So. I was just thinking about the terms Juffalo and Juggahoe, those old derogatory gems we use to disparage, demean and discredit those who we deemed fake or unworthy of our culture. It’s fallen out of fashion lately, at least around my way. I consider this a good thing- when I was coming up many a pointless dramatic spat flew under the banner of who was ‘real’ or not (and more often than not the true genesis of these bitchfits had more to do with having designs on a female to steal or impress). The Juggalo underground has grown tenfold since then, and the parameters of what defines a ‘real’ Juggalo have grown ever more cloudy- even though it was always subjective to begin with. In my old circle we had defining standards that weren’t too rigid or unreasonable: You had to know ICP’s music, know the Joker’s Cards and have some kind of idea of what they mean. If you were more of a Twiztid or Blaze mark, that was fine too, but naming the cards was still required if you didn’t wanna get clowned on. 

Of course we’re grown now with real shit to worry about, so those kinds of petty and stupid concerns fall to the wayside. Yet… the fundamental idea of a Juffalo- someone pretending to be a Juggalo- is real, regardless of whatever arbitrary standards we apply to it. In this thread, let’s share some true life stories of real Juffalos we’ve happened across. I have plenty.

#1. Artie Flowers

 My first true blue encounter with a Juffie. And yes, that was his real name and he was every bit of cringe as it implies. Artie discovered Juggalos by accident, when he purchased a Wraith shirt from Hot Topic because he liked the design and discovered it comes with a free crew of strangers who all of the sudden approached him and gave him free weed. As soon as he came around, cats who knew him previously were like ‘Fuck him’ because he was formerly an obnoxious yoboy wigger, a stereotypical Eminem dickrider and generally insufferable ass. I gave ‘the new and improved’ Artie Flowers the begrudging benefit of the doubt, to see if he might integrate as a true Juggalo because I knew it wasn’t unheard of for teenagers to reinvent themselves. Oh, but Artie…Artie Fuckboy Flowers, there was never hope for him. His Juggafied persona only ratcheted his jackass behavior up to 11. He started telling people to call him ‘Juggalo Ice’ (not happening your name is Artie Flowers), started shit talking Eminem (while continuing to bump him in private, which he got called out on. Not because we really gave a fuck that he listened to Em, but because he was all Anne Frank about it), and further renounced his wanksta ways by stirring shit up with anybody who listened to hiphop that wasn’t raprock, apparently thinking Juggalos were some kind of militant rap metal movement. “If you don’t rep for ICP, Korn or Limp Bizkit you ain’t shit!” His high visibility cornball antics not only misrepresented us, but also made us look bad by extension. Eventually older ninjas from another crew got fed up with his shit and fucked him up pretty bad, stompin,g him straight out of Juggalodom forever. 

#2. My lil sister’s homies

I might have mentioned that my sister introduced me to my first Juggalo homies. We all ran together tight in those days, and with her proximity to the people as well as her familiarity with the wicked shit, it came as no surprise when she decided that she wanted to represent right alongside me. A few years and a handful of highly toxic Juggalo boyfriends later, she changed her mind about all that, which also didn’t surprise me. She still shows Juggalo love and always reps for the music of her era, though. But this entry isn’t about her, it’s about her bandwagoning friends and their Juggalette phase.

There was Tabitha, Jess and….I forget the other lil thot’s name. Anyway, within two weeks of my sister’s ill fated ‘coming out’ as a Juggalo, all the sudden her friends were all lettes too. This is the same group of Lisa Frank binder havin’ Spice World watchin’ singing-Mmm-bop-on-repeat-til-I-snapped-broke-the-tape-and-caught-a-ass-whoopin-by-my-dad chicken coop it always was, but now they were all down with the clown suddenly. Tabitha’s ‘coming out’ was the worst. Just….pure cringe. “Oh. My. God. Like, I just don’t know how else to say it: I’m totally a Juggalette. I always have been, but it took until YOU guys showing me this world to make me realize it!” I just shook my head and insisted confidently that she was not, but whatever. Jesse started goin’ by Big Jess which….fair enough, bitch was big, and Lil Thotty was just doing what everyone else was doing cuz she was kinda dumb. They came to my house one day looking for my sis, all gothed out with hatchetmans on. All I could do is laugh. Eventually my own  sister ended up telling Tabby off for being transparently phony, and she tearily admitted to just being jealous of my sister having more friends than her. Big Jess actually still ran with Juggalos for a minute and stayed having Juggalo boyfriends and Young Flop Thot went back to being basic cuz I guess she forgot or something. 

#3. Eddie

Oh, Eddie. Donnie Derpo himself. Now, up until now these stories were about teenagers and their awkward but nonetheless natural process of discovering their identity. I was almost thirty when I met Eddie, who was pushing his mid twenties when he got hired at my job. He recognized my hatchetman and said he was a Juggalo too- and at this point I’m far passed the stage of abitrary initiation checks and took it at face value. What grown man would *want* to pretend to be a Juggalo anyhow? I learned through conversation that we actually knew a lot of the same people, that was good enough for me. He said he was about to join the Marines and wanted to do MMA, both nobel pursuits that I encouraged him to stick with.

Eddie was a strange bird. He was a short half-Filipino kid whose outward persona was that of a country-fried good ol’ boy. He had an Irish clover tattoo because I guess his dad was Irish, and repped the Confederate flag on his shirts, truck and phone. He also had emotional issues- his constant and rather annoying bitching about his life and implying he should’ve commited suicide instead of coming in for work whenever something didn’t go his way earned him the nickname Donnie Derpo. As in,

“Oh, you should have huh? Why don’t you go back in time and kill yourself then, Donnie Derpo?” Bare in mind it took a long string of repeated incidents before that became a thing and it was a name he initially gave himself. A coworker once pointed out, politely and in passing, that the Rebel flag is seen by some as a racist symbol. As it relates to his Juggalohood he explained that it was part of his heritage- which I get, I heard that before from other decent Juggalos. But this time Ol’ Donnie flipped his shit disproportionately, and when I tried to calm him down his verbatim response was “I’M NOT GONNA SIT HERE AND BE CALLED RACIST BY SOME FUCKING JEW!!!” …To this day I lack an adequate response to that statement.

Other cracks in his narrative began to surface as time went on. We kept noticing his deployment date for Basic Training kept getting pushed back…3 months, then 6 months… his MMA talk was thoroughly put to bed when a coworker, a trained boxer, called him on it. To be fair Ol’ Eddie sacced up and agreed to a match in the parking lot, but he got bodied in under a minute by dude only using wrestling submissions.

The Juggalo thing came into question when an older lady we worked with was asking about my hatchetman. Her son’s friend was apparently a Juggalo and she sweetly and naively somehow thought that it has something to do with BDSM. I corrected her on that and explained it as a loose, vaguely fraternal counter culture based around underground rap. 

“So, what do you have to do to be a Juggalo?” She asks.

“I dunno.” Says I, “Eddie, why don’t you take this one? What do you gotta do to be a Juggalo?”

“Well,” Says Eddie, “First, you have to take The Pledge.”

…..

“T-the Pledge? What’s that, some newskool Juggalo shit? I mean, I know Tech did a pledge a while back, but that has nothing to do with us…There’s no Juggalo pledge…”

“Sure there is.”

“Okay. Enlighten me. Recite the pledge.”

“I…uh…I forgot it. I have to look it up.”

“Eddie there’s no fuckin’ pledge!”

So one night we’re working together, just us, and I decide to dust off the old chestnut.

“Donnie Derpo! What’s your favorite Joker’s Card?”

“The Satanic Jester. That’s the best one.”

It amazed me that he could say these things with a straight face. Dude could look you dead in the eyes and serve up hot bullshit without so much as an uncomfortable glance. Instead of revealing my power level I simply agreed that The Satanic Jester was the banger and carried on with my night.

He invited the crew to his house to smoke one night. We chilled in his room, with his Redneck Proud poster of a diesel cartoon Bald Eagle holding an automatic rifle hanging adjacent to one of Tom Wood’s newskool Milenko. I browsed his CD collection. Foghat, Skynard, Molly Hatchet….bunch of country, nothing surprising there. And one ICP CD.

Fuckin’ Jugganauts, the ICP Best of Album.

“You like Boondox?” I ask, “I feel like you would. He’s like a chicken fried version of ICP.” 

“No.” He says, passing the L.

“Haystack? Jelly Roll? Bukshot? Any of them cats? Country rap is a genre in and of itself, you know. I don’t really fuck with it, not like that, but I feel like you would.”

“No, I don’t fuck with country rap. I’m too white for that.”

I just sort of stared.

“But Eddie….I mean…..you’re not white…”

I didn’t mean anything by it, but it was true. He had his mother’s distinctive olive complexion. He argued that he was, in fact, whiter than me because he reps for The South. I had to concede the point.

All this came to a head a couple weeks later. I was just rambling on about some Juggalo shit to a coworker, as I do, when Donnie Derpo comes flying around the corner and interjects himself into our conversation. 

“Yeah man! See, what you gotta understand about us Juggalos is: It’s all about family. It’s like-“

“Eddie shut the fuck up. You’re not a Juggalo.”

He didn’t talk for the rest of the evening. After work he approached me in the parking lot, puffing up his chest like he always did when he was salty. 

“So I’m not a Juggalo then, huh? And who the hell are you that you get to say that kind of crap, huh?” 

I shrugged.

“I’m nobody. Trust me, I’m the last guy who would say some shit like that, but it’s true. You’re not a Juggalo any more than you’re a Marine or training to be in MMA. What you are is a confused guy who happens to know a lot of Juggalos, and that’s fine. Just be that. The reason the Juggalos you *do* know- which are my people too- stopped fucking with you is because you fake the funk too much Donnie. You try too hard and talk about a bunch of shit you obviously know nothing about. Back in the day people used to get fucked up over that shit, because we see as disrespectful. People live this life for real. It’s cool if you don’t, nobody’s asking you to, but just be yourself, man.” 

He backed off of me and deflated his chest. I felt bad for him. Still kinda do. I continued, 

“See, out of principal I don’t even fuck with liars out the gate. But you’re not a bad dude when you’re not acting like a jackass, so stop acting like a jackass and we’re all good. But…what gets me is, of all the things to pretend to be, why choose a Juggalo of all things? Like, what’s the thinking behind it? ‘I know! I’ll say I’m a Juggalo, then people will *really* respect me!’ I’m for real baffled by this. What was your reasoning?”

He looked at his shoes and said finally,

“I don’t know. I just do things, and even I don’t know why I do them. I’m just Donny Derpo doing Donny Derpo shit. That’s me. You wanna go smoke?”

An epilogue to this story. Years later, long after ol’ Donny fucked off on a new adventure, his old neighbor came to work for us. Jim was the OG  responsible for introducing Eddie to the Juggalo concept by Juggaloing in his old neighborhood. When I told him this story he laughed.

“Oh so Eddie’s a Juggalo now? He was the biggest hater back in the day. Eddie was the kid that was always going through some kinda phase. He was like a skater one week, then a punk kid, then a wannabe biker when Sons of Anarchy started. He was even tryna be a skinhead at one point! Who ever heard of a dark-skinned asian Neo Nazi? We used to call him Adolf to fuck with him. I don’t even think Eddie knows who the fuck Eddie is.”

“Yeah. Well, his new shit is MMA. He’s training at some gym nobody has ever heard of, apparently, and has been ever since I met him.”

“Oh yeah, bro. He’s been training for MMA at secret gyms ever since *I* met him. Back in middle school.”

So there you have it. I probably have more stories, but this post was already crazy long and this is all the entertaining ones. Anybody else have Juffahoe Tales to share with the class?