SATANISM

[MR. Macabre 666]

Because there are dozen's of other bands that are better, heavier, darker, and more authentic than any band who's shirts you can buy at Hot Topic. I've been listening to black/death metal for over 20 years, and "traditional" metal bands for over 20 years before that.
Whitechapel is a metal band?
If you're interested in hearing some real music, try this short list and let me know what you think,
Emperor
Immortal
Watain
Behemoth
Inquisition
Dark Funeral
Batushka
Hypocrisy
Morbid Angel
Dimmu Borgir
This would be a good start.

Went by my cousin today. Listened to Dimmu Borgir for the 1st time. I LOVED them. It was their album Death Cult Armageddon. He had a signed copy (CD) and he also got the Deluxe Edition CD from the collection he bought so he gave me it.

Genuine question here, I'm not trying to accuse anyone:

To what extent to bands like this use Nazi or White Supremacist imagery? 

I know that some people who don't believe in a real Satan use Satanic symbols (partly) for their shock value. It's fun to get a rise out of little old ladies. 

Is Nazi stuff used for the same purpose, even if people don't particularly believe it?

Most don't, some use it for shock others deface it, like Pantera always has a ruined confedrate flag in allot of album/shirt art. But like every community there is always gonna be that 1% that is racist/sexist/homophobic that no one in the communites like.

Check out their earlier records, you might like those even more. Spiritual Black Dimensions, Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, and Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia are all awesome records.

[MR. Macabre 666]

Most don't, some use it for shock others deface it, like Pantera always has a ruined confedrate flag in allot of album/shirt art. But like every community there is always gonna be that 1% that is racist/sexist/homophobic that no one in the communites like.

It's interesting to me that these days there is a kind of tension between the desire to shock the normies that exists along with sharing most of the normies's values. I think this is fairly new in US culture. 

So not that long ago tattoos were a sign of not belonging to the mainstream. They were a permanent commitment to not having a regular job, for example. Sailors and carnies were declaring their self-chosen exile from middle-class life. Now tattoos are so common that office workers under age 40 are very likely to have them.

Here in Japan, there are still public bathhouses that forbid anyone with a tattoo from entering. This is because for a very long time tattoos were only for the Yakuza, as a no-going-back commitment to a life of crime. This is changing a slowly -- due to US influence, more non-Yakuza people are getting tattoos here. Recently I saw a very non-threatening young lady on the street who had a full sleeve tattoo of the local baseball team. Since supporting the baseball team (the Hiroshima Carp) is about the most mainstream thing you can do, it was an interesting mix of symbolism. 

Then in the US there are biker gangs who dress scary but make a point of helping homeless kittens, and that kind of thing. I appreciate the wit in this -- they are intentionally contradicting expectations. 

The thing is that setting out to shock the normies has been an increasingly popular thing to do since French writers started talking about it in the 19th century. Épater la bourgeoisie (shock the middle class) has been a motto for so long that it's trickled down to every high school kid in America, even if they don't know its history. 

When it gets to the point that middle class people who share middle class values are trying to adopt the symbols of shocking the middle class, then I wonder if the symbols still mean much. Like if there's a rebel outsider who shares all the values and goals of the Obama administration, he's not much of a rebel. 

These days a middle class white kid whose parents pay for him to go to art school would be shunned and mocked if he didn't adopt the signs of rebellion. So you see the paradox here -- when social pressure from a peer group tells someone that it's only acceptable to be a rebel, then it's not much of a rebellion. 

Or maybe rebellion isn't the goal any more -- maybe it's another kind of conformity, to the values and goals of the groups which used to shock. I don't know.

I've never done anything only to shock or offend other's, I'm just different. When I first started getting tattooed, my mom was still alive. When she saw them, she said it didn't surprise her, because I talked about wanting to get tattooed when I was a kid. The only reason I didn't get my first tattoo until I was 40 was because we couldn't afford it.
After several years of marriage, we were finally doing well enough for me to put some money aside every month in a tattoo fund. That was over 20 years ago, and I still get more work done occasionally.
I see a lot of people with some really bad tattoo work. You get what you pay for.

[Secular Elf]

I've grown to love the darker, heavier, more evil forms of metal music. I listen to it several hours a day, it helps keep me sane in this fucked up world we're living in.

This makes a lot of sense to me. 

My niece is a music therapist, and I've discussed this stuff with her. She says that when a client is upset or mad about things, the last thing you want to do is play cheery music and say "lighten up!" Especially when they have good reason to be mad about things.

That is so true. My musical tastes are quite eclectic. One time I went through a dark period in my life after a relationship, if you could call it that, went sour. I was more emotionally involved than she was. I should have known better. I became very angry, listened to Godsmack (just got one CD of theirs) and turned up the volume. It helped, time and my mood passed. I got over it and moved on.

[MR. Macabre 666]

It's interesting to me that these days there is a kind of tension between the desire to shock the normies that exists along with sharing most of the normies's values. I think this is fairly new in US culture. 

So not that long ago tattoos were a sign of not belonging to the mainstream. They were a permanent commitment to not having a regular job, for example. Sailors and carnies were declaring their self-chosen exile from middle-class life. Now tattoos are so common that office workers under age 40 are very likely to have them.

Here in Japan, there are still public bathhouses that forbid anyone with a tattoo from entering. This is because for a very long time tattoos were only for the Yakuza, as a no-going-back commitment to a life of crime. This is changing a slowly -- due to US influence, more non-Yakuza people are getting tattoos here. Recently I saw a very non-threatening young lady on the street who had a full sleeve tattoo of the local baseball team. Since supporting the baseball team (the Hiroshima Carp) is about the most mainstream thing you can do, it was an interesting mix of symbolism. 

Then in the US there are biker gangs who dress scary but make a point of helping homeless kittens, and that kind of thing. I appreciate the wit in this -- they are intentionally contradicting expectations. 

The thing is that setting out to shock the normies has been an increasingly popular thing to do since French writers started talking about it in the 19th century. Épater la bourgeoisie (shock the middle class) has been a motto for so long that it's trickled down to every high school kid in America, even if they don't know its history. 

When it gets to the point that middle class people who share middle class values are trying to adopt the symbols of shocking the middle class, then I wonder if the symbols still mean much. Like if there's a rebel outsider who shares all the values and goals of the Obama administration, he's not much of a rebel. 

These days a middle class white kid whose parents pay for him to go to art school would be shunned and mocked if he didn't adopt the signs of rebellion. So you see the paradox here -- when social pressure from a peer group tells someone that it's only acceptable to be a rebel, then it's not much of a rebellion. 

Or maybe rebellion isn't the goal any more -- maybe it's another kind of conformity, to the values and goals of the groups which used to shock. I don't know.

Does it not occur to you that a tattoo (or more) doesn't have to be a statement?  Some certainly are but not all.  The old time tattoos of sailors, bikers, and the like have been largely replaced by a new style that tends to look more like a painting and less like the page from a coloring book with heavy black lines filled in with color.

I have a delicate ivy tattooed around one ankle.  It still looks as bright and crisp as it did when I had it done about 15 years ago.  Stylized into the tendrils of the ivy are the initials of my kids and grandkids.  Unless I tell you that, you wouldn't see it.  But I know they are there.  I did have to go back to have a letter added when my grandson was born.  

I do have a couple that are done the old school way.  By an old biker and Vietnam vet who even made some of his own inks.  They don't say much more than I liked the images at the time I had them done.  They have been on my legs long enough that they are part of me.  No statement, no rebellion...just there.  My breast cancer ribbon was tattooed on one year after my mastectomies.  Marked a point in my life that I didn't think I would reach.  

The piece on my lower right leg goes all the way around and is from knee to ankle.  It was a little pieced together and added onto till I went big with an image of a blue marlin.  My grandfather was a deep sea sport fishing captain.  It started to honor him and then expanded to a whole beach scene including the Hatteras Light which is located in the town where I was born.  It's not a statement to or against anyone or anything.  

You are too concerned with tattoos being some weird sort of code.  They aren't any more. 

What my tattoos mean or say to anyone else is of no consequence to me.

I agree 100%, most of my ink is for personal reasons. I have 3 memorial tattoos on my chest, as well as the names of our 4 grandkids. Each one's name is under a jack-o-lantern representing them. I had our then 5 year old granddaughter write her own name and her baby sister's on a piece of paper, and then Brandon copied and shrank them down and copied them on me. Our daughter wrote the names of her 2 kids each time I added a new one.

Everything else is a statement on religion or Halloween and the occult.

[Secular Elf]

Am I a Satanist? Depends on who you ask. To many Christians, satanist is everyone who is not in their religion, including people of other religions (even other Christian denominations). Thus the Baphomet is named after the old name for Mohamed which is Mahomet.

And since Christianity is a primitive xenophobic cult, Christians generally can not understand how someone does not believe in their god, so they automatically consider these people to be Satanists, communists, antichrists, etc.

Therefore if you don't believe in a Christian god or you played D&D or you like Star Wars or watch horror movies or have orgasms during sex that is not procreational or believe in evolution or think rationally, some Christians out there consider you to be a Satanist.

Congrats, I guess.

You got that right! By that definition, Satanist or not, we are all in the same club. I don't believe in God (or any god), check. I play D&D with my rt friends every other weekend, check, I like Star Wars, Star Trek, any good sci-fi book or flick, check. I like recreational sex, check, I like Svengoolie, check. I don't have any tattoos but I think they are cool and like looking at them. Check. I must have it covered then.

[Fake Messiah]

Sure. According to Flat Earth Christians, if you believe that the Earth is a sphere you are a Satanist.

The heliocentric system is not real. It never was, but its imaginary design fulfills Satan’s grand purpose of misdirecting the human race away from the True Creator God. It’s an endlessly complex design that fills the time and energy of millions of people who grew up playing with toy space shuttle’s and imagining what it would be like to become astronauts and explore far away planets and galaxies. As adults, millions have become fixated on all things NASA. They watch every new video, gape over every new CGI (computer generated image), hang on every word of scientists who wax eloquent with fantastical pseudoscientific theories. The elaborate scheme constructed over centuries, launched officially with Copernicus’ book in 1543, has been Satan’s single greatest act of sorcery and occult magic on Earth. It achieved the grand success he pursued to turn billions of souls away from any recognition or acknowledgement of a God of Creation. Satan’s sorcery has accomplished something few are aware of, even theologians and pastors, and something that Satan fully intended in the heliocentric design. What is this purpose that drives Satan’s hatred and passion? The heliocentric design of the sun and the Earth and the planets mocks God.

[MR. Macabre 666]

Sure. According to Flat Earth Christians, if you believe that the Earth is a sphere you are a Satanist.

The heliocentric system is not real. It never was, but its imaginary design fulfills Satan’s grand purpose of misdirecting the human race away from the True Creator God. It’s an endlessly complex design that fills the time and energy of millions of people who grew up playing with toy space shuttle’s and imagining what it would be like to become astronauts and explore far away planets and galaxies. As adults, millions have become fixated on all things NASA. They watch every new video, gape over every new CGI (computer generated image), hang on every word of scientists who wax eloquent with fantastical pseudoscientific theories. The elaborate scheme constructed over centuries, launched officially with Copernicus’ book in 1543, has been Satan’s single greatest act of sorcery and occult magic on Earth. It achieved the grand success he pursued to turn billions of souls away from any recognition or acknowledgement of a God of Creation. Satan’s sorcery has accomplished something few are aware of, even theologians and pastors, and something that Satan fully intended in the heliocentric design. What is this purpose that drives Satan’s hatred and passion? The heliocentric design of the sun and the Earth and the planets mocks God.

It never fails to amaze me how fucking stupid people can be.

[AkiraTheViking]

What you're probably referring to is a genre of music that's labeled NSBM(National Socialist Black Metal). None of the bands that I've listed have anything to do with those subjects, and I don't/won't listen to any of them. There are a few bands that take it seriously and are on very obscure record labels. Luckily, they're few and far between.

Exactly, the 1% that can go fuck themselves. But other communities like rap/hiphop, punk etc. will always have that 1% that's like that. Such is the human race.

[AkiraTheViking]

I've never done anything only to shock or offend other's, I'm just different. When I first started getting tattooed, my mom was still alive. When she saw them, she said it didn't surprise her, because I talked about wanting to get tattooed when I was a kid. The only reason I didn't get my first tattoo until I was 40 was because we couldn't afford it.
After several years of marriage, we were finally doing well enough for me to put some money aside every month in a tattoo fund. That was over 20 years ago, and I still get more work done occasionally.
I see a lot of people with some really bad tattoo work. You get what you pay for.

Man i really want to meet you in real life. If you're ever in Trinidad and Tobago, look me up.

My tattoos / their deep, symbolic meanings:

Celtic harp / harps are cool.

Knot work band / knot work is cool.

Dragon / I was dating a girl who thought dragons were cool.

Boru

I have a tattoo of this symbol on my left hand:


(NSFW Warning)

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It is a symbol of the metal core band ADTR. The night that I was gonna kill myself I discovered them (someone posted their song "Right Back At It Again" on MLP Forums) and I rediscovered metal. I woudn't be the metaller I am today if it wasn't for that band and the person who posted them, so I tattooed their symbol on the part of the hand.

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Went by my cousin today. Listened to Dimmu Borgir for the 1st time. I LOVED them. It was their album Death Cult Armageddon. He had a signed copy (CD) and he also got the Deluxe Edition CD from the collection he bought so he gave me it.


Most don't, some use it for shock others deface it, like Pantera always has a ruined confedrate flag in allot of album/shirt art. But like every community there is always gonna be that 1% that is racist/sexist/homophobic that no one in the communites like.

Check out their earlier records, you might like those even more. Spiritual Black Dimensions, Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, and Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia are all awesome records.

Will do captain 🫡. He gave me 76 CDs so far. Of all of them only 2 I've listened to online before I knew he had them, and I've already listened to 13 CDs so that's 61 more to go. I'm just glad he gave me Megadeth, Countdown to Extinction. I LOVE Megadeth. One of my faves that I discovered on my own without any outside influence.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah Dimmu Borgir is alright.  I always figured that more for symphonic rock than black metal.  I mean, what's more wholesome than a bunch of people rising up against their christian oppressor?

They're 100% Symphonic Black Metal.

Case in point.  I'm not cool, I'm not hepp to all the sub-genre terms.  They seem like nerds who played a bunch of d2 and decided to start a choir. I wouldn't be surprised to find a big cheesy be-braced smile on their highschool photos. Short shorts, polo tees. Glee club.