Hipster weathervane Decibel magazine could not backpedal fast enough on its pro-SJW stance, and has now retracted that and taken a more fence-sitting approach which allows it to both criticize SJWs and uphold their ideology. Luckily, they found a talented writer to express the same sentiments you read here two years ago:

Extreme metal is art. It is dangerous art and part of its very appeal is indeed that of peril and endangerment. In fact, at many shows, one might come face to face with an artist or two (or fan for that matter) who has spent significant in time in prison for offenses that range from assault to arson to murder. That is the reality of extreme metal. Most art that provokes and challenges the individual isn’t safe. This is deliberate in artistic formulation. In recent months, however, a number of members of the scene, often described as Social Justice Warriors (or SJWs), have infiltrated extreme music to push self-serving agendas under the banner of “inclusion” and “safety” going so far to call out those they oppose with the use of incessant signal boosting in social media in order to slam the door on free artistic expression. Many of these folks fall into the “scene tourist” category, merely moving from scene to scene with the stated goal of increasing diversity—yet are closely appended to a myriad of politicking activities. The ultimate goal for many of these individuals is to cleanse the scene of the aspects they find objectionable, congratulate themselves and move on… with a maybe a promotion or three towards their blogs, zines, books, politics and events.

…These self-annointed Social Justice Warriors, who attempt to shutdown shows, boycott bands and record companies, and besmirch artists and promoters have, somewhat ironically, adopted a variety of manipulative tactics to ensure that their narrative is out front and that all competing narratives be eradicated or merely cease to exist in the public discourse. This, of course, harkens the metal community back to the days of Tipper Gore and the PMRC, whose goal it was to make music “safer” for the masses, when the reality was that the PMRC was really involved in furthering their own political agendas and careers outside of art. A key difference this time around is that instead of using the excuse that the music is “filthy” (yes, the actual term the PMRC used), they argue that the music contains barriers to a variety of “vulnerable” people. Those who have been in the extreme music scene (short of NSBM and the like) for the past number of decades know much of the criticism of extreme music being “closed off” to particular groups of people is simply neither an accurate nor fair representation.

At the same time Decibel is issuing that statement from one side of its mouth, it is guardedly defending SJW by pretending its criticism is SJW internal policing, through a statement by former Krieg frontman Neil Jameson, who was one of the first to block this author on Facebook after metalgate expanded:

I’m entirely for freedom of speech and expression, I think it’s one of the only principles this country was founded on that will always apply. But I’m also a firm believer that freedom of speech does not come without freedom from consequence. If you spout off something someone finds grossly offensive, then don’t be surprised if they don’t shove your teeth down your throat. But this didn’t really hit its target, did it?

Jameson, who is a flaming racist in denial of his own impulses, wants us to think that scene policing for SJW ideals is good so long as we do not attack the fans, but the bands. In other words, he wants a more effective form of censorship.

However, Decibel waffling — even under editor Albert Mudrian, who also blacklisted me for my anti-censorship viewpoints — has set off a series of ruffled panties editorials in the rest of the profit center for Decibel, which is a group of websites who sell advertising in bulk and call themselves the “Blast Beat Network.” This cozy arrangement guarantees profit for all, despite the fact that most of these sites have minimal relevance to metal, and are mostly just SJW mouthpieces.

Metal Injection trotted out their favorite neckbeard/hipster to rant in favor of the Orwellian SJWs with a statement that denies what has already been factually established:

To begin with, there’s no such thing as a Social Justice Warrior (SJW). The term is a relatively new pajorative that’s used to dismiss people the user wants to paint as reactionary or hypersensitive. It’s a hollow insult that only has meaning in the most broad terms. I’ve been called an SJW for reasons ranging from criticizing the use of homosexual slurs in metal culture, not including racist bands in an article about black metal and simply writing about female metal musicians. It’s true that people will occasionally adopt the SJW label for themselves, but it’s generally done out of irony or as a way to strip the word of its negative connotation.

What an old and calcified logical fallacy this is! Shayne Nelson wants us to believe that because some people use a term inexactly, the category it describes does not exist, so if one person out there refers to a bird as a “dinosaur,” birds in fact do not exist. Make sense? No? You are right — it is nonsense. But Metal Injection is part of the cozy ad revenue sharing group that makes up the Blast Beat Network.

The next defector came from heavily Christianized site Metal Sucks, where it was observed that loss of SJW content would mean the total irrelevance of at least 60% of the content of the site, and so “Emperor Rhombus” penned a distraction and deflection piece designed to keep us all baffled and prevent firm conclusions from arising:

The thing is, where Jameson’s column is smart, honest, and gets to the point, Podoshen’s column is vague, cliched, and willfully ignorant.

…The majority of the people I know who fight for political change in metal culture–the MetalSucks staff included–are active members of the metal scene. We go to shows, promote bands we love, and talk shit about bands we think are bigots and assholes. Jameson makes a point of mentioning about how the pepper sprayer at the Taake show was a dickhead, no matter who he allied himself with, and that he was giving inclusionary politics a bad name.

That reads like it was written by a ten-year-old. Those of you who are English Literature majors from top five colleges will chuckle and list the fallacies, but for me, the main point is that this side-steps the question: does metal have any relevance to “social justice”? Obviously, metal is trying to escape the intellectual ghetto of politics and social justice, and find actual solutions, instead of an ideological commitment to keep trying the same failed strategy.

Decibel has taken a business-savvy strategy: waffle. Clearly SJWs are losing the battle for metal because SJWs are annoying and also are hammering out the same stupid hippie/corporate points of view that metal has always tried to escape. But watching Decibel‘s ad network blow up because the magazine spread out its bets is most gratifying, and shows that SJWs have lost MetalGate and will lose more in the future, unless they turn to the side of free speech, anarchy, realism and occult truth that metal has always endorsed.

Tags: blast beat network, decibel, hipsters, jeffrey s. podoshen, metalgate, neil jameson, sjws, weight watchers