Alex Gonzalez recently published an editorial on Noiseporn.com discussing Juggalos. This is actually a very positive editorial detailing why it is stupid to hate Juggalos just for being a Juggalo. This article also questions why it is ok to be a little monster or paint your face to go to a sporting event but when a juggalo paints they’re face it draws instant dislike. This is a very good read. My little introduction does not do it any justice.
From Noise Porn:
ICP, comprised of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, are the only remaining artists that really get it. First, they’re a duo that, in my humble opinion, hangs with the duos of Hall and Oats, Simon and Garfunkel, and two of the guys from Baha Men. The reason I say this is because, from the ground up they’ve created a cult so large and so encompassing that’s its almost a minority you can check off on a Scantron. Are you Latino? Pacific Islander? Juggalo? And to many of the their followers, they’re revered as religious icons. And if you actually listen to their music, you can understand why.
Hear me out. Their music may not be your style (you scrub) but the messages they get across in their songs resonate with a demographic like nothing I’ve seen before. They rap about feeling estranged from society for being different, never getting the girl in the end, and how your homies are your real family when your biological one may not accept you. And sure, those aren’t exactly new topics in music, but in their approach to relate to their fans, they forego any peaceful and rational coping method and jump right to the primal, carnal, I-just-wanna-stab-everyone-I’m-so-frustrated emotion. In doing so, they abandon any inhibitions of who they are and how they feel sometimes and, whereas some people may be embarrassed about how they feel, ICP liberates them and tells them there is a whole Family Flava just like them.
In the rap game there’s an undeniable machismo. Usually tracks revolve around killing so and so and stepping to him or her for whatever reason they have. And at the start, ICP wasn’t too different in terms of violent lyrics, but now they’ve grown into referencing their own subculture, and alluding to themselves in a meta layering that only intensifies and reinforces their acknowledgment of, “Yes, we know this is weird, and no, we don’t care.” They rap about how they love downing Faygo, the actual definition of a Juggalo and how their brotherhood is all you need. They very much know who they are and how they act and their fans are obviously loyal as hell because their leaders don’t deny them and are not embarrassed.
Quite frankly, the hate for the Juggalos is really stupid and has grown to be a bandwagon of the worse kind. Not even a bandwagon, really, a torch-lit lynch mob that only hate people for how they dress and how they are, and mainly because somebody told them to. I mean, I don’t understand how it’s totally OK for people to rally behind Lady Gaga (who dresses just as crazy) and call themselves her Little Monsters, but a misunderstood teen can’t wear face paint and rally behind ICP. It’s no different than when you and your friends paint up and go to a sporting event. You go and you do it because it’s fun, and, for whatever reason, you identify with it, and you probably had good memories with it, and it means something to you.
People need to stop shitting on Juggalos. Because when you wear furry boots and fishnets and glow sticks and go to a rave, you’re not any cooler. Or when you wear tweed jackets with elbow patches and only listen to things nobody has ever heard of, you’re not any cooler. Or even when you dress up and go see an opera, you’re still not any cooler (and we all know you have no idea what they’re saying, so give it a rest). When you resist them and refuse their existence, they only grow stronger because that’s why they formed in the first place. It’s like a Chinese Finger Trap–the more you hate on them and pull away the stronger they become. If you just relax a little, I’m sure you’ll see how much everyone’s freaking out over nothing.
To read the full article click the link below.
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