For better or for worse, Quinn's boyfriend's blog post single-handedly ignited a massive controversy as two sides gradually materialized - the arbitrarily named "pro" Gamergate side, arguing for ethical standards in gaming journalism, and the similarly randomly named "anti" Gamergate side, which drawn the internet's favorite despised subculture - social justice advocates, disparagingly dubbed "social justice warriors" (SJWs). "Anti" Gamergate folks, similar to their opponents, are also calling for standards in journalism, but any common ground the two sides had was quickly blown away as both sides proceeded to dox, harass, and make death threats against each other in what's amounted to a massive internet tantrum that's been, at its best, cringe-inducing, and, at its worst, positively worrying. As someone not too versed in video games (the last game I bought was Skyrim in 2011...), this entire kerfluffle seems to me to have lost its original vision and morphed into a war of attrition between pro- and anti- "internet social justice" camps.
And normally, I wouldn't care too much, but over the past week, metal music has emerged as a theatre in this ongoing geek war, and my hope with this blog post is to (hopefully) clarify some misinformation and hopefully discuss why "metalgate" amounts to nothing more than concerned hand-wringing on both sides of the issue.
The entire "metalgate" affair began with this article earlier this week on Death Metal Underground acting as a "call to arms" for folks to prevent gamergate from happening in the metal scene. In this post, writer Cory Van der Pol dramatically misinterprets several quotes from eminent metal journalists as the advent of a great cleansing - an invasion into the precious flower that is heavy metal, which will deprive it of its ethos in the name of "political correctness". While there is some ground to the DMG post - namely, attempts to make metal "more sociable" have usually been rejected by the underground - the article is very literally making a massive deal out of two quotations, and essentially claiming that the same sequence of events leading to gamergate will eventually infect heavy metal.
The problem is, there is no definitive proof that the so-called Great Hipster Invasion of Metal is actually anything more than an artistic shift. How many so-called "hipster metal" bands are politically outspoken and trying to alter the way metal fans behave? Deafheaven? No. Altar of Plagues? No. Krallice? Guess. Are their PBR-sipping legionnaires doing anything other than changing the demographics of metal shows? Well, besides the odd misinformed Sunbather bandwagoner whining that metal fans don't take them seriously, or Noisey throwing a tantrum about how people don't like certain bands, there's been very little pressure on metal musicians to "PC-ify" their act. This post on Servile Insurrection compiles a list of perceived SJW-mediated slights against metal music over the past year, and while it may seem like cherrypicking, the writer does hit on two good points:
- Social justice advocates are present in the metal scene.
- These people are not taken seriously because they view music as a political message instead of artistic expression.
In response to the rising amount of "metalgate" press, resident MetalSucks Babymetal aficionado Vince Neilstein wrote a scathing response that, for the most part, resonated deeply with me. Neilstein calls the debacle, which is rapidly gaining press, as "entirely manufactured. No one, or no group, is banding together to try and change metal in any one specific way — the threat is entirely imagined. Certain social values enter the metalsphere simply because those values are spreading throughout society as a whole[...]the idea of #metalgate ignores one very important fact about metal: lyrics mostly don’t matter to metalheads, it’s all about the music itself. Which further proves that the people writing this #metalgate stuff have at most a basic familiarity with metal; they’re not in metal culture so much as observers looking for a cause to latch onto."
And you know what? He's got a point. With the exception of DMG, the vast majority of asshats feeding the #metalgate fire are at best only partially involved in metal. Return of Kings is primarily a men's rights activism (MRA) site that takes aim at social justice wherever it manifests. Speaking from experience, very few of the in-depth metal fans I know are outstandingly political - preferring instead to focus on music (as Neilstein said) than on political message. Obviously the tender question of liking Burzum presents an ethical dilemma, but very few Burzum fans will openly plug Varg's opinions.
On the other side of the fence, with the disappointing exception of Kim Kelly's calling metal "deeply conservative" (seriously, Kim? Surprised you of all people would say that), the side whining about hurt feelings plugs such underground gems as...Slayer and All that Remains. Hell, can you even trust the Washington Post as an authority on metal? The ongoing frantic push for metal fans to accept Myrkur's frighteningly unimpressive music, which has boiled down to accusations of misogyny when people point out Myrkur's only discerning factor is her gender, is yet another case. Noisey even lashed out at metal fans who call gimmick on Myrkur as "people who still live with their parents", rapidly extrapolating those fans' reservations into "speaks a lot to gender politics in music in general with how this scenario played out". What all of these critics have in common is that they are not primarily music fans, but folks only semi-interested in metal trying to push a message.
Regrettably, the stage is set for a repeat of gamergate, with the "anti" side (loathe as I am to describe it that way) trying to push a social justice agenda again, this time with metal a a bargaining chip, and the "pro" side howling "get out, poser". In any case, this debacle is nothing more than a thinly veiled political debate that happens to tangentially involve metal as a catalyst. Given the gamergate precedent, the music itself will soon become totally irrelevant in this drama as people flock in for a chance to yell down their political opponents instead of promote reform - whether toward or away from political correctness.
And this is disheartening, because, as the DMG article writes, "metal is beyond the left-right divide." True, metal can be highly political - see Cattle Decapitation, plenty of thrash songs, even NSBM is an (admittedly disagreeable) form of political expression. But there's just as many bands content to talk about partying, or sadness, or Satan, or death, etc. Metal is a highly diverse genre, and pigeonholing all fans as X-ist is unfair, and both serves to demonize your target demographic and delegitimize your platform. Politicizing something as un-political as songs called 'Penis Perversor' serves no real goal.
As I mentioned in a discussion about Sunbather a year later, reform in the metal scene has never come from outliers, political activists, or attempts to make money, but from the nerdy music fans that are content to be weird and record themselves being weird. No amount of whining, no amount of howls of execration, is going to change the fact that, as Jack Black famously said, you can't kill the metal.
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