The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!
With interest in their pet cause waning, #GamerGaters have been casting about for something that might give their little movement an infusion of energy and new supporters. They got a temporary boost a month ago from the ridiculous concoction that was #ShirtStorm, but that didn’t last.
And now, as you may have heard, they’re trying again with yet another contrived controvery called #MetalGate.
On Friday, a writer for Death Metal Underground warned fellow metalheads that “the same people who intruded into the gaming industry despite a striking lack of actual contributions” have now decided to take over the world of heavy metal music.
His proof of this Social Justice Warrior invasion? A Spin article mentioning – and celebrating – what it described as a recent “increase in conversations about racism, politics, and feminism” amongst metalheads. And a 2006 Washington Post article suggesting that metal was getting more “socially conscious.”
No, seriously. His entire argument relied on an 8-year-old newspaper article and a single sentence in Spin.
But apparently that’s all it takes to create a #Gate these days. #GamerGaters, desperate for some sort of continuing cultural relevance, are hanging onto the new hashtag with the grim determination of, well, I was going to say this guy
… but the dog is pretty adorable, and he seems to be really enjoying himself.
But, anyway, #MetalGate is now a thing.
GamerGate celebrities Mundane Matt and Sargon of Akkad have already posted YouTube videos on the subject; bumbling Sarkeesian Effect co-creator Jordan Owen has weighed in with a nearly hour-long lecture on the subject in which, among other things, he explains at length why he is not comparable to Beavis or Butthead. (Well, obviously; Butthead is a lot less obtuse than Owen.) Fortunately, he’s not in a bathtub this time.
Roosh’s Return of Kings blog – a kind of bellwether of manosphere opportunism – has posted its own guide to the alleged controversy, prophesying that
The SJWs will likely try the same excessive tactics with metalgate that they used on gamergate and shirtgate, and they will get the same negative reaction from the masses. The harder the SJWs push, the more Average Joe is repulsed by them. Their unfounded optimism and willful naivety will be the death of them.
[For even more ridiculous reactions on Roosh’s video game blog Reaxxion, see this post of mine.]
Over on Twitter, meanwhile, outraged metalhead #Gamergaters and neoreactionary Manosphereians and other easily outraged asshats are busily posting tweets about the evils of SJW influence in metal; the Tweeters include some names that will be familiar to long-time readers of this blog:
Oh lovely, now #metalgate is a thing – guess being one of the most accepting groups of people on the planet isnt enough for some people
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) December 13, 2014
I would like to see all kinds of groups standing up in solidarity with GG, daring the SJWs to do anything about it. #gamergate #metalgate
— Fidelbogen – gab.ai/Fidelbogen (@fidelbogen) December 14, 2014
#MetalGate #GamerGate aren't about metal, games, fem-supremists want to kill any semblance of conventional masculinity in society that's all
— Rollo Tomassi (@RationalMale) December 14, 2014
https://twitter.com/Reyeko_/status/543918108944367616
https://twitter.com/runsonmagic/status/543803519837671425
https://twitter.com/voxday/status/543733247122100225
Some other, er, highlights from the discussion.
(CONTENT WARNING: Slurs galore.)
.
.
.
https://twitter.com/beantownborn/status/543639435179745281
#MetalGate
Troll/10. You retards can't touch metal, we aren't afraid to call a cunt a cunt. Cunts.
.— PewpSchute (@ThePewpschute) December 13, 2014
https://twitter.com/CactusTheLynx/status/544059034676895744
So long as you're not a cunt metal heads will like you. If you're a cunt you'll get called out for being a cunt. Don't be a cunt #MetalGate
— Emily Galiette (@TheGrlThatDates) December 13, 2014
https://twitter.com/genophilia/status/544165045123694592
https://twitter.com/SiliconNooB/status/543697727251427328
The desperation could not be more obvious. Sorry, fellas, but this one isn’t going to take off.
Hell, even #GamerGate’s most famous hanger-on is dubious, asking
Is #MetalGate real or a joke
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) December 13, 2014
If you can’t even convince Milo to believe – or pretend to believe – your bullshit, well, you’re kind of screwed.
One more Finnish metal polka from Korpiklaani:
@M. Tremblay
I don`t think that we have to worry about gaters ruining metal, this metalgate thing is just too transparent.
Maybe MRAs were thinking of a different type of metal fans.
I mean #GGers, not MRAs (like there’s any significant difference…)
It might have only gotten one sentence in the press, but I can say that the metal scene really is getting a lot less misogynistic. For example, I know women who have been able to crowd surf at a few concerts in the last year or so without getting groped. Also, I’ve noticed I’m no longer treated like a delicate flower in mash pits, and no one seems to push me out of them anymore. Mashing with GIRLS!!! Oh, the horror!
Well, this must be weird to the person who wrote that.
Suddenly, there’s an influx of hate mail.
Something about metal culture. Have I even written anything about heavy metal very recently? What the hell are “Gamergate” and “SJW”? A bunch of metalheads are angry about something relating to social justice. Doesn’t ring any bells. All those slurs…they seem to be confused about my gender. That’s it, they must have mistaken me for someone else.
I feel sorry for metal fans having these fools barging onto the scene. I’d be annoyed if they tried to do that to my kind of music.
Mind you I’m not sure how they’d be able to whine about trance and house as a lot of it doesn’t even have lyrics.
This whole failed attempt to start metalgate is really confirming what I already suspected. That gamers are not bullied or judged for liking games much. Metal has gotten a ton of shit over the years. Something incredibly mild like “maybe we should cut the sexism, racism, and homophobia” isn’t going to cause any metalheads to have a meltdown. That gamergaters got so upset and defensive about a few feminists talking about sexist tropes in video games indicates the thin skin of a person who has been sheltered and coddled.
Gotta give a quick shoutout for Swing Metal:
#metalgate #isyourshield
http://www.ametco.com/images/uploads/PerforatedMetalShieldDesignMeadowviewPsychiatricFacilityinNJ041609111.jpg
Oh look, a book about GamerGhazi!
>sneers, walks past the remainder bin, makes for the Women’s Studies section<
@Tracy: Oh my glob, the Thaco’s Hammer podcast uses that very tune.
Because metal is about ETHICS IN GAME JOURNALISM!!!!111!!!11eleventy
*is stumped* Something tells me that I’m going to have to ask my sister about this silly soon to be failed #Gate. She’s been laughing about this all weekend, too. That’s what I get for not being up to date.
*runs away very quickly to get an hour of sleep before needing to wash 5 year old vomit out of hair again*
I think I remember those days … it didn’t seem like fun at the time, but now that my “baby” is 26, I miss the days of having little ones around.
The question is, is “five year old vomit” the vomit of a five year old or vomit that’s been in your hair for five years because you haven’t had enough time to thoroughly wash your hair in five years (well, sometimes it seems that way).
From: http://www.metalsucks.net/2014/12/15/what-the-fck-is-metalgate/
Sorry, but when I think about metal I think about kitsch, and when I think about kitsch I think about Shonen Knife.
I love Shone Knife!
I think I’ve posted Catnip Dream before, but one more can’t hurt!
Infiltration by SJK:
http://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/bajaage/2edc405eb4b83fab478e28d64ac4f10a/mb-03785649.jpg
Did these tools think ‘Metalocalypse’ was serious?
@Drdg: Oh yeah, that’s another thing. Most of us acknowledge that most metal lyrics aren’t very original or even that good, but it’s not about the lyrics for us. I’ve heard this one metal blogger say something along the lines of “If Blind Guardian had lyrics like John Mayer, I’d still listen to them, hell, if anything, that would make them better, as they’d be able to make cheesy love songs sound awesome.”
I find it hilarious that they complain about SJWs allegedly “invading their fandoms” when it’s pretty clear that they are now doing exactly that. Except here, it’s even more accurate as most of these SJWs DO enjoy video games, which is why they want them to be more inclusive, whereas it’s been made pretty clear that those in Metalgate aren’t into metal, or they literally JUST got into metal.
Ok, I`m usually not laughing at people who confuse some details in bands` biographies, however, if you are posting an article in which you`re calling to save metal culture, it`s a good idea to check those details ahead:
From: http://www.reaxxion.com/3068/the-newest-battleground-against-sjws-is-metalgate
Note: Slayer is one of the oldest and most popular metal bands, so…
@Cthulhu’s Intern
Well, many of my metal friends do pay attention to lyrics and the messages (me – not so much), however, when it comes to discussion if a band is or isn`t metal, it`s about music. So all this idea that Christian, or vegan, or social themes aren`t metal enough is just silly. I mean, what`s so inherently metal about vikings, pirates, folk songs, fantasy, sci-fi and, (gasp!) even love, etc.?
Those girls are killing it at Enter Sandman.
@lowquacks
Wow Vox day’s music sucks :/
Weirwoodtreehugger: “Metal has gotten a ton of shit over the years. Something incredibly mild like “maybe we should cut the sexism, racism, and homophobia” isn’t going to cause any metalheads to have a meltdown.”
I’d like to agree with this, but unfortunately there are some metal fans who react badly to such suggestions. Certainly not to the extent of Gamergaters, but a similar element is at play in the scene, though I think thankfully it’s being challenged and is by no means dominant. For example, when I’ve argued in blogs that metal might regain a sense of its danger by engaging with feminism in its lyrics and presentation (isn’t metal anti-authority? And what’s more threatening to patriarchal authority than feminism?), I’ve received blowback. Or when I’ve suggests that people might want to know a band has Nazi sympathies, I’ve had it suggested that I am “the real Nazi” for opposing far-right infiltration into the scene.
Again, that reaction hasn’t been anywhere near as vociferous as Gamergaters, which might say something encouraging about metalheads, or might suggest that my privilege as a man insulates me from the worst. But that defensive, entitled attitude common to Gamergaters and associated movements isn’t alien to metal, unfortunately. Again, I think the reason metalheads have rejected #metalgate has a lot to do with the resistance to outside agitators the scene has. It leads some to whine about “SJWs ruining things”, but it leads others to smell a rat when people like Roosh, with no real knowledge of metal, attempt to use it for their own ends.
I used to be a metalhead. So I agree that metal fans are going to have no use for this — and that’s to the limited extent they even notice that it exists. Metal fans are pretty accepting people, by and large; they are not averse to criticism (in fact, they tend to court it); and they mostly aren’t silly people (even if arguably they have a silly hobby). They don’t confuse themselves with pirates and vikings and wizards just because they listen to songs about them. You can have a beef with the deeds of the imaginary vikings, pirates, space raiders, and wizards, and you can say so, and metal fans won’t swear out a feud against you and your children and your children’s children. What they will do is advise you to go back to listening to music which sucks, but after they’ve done that they won’t bother you any more.
Wait… what?!?
I’ve only started becoming more of a metalhead recently, thanks in part to bands like Porcupine Tree, Opeth, In this Moment, and Otep (I fucking love Otep). But I’ve been interacting more and more with metalheads, and the reaction on r/Metal is basically exactly what I would have expected from them. Sure, there’s problematic stuff in metal, but I never go the impression that metalheads weren’t aware of that or tried to deny it, and most seem on board with actually changing it.