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#MetalGate, we hardly knew ye! Despite the earnest effort of a small army of opportunists to stoke the fire – some of them #GamerGaters, others “dark enlightenment” neoreactionarires – the contrived controversy that was #MetalGate has already lost most of its steam. All you need to do is take a look at Topsy to see how quickly the hashtag burned itself out.
This is hardly surprising, given that the alleged controversy was little more than an utterly transparent attempt by ideological hacks to breathe life into the decaying corpse of #GamerGate and to drive traffic to terrible “dark enlightenment” blogs.
So before #MetalGate becomes a fading memory, I’d like to take a moment to highlight the efforts of one notable neoreactionary to turn the faux controversy into a war against “Social Justice Warriors” – and pump up the traffic to his struggling video game blog.
I’m talking, of course, about werewolf impersonator and woman-hating pickup guru Roosh Valizadeh. Roosh was late out of the gates in his attempt to capitalize on #GamerGate by launching his hilariously clueless video game blog Reaxxion. But with #MetalGate he moved more quickly, publishing three rabble-rousing posts on the subject in three days.
I mentioned one of them in my last post. But it’s the two he’s published on Reaxxion that are the real winners.
Yesterday, Reaxxion’s “ethics officer” Sam Roberts – yes, that is a thing – delivered an over-the-top rant warning metalheads that “enemies of metal are upon us.”
These alleged enemies? Social Justice Warriors, the all-purpose boogeyman that strikes terror in the hearts of #GamerGaters, Men’s Rights Activsts and neoreactionary werewolf PUAs alike. Roberts defined SJWs as
far-left weirdos with nothing going on in their life, who try to inject their toxic, tiresome political ideology into every field imaginable. They’ve taken over Atheism, Science Fiction Books, and they were poised to take over video games until #Gamergate started roundly thrashing them. Now, with what’s being called #Metalgate, we’re finding out that they want to take over heavy metal too. …
If these people get their way heavy metal will be neutered to the point where you could play it on a school bus
The horror!
After attacking two critics of metalhead douchebros – one of whom he describes as a “preening sissy” – Roberts ends with this rather comical call-to-arms:
If metalheads don’t want to end up neutralized and pussified, they’ll have to fight back. Gamergate shows the way here: if the media starts pushing a lousy band because its bassist has a vagina, mock them relentlessly. If a magazine starts hassling you like a schoolteacher for using naughty language, boycott them. Spread the word: if you’ve got twitter, use the hashtag #Metalgate. Don’t think [sic] The worst thing you can do is assume that somebody else will do your fighting for you. The enemies of metal have arisen, and it’s time to cut them down like dogs.
Appended to the article we find this embarrassing correction:
Update: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Kerry King as the frontman for Slayer. He is a guitarist. Reaxxion regrets the error.
Oops. Totally not metal, dude.
Reaxxion followed up this post with one today from irate #GamerGater Steve Alexander, who fantasized about a mythical alliance between gamers and metalheads that will defeat the SJW menace once and for all:
GamerGate is actively uniting liberals with conservatives under the umbrella of freedom of expression. But SJW’s don’t realize this, and have now attacked the metal crowd. They’ll soon find out that all their strategy will accomplish is to unite hardcore gamers and the metal crowd into a righteous mob.
We will learn from each other—gamers will bring their knowledge of leveraging social media and e-mail, and the metal crowd will bring their extreme energy and uninhibited expression. Together, marching in step, some wearing Converse while others wear steel toe boots, we will crush this censorship of our favorite mediums.
Huh. I guess gamers who are also metalheads will wear Converse on one foot and a steel-toed boot on the other?
Let me know how that goes.
But I own Converse *and* steel-capped boots!
And now for some Mael Mordha:
Well, this is as far as I got before I ran out of steam. http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/PowellAJ13/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20141215_182935_zpsd37cc78d.jpg.html?o=0
@lordpabu:
Nice work so far! Now you have to give her an appropriate name.
My last comment didn’t show up, but the best I can do for a name is May Tell, which would obviously be derived from ‘metal’.
” with nothing going on in their life, who try to inject their toxic, tiresome political ideology into every field imaginable.”
Soooooooo…. Roosh?
Speaking of “bassist with a vagina”
Check out German metal group Equilibrium!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VyzcArEK1qg
“Gamergate shows the way here: if the media starts pushing a lousy band because its bassist has a vagina, mock them relentlessly.”
let’s see how well that works with White Zombie, Triptykon, Black Flag, and the entire line up of Girlschool.
I can’t get over the fact that he called his attempt to scam gamers “Reaxxion”. It’s half straight edge screename from the beginning of the century and half Bill O’Reilly tries to reach out to the kids.
Oh neat, look how that whole “journalistic ethics” smokescreen blows away when they change topics!
The thing that gets me is that they want to frame things as though it’s all about “taking offense”, like their opponents are just out of touch prudes scolding them for saying naughty words. Fuck that. It’s never been about stamping out things that anyone might consider offensive, or sanding off every rough edge to make games or metal sanitized, inoffensively bland crap.
I am an enormous metal head. The kind that drives from Vegas to LA just to see Wintersun, that listens to Opeth to fall asleep at night, Testament to get psyched for work, and Sonata Arctica when I’m in a particularly romantic mood. I’ve been knocked unconscious in mosh pits. I’ve drank mead while listening to Enslaved in the woods in the mountains in the middle of winter. I am, in other words actually familiar with metal as a style of music and a subculture.
Whoever wrote that article clearly is not. So let me set a few things straight:
Metal is not, as the author seems to think, about being offensive for the sake of being offensive. It has always been about questioning the status quo, about subverting cultural expectations, about confronting uncomfortable realities, and about a shared community of people who didn’t fit neatly into the mainstream. Remember the glam bands of the 80s and the not particularly subtle warping of expectations regarding gender? That wasn’t just about trying to shock people, that was in many ways a conscious rebellion against mainstream ideas about masculinity. What do you think the MRA reaction to that would be today, given their unyielding adherence to the standards of traditional toxic masculinity? Would they maybe like to opine on the use of high pitched falsetto vocals, perhaps using some variation of “girly” as an insult?
Look, there are problems with metal culture, just as with any culture. There have been plenty of times that a local band has completely destroyed any interest I had in them by introducing a song with “this one is for the ladies” and then launching into a song with a violently misogynistic title (almost always containing the word “cunt”), and there are a not insignificant number of white power/nationalist black metal bands out there. We NEED to be criticizing those things, and trying to clean up metal culture just like anything else. But metal has always been more about the punching up than the punching down since Black Sabbath and War Pigs, and if you think that cutting the racism and misogyny out of the culture is going to make it LESS of a threat to the status quo, or that the metal community doesn’t already have a sizable population of “left wing loonies” both in the crowd and on the stage, then you need to stop commenting on things about which you clearly know nothing and with which you have only the most surface level familiarity.
And if you can’t tell the difference between a curse word and a slur you probably shouldn’t be writing about this topic at all.
Oh, and hi by the way. I lurk a lot, but I’ll try to pop my head out from time to time.
Your family had that book too?
…
I wish I was joking.
That was actually a thing? You have my deepest sympathies.
I was given the book back when I was a young, confused lad still trying my hardest to like Anne Coulter because she was on the same side of the political spectrum as I thought I was. Luckily I don’t remember much of the contents, but it definitely was a thing.
I think this was the book? Though the cover doesn’t look quite right… But that seems to be the only “for kids” book he’s written.
@takshak: Don’t forget Bolt Thrower, Vastum, Darkspace, Fuck the Facts, Astarte, Nuclear Death, Weakling, Myrkur, or Gwar! All dirty SJWs, those bands! XD
@takshak: And of course, Electric Wizard. How could I forget about those total SJWs?
Demonia makes steel-toed canvas sneakers. Just sayin’.
…yes, I have a thing for shoes.
I’m not really a huge music person, but metal’s in there as something I like a lot, preferring it slow, sludgy and atmospheric.
I liked Iron Maiden…when I was a freshman in high school…:p
Now if ” run for the hills ” gets on the radio, I will sing along, deliberately off key…really, really off key, while banging my head and driving like a maniac.
Sometimes you just have to let your inner goober out.
I remember when Can I Play With Madness got pretty high on the charts in the UK, and my dad would sing along with me in the car when it came on the radio. Good times.
sparky: He put out a metal Christmas song recently.
His voice has, alas, lost a fair bit of its range and tunefulness over the years but I’m glad he’s having fun with this.
What about #swinggate?
@LadyMarchHare: For the life of me I can’t remember where your icon image comes from, but it’s dead familiar. Not to mention gives me the shivers.
@kirbywarp: I was in the bookstore, failing my saving throw against buying the new Dungeon Master’s Guide, and I saw that Rush Limbaugh has published a book for kids wherein he claims the role and political position of Paul Revere, warning against the coming liberals.
I really didn’t think he’d last twenty-five years, when he started, and you’d think if the liberals were coming all that time they’d have got here by now
or at least fallen asleep*.*I’m so, so sorry.
Dear Bootsy in a box, kirby! That link! AGHHH! My eyes! They’re melting! MELLLLLTTTTTING!!!!!!
O’Reilly’s trying to look…reassuring and…non-threatening! What portal to a hideous nether Hell have you opened with that link, man? Won’t someone think of the children? (well, I guess not them, cause oh really wrote the book FOR them, so he was already thinking OF them, but that is still a whole lotta wrong on one little web page).
I think Falconer just won the thread?
@Policy of Madness:
Oh my glob, did you see where they gave a starship to a woman?!!
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/3/34/Saratoga_captain,_2286.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080512100540&path-prefix=en
I mean, can you imagine it? It totally goes against all canon! Women can’t be starship captains!*
*(said one homicidally jealous person at the tail end of the original series.)
/snark
Aw, shucks, grumpyoldnurse, thank you!