I’m as surprised as you are. Apparently, the Social Justice Warriors are victorious!
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. …
I was jazzed to hear that we’ve taken over Atheism and Science Fiction Books, but my enthusiasm was tempered by the subsequent delusional ravings. #GamerGate didn’t thrash anyone but themselves — it was a ghastly episode of autoflagellation. This #MetalGate nonsense is just another invention of the desperate gamergaters.
But actually, we are winning. Here’s an encouraging paper from Hassal and Bushfield, in which they looked at one of the key issues the people on my side of the rift have been pushing for the last few years: getting more diverse representation in conference lineups. The title gives away the answer: Increasing Diversity in Emerging Non-religious Communities. We’ve been succeeding in one of the key platforms (if you want to call it that) of the good side of the rift.
Changing demographics in speakers at 48 atheist conferences over time: (A) changes in the proportion of non-white speakers, (B) changes in the proportion of female speakers, and (C) changes in overall speaker diversity based on age, gender, race, nationality and education.
The trends look good, although we’re not quite at the level of perfect parity yet. The authors make some recommendations about how to keep the momentum going.
Next steps
So what can we learn from the theoretical framework and empirical approach described above? There appear to be a few clear courses of action for those who wish to promote greater diversity based on the central principles of the gatekeeper model and more recent work on the sociological study of academia:
- Monitoring prior to intervention – the substantial amount of work involved in searching for equality data on past conference participants demonstrates the lack of consistent and comprehensive methods for the evaluation of any future interventions. Indeed this has been observed in a number of previous studies as well, which have used informal methods of data gathering (e.g. observations of presented gender of speakers. If the collection of such data was conducted using best practices for human research, and coordinated through an institutional ethical review board from the outset then this data could provide a fascinating insight into questions of equality at conferences and other events, as well as the effectiveness of equality interventions in general. Such monitoring is essential in the absence of randomised controlled trials to deliver top quality evidence.
- Use evidence-based interventions – while there is a general lack of data on the effectiveness of particular interventions, there have been a number of propositions for reduction in gender bias. In particular, interventions should be grounded in theory, should involve active learning on the part of participants, and should avoid assigning blame to prevent excessive backlash. Interventions should also be clear about their outcome measures, such as increasing awareness, decreasing implicit and explicit bias, and promoting positive behavioural change.
- Target and diversify gatekeepers – while not experimentally controlled, there is evidence from observational studies that the number of female gatekeepers (in this case conference organisers) increases the representation of women speaking at conferences. As has been highlighted for editorial newsrooms, there is frequently a lack of transparency over the processes involved in the selection and promotion of members of communities to prominent positions (e.g. conference speakers). Gatekeepers (both male and female) therefore represent important candidates for study, and a primary target for the sort of evidence-based interventions described above.
- Provide female-directed support – standard networking practices involve the reinforcement of gender inequality through homophily in male-dominated fields. Recent efforts to encourage female-dominated and female-led sub-communities (e.g. www.skepchick.org, Women into Science and Engineering (WISE)) have received little empirical evaluation as engagement and equality tools, but provide a potential solution to the lack of female mentors within the male-dominated communities.
We hope that we have demonstrated the value of diversity monitoring in the atheist community and we encourage the organisers of future conferences or past conferences that have not been included in this paper to contact the corresponding author with conference program details and speaker biographies. Given the relatively close links between organisers of conferences within fields (be it academia or atheism), there should be scope for a consistent recording schema for the on-going evaluation of diversity in invited and presenting speakers at conferences. By way of example, all of the data used in this analysis are available as supplementary data to this paper and we hope that they are of use to organisers in future work towards studying the role of equality in conference participation.
In another bit of evidence that we are triumphant, a reader sent in the harassment policy for the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. These standard policies are another thing that makes the wackaloons foam at the mouth, and they really are becoming mainstream…and have been so at professional meetings for a good long while.
Winning! Hey, maybe we should take on heavy metal music after all…
Apparently if Vox Day doesn’t win best science fiction thing-y ever, then SciFi loses all the things that made it great: racism, sexism, and historical verisimilitude.
As for atheism: When didn’t the SJW rule atheism? Even when it was all white-guys issues all the time, organized atheism had everything to do with justice. Challenging the divine right of kings had to do with justice. And involved society. And warriors.
But heavy metal music? Yeah, that would be new. Clearly heavy metal never cared about rebelling against unearned or unjustly abused authority. I mean, SJWism sells, but who’s buying?
If I could ever figure out what the lyrics are in heavy metal “music” or could listen to it without my ears bleeding, I might want to take it on. Until then, I’ll be over here ignoring it entirely, or sending the lead “singer” a cough drop.
*dances on frugaltoque’s lawn*
Ah, yes. The only real music is the music I like.
So everyone here listens to Scandinavian folk-metal, 70s rock, and The Cure?
I’m pretty sure Heavy Metal is already heavily politicized, and much of it leans pretty far left. But you could say the same about atheism before the Secular Gender Wars kicked off a few years back.
/pushes series of deluxe reissues under his chair
Uhh, why would you say that?
Metalgate sounds much more bad-ass than gamergate. Or like someone working in the hardware department forgot a space.
…you realize there’s more than one kind of heavy metal, right?
I was first introduced to heavy metal back in the late 80s, by three women I knew in college, all of whom were fairly ardent feminists. The notion that the SJWs are only just now trying to ‘take over’ metal is… amusing, to say the least.
Of course: there’s lead, there’s gold, there’s uranium…
They’ve taken over Atheism, Science Fiction Books…
And what devious tactic did they use to win those important victories? Well, they started by just writing more interesting stuff than their arch-enemies did. Seriously, if you’re an obnoxious asshole who makes a point of not giving a shit about the kind of issues that inspire people to write stuff, that kind of puts you at an unfair disadvantage relative to people who care enough to think of scenarios and stuff to write about…
Heavy metal fans are some of the whiniest and most sensitive people I have met. Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY for a metal variation which has “true” metal fans foaming at the mouth.
When did #gamergate thrash anyone? (in the sense of some permanent victory). GGers are at this point like those guys in the South who insist that the US civil war was “round one”.
I’m guessing those three dots right at the top of graph B would be WIS 1, 2 and 3.
I don’t get it, Baby Metal ain’t my riff but then neither is technical death metal. Steel Panther is a bigger blight on music as far as I’m concerned.
Of course everyone is listening to the Cure.. whatever PZ listens to resonates throughout the hivemind.
We will always have roughly even numbers of men and women, so more equality is great and achievable.
In the long run, I fear for racial diversity. If whites and non-whites continue fraternizing, we’ll get all mixed up and we’ll start admitting more and more people in to the whities club. We’ve already let in Quebecers, Italians, Irish, Jews, Germans, various Slavs, and assorted Catholics; latinos, arabs, east asians, and north indians are bound to follow within a generation or two.
Throw in some sexy times and it’s just going to get impossible for kids to memorize their hatred tables in school.
‘Cos there’s No Girls In Heavy Metal, amirite?
I wonder what these idiots would make of symphonic metal; most of the bands in that genre have female vocalists, many of them classically trained…
Stand strong metalheads!
Just ask yourself WWPBD!? (What would Pat Boone Do!?)
The bulk of my experience with metal comes from the time I dated – for about a year – a fan of Scandinavian death metal, which is apparently 90% screaming over pounding rhythms surprisingly light-hearted songs about unicorns and other assorted mythological beings.
Zoe Quinn had a round-up of niche metal on her blog a few months ago. Not sure what’s the maddest: the dinosaur-metal, the polka-metal or the Japanese idol-metal…
Esteleth: Unicorns, yes, and Norse gods — there seems to be a huge Asatru contingent among death-metal fans. I saw a video of one such band doing a song that had a chorus about Valhalla…and the audience kept on singing along with the chorus after the song ended, and didn’t stop when the band tried to start the next song.
And don’t even get me started on the wrap “music”! #shakesfist #getoffamylawn
Not sure what’s the maddest: the dinosaur-metal, the polka-metal or the Japanese idol-metal…
I’m sure all of it was a lot more interesting than the white-American hate-metal.
I’ve heard it referred to as “Cookie Monster vocals” :-)
I used to be into Grindcore, but some of the “let’s-be-repulsively-outrageous-just-for-the-sake-of-it” shtick got old. Still like early Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror (and a little Bolt Thrower).
I remember a time before Heavy Metal when Quick Silver Messenger Service came out then others like Lead Zeppelin followed but I have not followed it much, but from what I have seen the hard core fans are if nothing else tending toward a purist attitude and fragmentation , Maybe I don’t know what it is other than too loud for my ears.
The big jerks, drunks and dope heads seem to be even more obnoxious though if not more in number in that fandom.
uncle frogy
I haven’t had much chance or desire to listen to metal, except at one point in uni when I got a CD with all albums of Blind Guardian from a friend and decided it was good study music.
Listening to it now, I think it will work as work music as well.
Hey, sexists metal fans – another feminists on your lawn. Mwahaha!
@Cat Mara #19:
Thanks very much for that introduction to Nightwish — they’ll certainly keep me going for this evening! May I offer a little Threshold in return?
So, I worked at Roadrunner Records for six years, currently work at a distributor with Nuclear Blast Records and Relapse Records as clients (amongst others), I read all the metal news sites, and have lots of other friends who are metalheads (including my partner). That’s just my way of saying I’m informed an in the space.
Neither she nor I even heard about this #metalgate nonsense. It’s not even a blip on the radar of the general metal community as far as I can see.
UnknownEric the Apostate @27: My own tests probably run more Goth/industrial than metal but I also listen to a lot of ambient music as anything with a beat or vocals rapidly becomes distracting. I came across this ambient act called Lull a while back that’s actually a side-project of Napalm Death’s former drummer! It’s, um, different to Napalm Death.
@Raging Bee #23
That’s more black metal than death metal, but if you’re not a fan of metal than those two subgenres are virtually indistinguishable (and I don’t recommend newcomers try and figure out the difference).
But metal is definitely one of the most male-centric genres out there, and it can take the idea of exaggerated masculinity to some extremes that are both strange and hilarious–just look at any Manowar cover if you don’t believe me. And they do this while simultaneously pissing off people who think long hair and leather clothing are the polar opposite of manliness (to say nothing of good taste). And you can trace much of this back to Judas Priest and singer Rob Halford; a guy with an image manly enough to some metalheads that they were pretty upset when he came out in the ’90s. Apparently it never occurred to them that he might be getting his stage clothes from leather shops and Priest lyrics were less than heteronormative.
I briefly looked up metalgate and all I can say is… they must listen to a different kind of metal from me. I mostly listen to drone metal, and a lot of it’s instrumental. Sometimes I’m amazed that death metal is even in the same genre.
@frugaltoque & Cat Mara
This cough drop commercial from Finland might be to your liking then, though some metal vocalists purposely get as clear and as high-pitched as in the ad. (I also find it funny because the fake band looks so much like Norwegian band Immortal, minus the cough drops).
Captaintripps@31: I’m not surprised you haven’t heard about this; if We Hunted the Mammoth are to be believed, it’s already crashing and burning like all the other GamerGater efforts to co-opt others in propagating their nonsense.
It was only a couple of a weeks ago that they were apparently trying the same thing out on Tumblr because, to every GG-er, all Tumblr users are a saucer-eyed flibbertigibbets that can be reprogrammed into a drone army by just the right application of cat videos and memes. Strangely enough, their “op” failed.
Now they’re trying it on with the metal community. To every GG-er, metalheads are greasy, hairy, barely articulate subhumans who will be roused into a berserker rage when they hear that filthy wimminz are infiltrating their ranks to emasculate them!
I think that this is one of the reasons that GG is unable to get any traction beyond its core demographic of disgruntled and entitled man-babies– you know, apart from it being hateful misogynist bullshit and any rational human being who hasn’t been immersed in the stew of resentment and self-pity that is gamer culture is capable of seeing it as such when they’re told about it. That is, they treat everyone who doesn’t identify as a gamer with contempt, as an intellectual inferior who can be manipulated into being an ally. Pretty much like the way the PUA types treat women, in other words. Which is probably why it’s no surprise why PUA types like Roosh are circling like vultures attracted to a particularly succulent batch of roadkill…
There’s a paper on this! *mad cackling* For science!!! :-)
Does black metal count? Because the lyrics of this song are pretty easy to follow while you read them.
Thread won.
Some of the most proggresive people i’ve met have been metalheads. Then again, i’ve also met my fair share of toxic masculinity worshipping arseholes.
By far, the most gay-friendly people i knew growing up were metalheads and goths…also a fair amount of feminists and of course, not surprisingly, most of them atheists.
There’s all sorts in metal…some people are absolutely awesome, some are insuferable bastards…I find that the worst things in metal are born from toxic masculinity, but fortunately it doesn’t dominate.
As a metalhead myself, i would love to see metal cleaned up a bit, some of the corners are a bit filthy and the basement is clogged with cobwebs. In my experience, though, it’s not even remotely near as bad as the gamer community…i find it hilarious that these opportunistic gamergater arseholes are so clueless about metal that they think they are going to find an ally there…
I was driving through Cleveland and scanned my radio until I landed on something non-talk, non-polka (oh yes, in Cleveland), non-country, etc. I landed on a rock station that was having a metal hour.
And it took me about 40 minutes of driving before I realized that they weren’t just playing one extended cut from an album. There were actually several songs played…all in the same key, all with the same tempo, and the same rhythm, and the same guitar work, and the same drum work. Vocals all sounded pretty much the same, though I have to declare I wasn’t listening to the lyrics.
I have nothing against metal, per se. It’s just that it’s all so…samey. Small doses and then off to something else.
Get off my lawn, ya darn kids!
Well, Kevin, if we judged music solely by what is played on the radio…
Cat Mara:
No kidding. I was particularly impressed by this gator, quoted at WHTM:
I almost don’t notice the hilariously overwrought imagery any more, since it seems an inevitable part of GG writing. Instead, I was struck by the fact that the writer barely bothers to conceal his low opinion of metal fans. The message is “leave the thinky stuff to us, and let us use you as a goon squad”. If I were a metalhead, I wouldn’t know whether to be insulted, or amused at the naivety.
Rich Woods@30: I haven’t heard of Threshold before, they’re very old-school. Definitely predating the fashion for Cookie Monster vocals!
HolyPinkUnicorn@35 :-D
Moggie@41:
Yeah, that’s it. The arrogance and condescension dripping from every GG utterance is repugnant.
Mind you, I could probably match them for arrogance and possibly overtake them. I’m a programmer but was never much of a gamer. It was always more interesting to me how to write a game than play it. When I see gamer posturing my first thought is, “fuck you guys! Most of you can’t even program! You sit in the dark for hours mashing buttons! You’re not a higher form of life, you’re a fucking bipedal Skinner-box rodent!”
See what I mean about arrogance? ;-)
Cat Mara @ 19:
Well, it’s not really enough to have women there; the way Tarja Turunen was kicked out of Nightwish has way too many shades of ‘entitled nice guy’ to it for me to feel easy. (Not to mention that shifting away from the reliance on her vocals pretty much means it’s not the same band any more. Not worse, but … different.)
Raging Bee @ 23:
I’ll raise you one: Valhöll is a song written in the language of the Eddas, using the same poetic forms. Miðgarðsormur is another sample; in addition to the poetic forms, it also has a fairly substantial segment with a sort of solo chanting that is known to have been extensively used by the vikings. (Both are live recordings of … questionable quality.)
And to the side, it’s worth noting that plenty of bands with apparently reactionary imagery and the like are pretty much on the opposite end of politics. Rammstein, to name a particular example, is at times rather sharply to the left in their lyrics, despite projecting an image that people readily link to neonazis…
Some of the links over at WHTM have been fun. These kids rock, particularly the drummer. She’s not quite at Kanade Sato’s level yet, but I’m sure she’s going places.
odin:
Ah, Rammstein: Laibach for children!
Moggie @ 46:
Well, yes. Or as I thought of it in this case, “a band that non-metalheads might actually have heard of”. ;)
Not to mention Doro Pesch, who has a career spanning decades.
With the amount of non-white, homosexual and non-male people in metal, metalgate is already a lost cause for the assholes. I suggest they hide in their basement, spend their days listening to megadeth and leave the rest of us alone.
@ PZ Myers
Well, some of them… Battlelore, Finntroll, Nightwish and Wintersun.
@ 23 Raging Bee
VALHAALAAA Deliverance. have you ever forgotten me; VALHAALAAA Deliverance. have you ever forgotten me; VALHAALAAA Deliverance. have you ever forgotten me; VALHAALAAA Deliverance. have you ever forgotten me; VALHAALAAA Deliverance. have you ever forgotten me; VALHAALAAA Deliverance. have you ever forgotten me;
Sorry, could not resist. Thats Bling Guardian by the way, \m/
Every time someone mentions metal music, I immediately think of this guy (NSFW for language), even thought the metal part is just the beginning.
Just highlighting some great women in metal (mostly Doom/Stoner, since that’s my current jam):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSelURcwkb8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4__G5D7jQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ8qww8EDk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oMvgrEgx0c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X76wGjwCIT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH23TOSC4AY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAoftOLnWk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN1XPtsXK0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5rpanoY8QA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siMwaFeJZdc
I like me some metal
I especially love Nightwish
Where I live there’s a rock radio station that plays a lot of metal. It’s mostly a one-woman-show. There’s also the weekly rock and metal segment on the public radio youth station. Moderated by, you guess, a young woman.
Though, for some sorts of death metal a friend of mine once came up with the following definition: the lead guitarist overtakes the drummer and the singer pukes into the microphone.
Ah, I’ve always thought that the “Rammstein? Haven’t you heard of Laibach then?” thing smacks of hipster-ier-than-thou posing. Children, don’t fight! There’s room for more than one German-speaking-parody-fascist-industrial band!
Yeah, I had an acquaintance who I think missed the point – he was (is?) a huge fan… of Rammstein and Nazis.
Cat Mara @ 53:
Considering that description seems to apply to just about all of German metal music, I’d certainly hope so.
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought@54: Well, that’s the problem with Nazis; they aren’t at all bright. Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream was on the American Nazi Party’s recommended reading list for years before they twigged it was a parody…
Rammstein faschist? Wait What????????
You know, just because they sing in german does not mean they are nazis :)
Ah, Nightwish, one of my very favourites, and perhaps the band i listened to the most for many years, although when Tarja left i admit i went back to being an irrational 15 year old again and refused to give the new line-up a chance…like a child….
So, is it any good? xD
I probably should reconsider because after all i found out a few months ago about Tuomas’ solo album ” Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge”, and it is fucking epic…i did not see that coming at all….
Anyway, plenty of strong women in metal, which is great news for me since i typically prefer bands with female lead singers :D Unfortunately, women are overwhelmingly underrepresented in any other capacity…to the point of being extremely rare, in fact…
Coincidentally, this just appeared in my Twitter feed. A canned food drive? Why, that sounds like social justice to me!
I’m a metalhead and the issue kind of strikes home. I never really cared for lyrics, but lately it struck me that there’s a lot of stupidity going on. For instance I really like the music of Aeon’s ‘Aeon Black’, but the (frequent) use of ‘faggot’ really begins to dampen that mood. Most metalheads I know are really nice guys, but it cannot be denied it’s a scene in which machismo is rather rampant.
Bramhengeveld, i know what you mean. I’d say my favourite metal band has always been Sonata Arctica, i just fucking love their music, what can i say. However, there are a couple songs that reek of mysogyny and machismo and even though i love the music, the lyrics make me gnash my teeth…
I was just enjoying the thought that the gamergaters just keep misjudging who their allies are xDD I mean, they thought the likes of Will Wheaton and Patton Oswalt would be on their side….now it’s metalheads….. And who is actually on their side, Roosh V, Milo Pieceofshitpoulos and other rancid, human pustules of that ilk. The people on their side are non-gamers who think gamers are pathetic losers…..and the people who are either nerds, gamers or sympathetic to them, see them for the gigantic mountain of shite they are. It’s just…..so beautiful…..
Egads, whatever are overgrown adolescents to do? Huddle in the nearest Hooters and wait for the final battle while watching “Heavy Metal” the movie perhaps? You will not be missed.
Why would any one want to take over something as culturally irrelevant as heavy metal music?
Don’t forget Arkona – Russian band with a kickarse female lead. Saw them in Norway in 2010 and she was great!
I can’t believe no one’s brought up Within Temptation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhzJO34SCoc
@59 azhael
I’ve always thought new Nightwish sounded quite similar to Evanescence. Good, yes, but I honestly like Tarja better.
On the general transparency of this effort to rile up a little rage, see also the earlier WHTM thing. Basis of the initial ‘the SJW army is coming for your metal’ silliness is: a 2006 Washington Post article and a sentence in Spin mentioning progressive (in the political/social sense, nothing to do with prog rock) movements within metal…
Yes. 2006. Leading me to figure if this somehow weren’t the sorry pretext it does so very much appear to be, that these guys are perhaps just very slow readers?
(Hard to say. But anyway, just in case, maybe we should be careful bringing them up to speed on stuff too quickly? Might be some kinda terminal culture shock if they find out women are now also permitted to drive horseless carriages, board steam ships unaccompanied, and so forth.)
In case anybody thinks all Dutch metal bands with female vocalists are of the symphonic variety, I give you Izegrim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOpVzyUW0c
And my favourite band, Autumn:
@68 Ha, Izegrim, I like their latest album pretty much! And let’s not forget Arch Enemy when we’re showing off our knowledge of metal bands with female vocalists :)
@62; that apparent mismatch between what people think and who actually is on their side was also quite painfull to watch in the ‘shirtgate’.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Arch Enemy or The Project Hate MCMXCIX yet. Arch Enemy’s lead singer is a woman, and one of my 5 favorite death metal vocalists. Project Hate has Jörgen Sandström for the growly vocals and Ellinor Asp for clean vocals. That being said, I realize that these two data points do not disprove the statement that toxic masculinity is prevalent in metal culture. I like to hope that there is a degree of satire to it, but I don’t know for sure.
Also, I’d like to state that we want to sacrifice all innocents to our Dark Lord Satan, regardless of ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other human-defined divisions. So this metal gate thing was doomed from the start.
And here we have bramhengeveld beating me to Arch Enemy. Kudos, my fellow human.
Let’s be honest: #metalgate is never going to take off. Metalheads are too busy excommunicating each other over the types of metal they listen to, and branding bands that get too popular as sellouts, so they don’t have anywhere near the time to worry about something trivial like that. I don’t even think the neonazi metalheads would be interested enough to take up that particular mantle.
I do find it amusing that the source for this incursion into heavy metal was an article from eight years ago. If they wanted a musical form that has seen criticism for being misogynistic (and homophobic/transphobic/etc), then rap has taken a quite a bit of heat recently. Of course, since stormfront and other white supremacists feature rather prominently in gamergate, that would never happen.
I get “tiresome.” Thin-skinned scumbags have no endurance for occasionally being told they are acting like scumbags. But “toxic”? Where’s the supposed harm in getting SJW’d at? You have to hear that your political opposites don’t respect you? You have slightly less ability to espouse your hate in private, regulated spaces that are not yours?
I’ve seen this used several times lately. Seems like it’s yet another bizarro appropriation of SJ language for tu quoque arguments that make so little sense as to quickly starve the term of its original meaning. What a nuisance.
Re: Rammstein=fascist, observe the lyrics of this song where they specifically say they are lefties:
http://herzeleid.com/en/lyrics/mutter#links_234
I was somewhat skeptical about Baby Metal, but that Chocolate song is catchy!
My personal preferences run towards Doom/Stoner/Sludge metal, with heavy emphasis on the fucking Trope Codifiers — Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the like.
Nightwish has replaced the singer that replaced Tarja–with Floor Jansen, who has sang with Epica. Her vocals are a much better fit for the band than Annette’s.
http://youtu.be/3yLMAxmlVNI
And Gamergaters greatly overestimate their “wins” in gaming, too. No matter how much they’ve whined about the gay romance options in Mass Effect 3, it didn’t stop Bioware from putting in even more options in Dragon Age Inquisition. They haven’t been able to stop game designers and developers from publically indicating support for Anita Sarkeesian, etc. Their only real “win” was getting Intel to pull their advertising from Gamasutra, which was reversed a few weeks later.
So, yeah, these assholes make a lot of noise, and think they’re winning, but they’re not. It’s good to see a little data that indicates that misogynist atheists seem to be losing, too, despite their extreme noise output.
Ironically, Dave Mustaine turned into a Ted Nugent-style right wing nutjob.
If by “historical verisimilitude” you mean “a view of history filtered by racism and sexism”.
AJ Milne wrote:
My favorite part of that post: where someone posted Green Day in support of #metalgate. I wouldn’t even know where to start with that. Green Day certainly isn’t heavy metal, and the song clearly doesn’t mean what the poster seems to think it means. It’d be comical if it weren’t so sad.
Eh. I have a former acquaintance who defined “heavy metal” as “any rock-and-roll-derived music which uses electronic distortion.” I think that’s kind of a facile definition, though…
@ck
Poe?
Crip Dyke @1 I see what you did there.
But if people “buy” SJWism, won’t that just lead to a Symphony of Destruction?
lindsay @77
That video was shot at the German Wacken festival, a long standing rock and metal festival. Look at the crowd. Looks like those pesky women are already participating in that oh so male culture and enjoying themselves.
I guess they’re all just fake metal girls who go there to get the handsome metal dudes and who will turn them into romantic soft rock zombies the minute they’re under the thrall of the ladyparts
Reading this thread, I now feel awfully aged and old-skool. Ho-hum.
Supposedly, the whole metalgate “scandal” is about some article by a metalhead saying that metalheads should stop using homophobic and racist slurs. That’s obviously non-controversial, but some paranoid fuckheads apparently are afraid of some “SJW invasion” or some conspiracy theory shit. I don’t know. It’s hard to find info on metalgate since it’s just so not a thing. I’m pretty sure it’s an excuse for idiots to talk shit about social justice, so business as usual from internet fuckheads.
Also, Nightwish is fucking awesome, as is female-fronted metal in general. Bands like Epica, Delain, Amaranthe and others are pretty damn good, IMHO.
Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too @79:
“Turned”? Mustaine was always a fuckwit. I remember hearing from some of my metalhead friends about an incident at a Megadeth concert in Belfast back in the 80s (when the Troubles were still ongoing) where Mustaine gave a rambling and ignorant speech supporting the IRA between songs. As concerts were probably one of the few neutral venues where young people from both sides of a very bitter conflict could meet and not get murdered, this did not go down well.
If we’re playing the “not all Dutch metal bands with female singers are symphonic”-game, let me present you Acrostichon, with singer Corinne.
Like hell! There were a few girls (I considered myself a boy back then) whom I was terrified of — if they stepped into the pit, I got the hell out. They were dangerous.
Oh, and thanks for introducing Baby Metal to me somewhere upstream. They are amazing!
Re Baby Metal
Fantastic!
Over the years I’ve had the chance to listen to a few Japanese bands and the more I see , the more I realize that they aren’t just “not quite getting” western music in a “cute way”, but that they’re cleverly satirizing it.
Pizzicato 5, Shonen Knife or 5 6 7 8’s anyone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z22nzBVLCto&index=3&list=RDlB-2IzAZk90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03jU7hvdelE
Thanks for the Metalgate heads up. Well done, “Terrorizer”, your big gay issue kicked the right wanky little hornet’s nest. Social Justice Warriors (of the World)!
Glad you like all that symphonic lot, however…that’s not optimum.
Thing about metal, or extreme metal anyway is that it’s really good indicator of who, and who is not allowed to be that flagrantly angry in this bloody awful stacked heirarchy of a society.
You’ll notice, no shit..that it’s mostly just white dudes.
Try being irate and black and they will find ways of shutting that down. Leaving no option but to express the most fucking righteous anger in carefully articulated words, with carefully articulate rhymes and well choreographed dancy parts, when they should have every right to flailing, inarticulate rage. And that’s not healthy.
Admittedly, honing a bunch of men to idealise violence…not healthy either. But this is what happens if people insist on imposing a gender binary ideal based more on “traits useful to being land owning/inheriting Aristocracy, in cramped conditions and with no contraceptives” than on anything remotely resembling “what people might be like.”
So, we all must cope with that.
Anyway, back to “who is and who is not allowed to be that angry.” Hopefully, all the other women will have noticed that it’s really not us either. Beyonce said “Pretty Hurts” but not nearly as much knowing that you only get to publicly express that hurt on stage…if everyone tells you you’re pretty first. The recurring parade of glorious caged songbirds and the inoffesively cute, as the men all get to look like the back ends of dedraggled cats and sound, er, like the front ends …yeah it gets irritating after a while. Making Babymetal approximately as irritating as kneeling on a plug.
Fortunately, I’m in this for the cathartic outletting of rage and Gallhammer also exist.
Also “female fronted” is kind of irritating too. “Vocalist” will do. With Cradle of Filth style, overly poetic descriptions of what they do, if you must insist.
Err…thanks for the Dutch bands. Here symphonic fans, have proggy old Scandinavians “In the Woods…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VxA2YwR2k0
Because I like ellipses.
PS; sod it, I don’t know how to attach videos.
That’s right, only my music is good music. I will defend my youtube created mix to the death.
(Hozier, Neil Diamond, Alicia Keys, Fleetwood Mac, AWOLNATION, Bob Seger, Liz Phair, Arctic Monkeys etc.)
Seriously, though.
I can never understand a single word of anything anyone has ever labelled “metal” and shown to me so I’d have a tough time getting offended over it.
Lindsay – Floor Jansen sang with After Forever, not Epica. Mark Jansen however was kicked out of After Forever and founded Epica.
WMDKitty – I recommend checking out “Cultura Tres”, Venezuelan sludgey goodness.
Also, check out the sadly defunct Morning:
erikschepers @95
Thanks for the correction–I got confused because Floor sang a few shows with Epica:
http://youtu.be/g8RT0B3-6SQ
If you Spotify, I keep a few metal playlists going:
Women in Metal
Symphonic Metal
Viking Metal
Power Metal
Doom Metal
Death Metal
Check and check.
Wait, if all my social justice warrioring counts as “nothing”, what the fuck are you complaining about? Also, mixing the singular and plural makes me cringe: we don’t all have the same life, so it should be “lives”.
Check. I very much hope my political ideology is toxic to hateful or exploitative assholes and tiresome to their apologists.
Yeah, it’s not so much that we’ve taken over, it’s that we’ve been here all along, but you’re slightly less ignorant/self-absorbed than you used to be, so you’ve noticed us. Also, we’re being louder, because fuck politeness in the face of injustice.
ck @78
Two words: Alien: Isolation. This game doesn’t just feature a woman as the hero, an actual woman, someone only trying to do her job, who curses when she falls down a hole and hurts herself, or gets scared when she sees the result of a chestburster for or, you know, actually sweats. Oh no, this game is all about Amanda Ripley.
This pretty much sums it up: http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/17/6990623/alien-isolation-feminism-ripley
This sounds a lot like social justice as well, brought to you by all your favourite Dutch symphonic metal musicians.
You may have heard that Richard Dawkins (of all people) will be featured on the new Nightwish album, presumably as some sort of narrator. Interestingly, when he was approached by the band, they apparently found out that he was already familiar with their music. At least I’m not expecting him to read out “Dear Muslima” and rant against SJWs, as the title of the album is taken from “The Origin of Species” and Tuomas Holopainen, who seems to have read a couple of RD’s pop-sci books (such as “The Magic of Reality”, I believe) lately, was going to be a marine biologist (hence “A Return to the Sea”, the curious but charming bonus track from the debut, with its weird lyrics name-dropping a badly misspelt Anomalocaris) when the success of his band made that career option obselete.
Epica have of course gone the religion-critical/pro-science path before, already from their 2003 debut, with the religion-critical theme continued from Mark Jansen’s old band After Forever. (And Dawkins popular evo-bio books were already the inspiration for the excellent prog-rock album “Unweaving the Rainbow”, by Henning Pauly’s Frameshift project, featuring Dream Theater’s James LaBrie on vocals. There was once talk of an album titled “The God Delusion” based on the infamous book, but no news about it for a long time. Not sure if RD is aware of either, but I’d expect him to.)
As a further aside: Progressive rock (originally the name for what we’d call psychedelic or acid rock, although the boundaries are of course fuzzy), in fact, was indeed called like that because it came from hippies with progressive political stances, though the same is true for metal (witness Black Sabbath), which shares its origin in psychedelic/acid rock. The anti-authoritarian, rebellious stance of metal is clear hippie heritage.
I forgot to mention that LaBrie is religious and said he didn’t really agree with Dawkins’s message (does that mean he is a creationist? Or just doesn’t agree with the “selfish gene” concept?), but went on to sing the lyrics anyway. I thought that was a quite remarkable anecdote.
Oh, and if anyone were to assume that Mark Jansen writes all the anti-religion/pro-science lyrics in Epica and Simone Simons only the touchy-feely ones, they’d be wrong.