Things You Just Don't Say To Metalheads

Let's face it- we live in a world where everybody talks about how open-minded they are, and how they don't believe in stereotypes, but metalheads are still mocked and are still prejudiced against by a good percentage of ignorant people. Such is hypocrisy at the finest, and I hear statements like the following far too often than I should for a world where everybody allegedly respects the tastes and beliefs of others.

1. "Are you drunk or stoned?"

Everybody has bad days or days when they are not feeling well and this is not a nice thing to say to anybody, even somebody who has a reputation for being this way. It is a harsh character judgement and implies you abuse substances to avoid coping with reality. Especially to a metalhead, this is a tremendous insult because it implies that you are a directionless degenerate just because of the music you listen to. Let me just say this, Kanye West is more likely to provide the soundtrack to a teenager's dropping out of high school than Black Sabbath.

2. "It's only metal. It doesn't mean anything."

Music is a source of inspiration and guidance to everybody to some degree. Just because somebody listens to metal doesn't mean that they aren't getting as many morals out of their music as somebody who listens to gospel music. It's all in your interpretation of things. 

3. "This song was written a long time ago. It's content is obsolete."

Many challenges faced by humanity nowadays were the same ones faces by humans a long time ago. The song might be old but the issues addressed remain the same. Why is the speakers voice any less important just because it occurred some time ago?

4. "Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a dove/bit the head off a bat/urinated on the Alamo/etc."

Freaking get over it. Did it hurt YOU in any way?

5. "This music is terribly satanic."

Nobody took satanism seriously. It was all a part of an image and of publicity stunts. Many metal musicians come from strictly religious and proper households and maintained that lifestyle in their free time.

"I don't wear a pentagram because I worship the devil. I wear a pentagram to piss people off." -Nikki Sixx

6. "Rock stars exploit women."

It isn't exploitation if it's voluntary. Don't judge the whole sex of females by the actions of these women, look at them as individuals whose actions are only affecting themselves.

7. "I don't understand the makeup/hair/costumes."

I don't understand Lady Gaga's meat dress or why all of One Direction dress the same way.

8. "Musicians make more money than they deserve."

A large percentage of musicians donate money to charity or even run their own organizations. Tons of them are spokespeople for important causes. Not to mention they work their asses off touring and making a name out of themselves and that they deserve any penny they get, and not to mention the fact that not all of them have as much money as you'd think they do.

9. "Pop music is better."

Playing good heavy metal requires skill, talent and effort. Pop music requires computer and some geek who knows how to use one. Any questions?

10. "You must not be all too smart because you listen to this kind of music."

I have no idea how metal fans became associated with stupidity because, I can assure you, the grand majority are not. Ones taste in music does not necessarily reflect their IQ.

Metalhead prejudice still an issue

     I don't mean to sound like yet another teenage metal fan who is convinced the world disrespects them because they are young, listen to heavy metal and wear a lot of black, by saying that adults in the world do not understand us and think we're a problem when we're really not, but well, it's true- the world does have a terribly unfair paradigm of metalheads as being bad news, and I'm really sick of it.

     I fall victim to this kind of prejudice every day. When I go out with my parents, they tell me to look respectable and to act well behaved and like a good girl. Especially when meeting people for the first time, they always yell at me to take my makeup off before we leave the house. The makeup in question here is not even heavy black eye makeup, but fun and goofy stuff like say, silver or gold eyeliner. Harmless. Yet even my own parents think that the way I appear on the outside and come across superficially is more important than my right to express myself and my individuality by the way I dress.

     Sorry for the rant here, but after all, this blog is called Rock and Roll Ramblings, and was named that for a reason! And this is hardly a personal rant either because I know a lot of people go through the same thing. I am far from being alone. 

     Beyond my parents, the teachers hate it too. As can be expected from people who have such little life experience and brain power as teachers, they're practically afraid of anything that moves, and the idea of an independently thinking individual human being in the public school system is enough to positively drive them up the wall. One of my teachers laughs outright at my outfits when she passes me in the halls, she marks my papers with an air of contempt, and tries to cut me down whenever she can- all her efforts are wasted because she never got to my head, and all her behaviour is made even more senseless because I am the top student in her class, and my grade is so much higher than everybody else's that I'm keeping the whole class average way up. She raises her eyebrows at the Mötley Crüe shirts and holds it against me, even though I am not a troublemaker, and I never started the problems in her classroom. She just always looks at me first when things go wrong.

     So why is everybody so fast to point their fingers at the kid who listens to metal when things go wrong? Do kids who listen to metal and dress and act the part actually burn down buildings, or worship Satan? Do people honestly still believe that musicians sell their souls for talent and that rock and roll is the devil's music? Can you give me some good examples of times when heavy metal music pursuaded people to do horrible, nasty things? This and so many other questions unanswered are the reason why I'm not asleep right now even though I really ought to be.

     I'm not a bad person. I'm a very, very good person. People who look past my exterior and my lifestyle and who know ME, not my taste in pop culture, well, know that I'm a loyal, happy person who will do anything for a friend and whom has helped out many people in need in her seventeen short years on the planet. People who are able to ignore my love for heavy metal love me. Everybody who actually knows me loves me. But too many people won't have anything to so with me because they find the idea of somebody who listens to metal too intimidating, and they think I'm dangerous. All those people who don't get to know people for being metalheads are truly depriving themselves of wonderful experiences and friendships, because I know what I'm talking about when I say that metalheads are among the best people you'll ever meet in your life, and if you don't believe me, it's your problem, your loss, and not ours.