recapping:



Guy in the middle = metal as fuck, regardless of whether you think he looks it or not, and you can bet that super hot bitch he’s totally slamming knows it.



This guy = complete homo poser garbage.

Are we clear? The next person who tells me I don’t “look like a metal fan” is copping a flying headbutt to the genitalia.