Negation Aspiration vol. 58

Metal has a very difficult time self-examining, which is probably going to lead to undiagnosed testicular cancer later in life. If you bring up the issues of women in metal being treated poorly, you’re met with a choir of “white knight,” “faggot,” or the hot buzz word of the contemporary moron, “cuck.” If you try to decry racism in metal, you’re met with similar resistance. Or, on the other side, if you stay apolitical or try to have a rational discourse on challenging subjects, you run the chance that ANTIFA will toss a smoke bomb into your show and fuck up everyone’s makeup, which I suppose doubles as an assault on capitalism (unless they used money to buy the bomb). It seems like every few days there’s another headline about bands getting their shit pushed in because they once walked by someone with repugnant political views in a hallway somewhere, and thus they deserve to get a show cancelled or, worse, have their personal information shitted out onto the internet so their personal safety is put in jeopardy. It almost feels like there’s no winning with anyone, because someone will always take some kind of offense to you, which used to be one of the tenets of punk and metal, but now is just another hassle that either brings out the loudest (and dumbest) elements of the far right and left, and leaves those who value critical thinking and discourse over sloganeering looking for the nearest exit.

STUPIDITY, APATHY AND CONFORMITY ARE RUINING METAL