Why Metalheads May Be a Gullible Audience for Conspiracy Theories

Increasingly bothered by how much time I waste scrolling down on Facebook or watching YouTube suggestions, I’ve steadily been blocking ads, newsfeeds, comments and suggestions from online platforms for the past couple years. Thanks to browser add-ons, I can now surf the internet with little to no distraction. For all the unnecessary crap that I get to avoid (while being comfortably ignorant of its existence), cutting myself from all these streams of information has had the downside of rendering me oblivious to some of the craziness that the web exacerbates. For instance, it took a good while for me to realize how prevalent conspiracy theories have become in Quebec. I knew very well that some were skeptical of COVID-19, anti-mask or even willing to protest against an alleged infringement of liberté, but my little personal echo chamber left me unaware of outrageous beliefs such as the idea that worldwide authoritarian regimes might be controlling the virus.

I guess I did realize that people have been spending too much time online since the beginning of the pandemic, and that some conspiracy theories were circulating, but nothing of the scale of pedophiliac satanists testing new surveillance technologies under the cover of fabricated viruses. As it turns out Quebec, has its fair share of influential idiots heading alternative “medias”, most of which are steadily losing touch with reality. They are largely responsible for importing QAnon and electoral fraud ideas in Quebec, hysterias that I thought would remain largely on the other side of the border. More frightening to me was the realization that several people I’ve met over my years of involvement in the metal scene seem to have fallen prey to such irrational beliefs. While I’d like to assume that most metalheads are rational enough to discard bogus whistleblowers, a significant minority of them do not seem able to. But here I am more concerned with the potentiality of irrational beliefs among fellow metal enthusiasts than with mere statistics.

As a teenager, I would often argue that metalheads were among the smartest people in the world. It was a very simplistic assumption to which I no longer adhere, although I did meet some of the most intelligent people I know from within the metal scene. On the other hand, I’ve also had plenty of occasions for disillusionment. Indeed, no musical genre is a free ticket to wisdom, and intelligence does not necessarily lead you towards specific art forms. But there are several things that do distinguish metalheads from non-metalheads, although some of these are arguably shared with many other sub-cultures. I argue that these peculiar aspects of the typical metalhead profile make this demographic particularly receptive to conspiracy theories.

First, anti-establishment is embedded in metal subculture. Skepticism towards “normal” people, from clothing style to life goals, is a common attitude, as well as distrust in large institutions such as mass media broadcasting (e.g. commercial culture) or governmental regulations (e.g. censorship, religious rhetoric). The anti-establishment cultivated in the metal subculture is analogous to the “Big Government” fear found in conservative America, although they stem from different attitudes. They are both forms of rebellion against a perceived control over people’s lives, although metalheads’ focus lie more towards cultural transgression and cynicism than economics or politics. Both attitudes do however share the potential of culminating in an exaggerated fear of authority. In the case of metalheads, this defiance is often channeled into self-empowerment and affirmation, ultimately becoming a positive influence on one’s life with little large-scale consequences on society. However, a de facto skepticism towards the establishment can be dangerous if it leads to non-critical and automatic distrust in institutions. It’s one thing to criticize mainstream media’s emphasis on sensationalism or to recognize the bias in a newspaper, but it’s another thing to disregard expertise altogether. If pushed to the extreme, this form of cynicism can severely damage society’s relationship with its experts. Scientists of all fields, people whose very methodology welcomes questioning and fact-checking, seem especially targeted by skeptical citizens nowadays. Journalists from the most trustworthy newspapers are confronted with blatant hostility and/or unrealistic expectations of objective writing. This is unfair and counterproductive: regardless of flaws, experts remain among the most reliable sources of information on a given subject. Most of them devote an entire life to the mastery of very specific sets of knowledge and skills that no populist YouTuber, however charismatic, can ever replace.

Moreover, younger generations of metalheads share the traits of other modern geeks, namely an encyclopedic knowledge about niche cultures combined with a heavy screen addiction. This means that not only do we spend a disproportionate amount of our active life in front of computers, but we do so consuming insane amounts of information which we then reinvest in our community. Whether this data comes in the form of sound files or biographical trivia about artists, it often becomes the subject of discussions in online forums, music reviews or comments. The remarkable passion metalheads share for music has the potential to develop into proselytism or simply elitism. I argue that such a faith in one’s knowledge and positions, when deployed in an unregulated field of information sharing (a.k.a. the internet), may drive stubborn minds into wacky theories that fit pre-existing biases. Besides, metalheads’ informal orientation towards researching is unavoidably subjected to internet algorithms which narrow the information we access. The internet is thus a fertile battleground for different standards of fact-checking and news reporting. It nonetheless remains metalheads’ prime platform for discussion and for showcasing cultural capital. The feeling of entitlement earned by nurturing musical knowledge can also extrapolate to other topics, bolstering one’s confidence on a particular worldview. In heated debates among metalheads, the musical and the political often intersect. While several metalheads argue that politics do not or should not interfere with metal (a political statement already), most of the vocal metalheads online are ready to argue strongly in favor of certain fixed ideas. A frequent manifestation of this dynamic are the endless debates on black metal and whether its musicians’ political allegiances matter. There is little evidence that any of that directly translates to belief in conspiracy theories. However, the danger is to feel too empowered by one’s knowledge in a sea of unverified information.

Third, the tendency of metalheads to socially isolate partly comes from the aforementioned cynicism. A general impression of being an outsider, someone profoundly different from the general public, is very pervasive in the metal community. This reinforces attachment to niche interests and hermetic social circles while discouraging or limiting interactions outside of these subcultures. If one is especially cynical about society, politics, environmental collapse or any tangible ties to the real world, this may encourage a peculiar lifestyle centered around personal interests. Just like video games or other types of entertainment, music can be a shell in which we try to remain daily for as long as possible. Various experiences and responsibilities can momentarily burst this bubble without eroding the longing for escapism. This makes metalheads, as well as participants of other subcultures, perfect candidates for echo chambers online. With limited interaction with the real world, something that the ongoing pandemic exacerbated, we are left with little to challenge a worldview that is increasingly shaped by whatever happens on the web. Metal music sure is a great rabbit hole to fall into, and metal forums can be an extraordinary social outlet, but conspiracist echo chambers are just around the corner.

Of course, none of the above is exclusive to metalheads, although I challenge any metalhead to say they’ve never encountered those attitudes in the community. Fortunately, I suspect that a silent majority of metalheads are rational individuals who are not easily subdued by alternate facts. My intention here is not to patronize my fellow metal enthusiasts, but rather to acknowledge how context can have a decisive impact on the shaping or toppling of our reality. I was in East Asia when the COVID-19 pandemic started to spread in that part of the world, and by the time it reached Canada I was safe and sound with my family in a Montreal apartment. I cannot help but imagine how this pandemic would have affected my screen time if I was living alone. Surely, I would’ve spent even more time in front of my computer with less family obligations tying me to the real world. I'm also thankful for having had the privilege of travelling in parts of the world much closer to the virus' epicenter than Montreal is, giving me invaluable perspective on how real the situation has been for some people elsewhere. Without such input, school to keep me busy and my obsessive curiosity to keep me wary, who knows in what kind of ridiculous rabbit hole I might’ve fallen into? What I mean to say is that none of us are immune to the mechanisms that induce conspiracy ideation. As a metalhead who has spent the last decade trying to reconcile anti-establishment, screen-addiction and social isolation with a growing interest in “the world”, I can see myself having fallen for one conspiracy theory or another at some point in the past.

I should mention as a side-note that extravagant fantasies about world orders concealing truths have been a long-lasting source of lyrical inspiration for metal bands (e.g. Superior Enlightenment, Augury, Embryonic Devourment, Abnormality, Blood Incantation). It seems to me that before this particular point in time, they remained largely in the realm of science fiction and were thus creative and mostly harmless ideas. That being said, band lyrics almost never generate mass attention anyways, nor do musicians usually push these abstract concepts into real-life activism. Clearly, the sources of current trends in conspiracy ideation lie elsewhere. However, metal lyrics do reveal a strong fascination for alternate histories and facts which may be exacerbated in a time of global crisis. Now, is this factor strong enough to make people within the scene persuaded of alien governments or the second coming of Jesus Trump? Probably not. Anyhow, such ideas become problematic when they truly gain currency in society and when fearmongering gurus start capitalizing on people’s gullibility.

Scrutinizing sources of authority is of course necessary, but never should it be taken out of proportion through belief in grandiloquent scenarios of elites conspiring against the general public (if anything, this happens under our noses through our consensual usage of apps, and rarely means more than trying to sell us stuff). Mass surveillance and corruption do exist, and should be criticized, but it there is no reason for such criticism to automatically translate into delusional skepticism. Governments themselves barely understand technology or science enough to cooperate with one another and solve worldwide problems. Companies are mostly competing against each other and focused on making money. Suggesting that these parties could ever organize to conspire in secrecy on such a massive scale as that of a global pandemic is illusory at best and a gross overestimation agency. If all energies are spent imagining absurd fictions or fighting their spread, what time is left for assessing real, tangible problems such as ecological collapse?

In an impulse of visionary wit or unconscious foreshadowing, the Gatineau musician Topon Das formed in 1997 what evolved into the band Fuck the Facts, a progressive grindcore outfit whose moniker was taken from a Naked City song. To this day, the presumably ironic statement “Fuck the Facts” is a fitting caricature of our post-truth, internet-infused contemporary world, where expertise and accuracy are being downplayed in favor of shallow charisma and false dichotomies. In November, Fuck the Facts, released their much welcomed 10th album, one filled with music as relevant to our times as the band’s name is. The songs on Pleine Noirceur are indeed as unpredictable as ever, retaining the aggressive grindcore attack expected from the band while tackling it with expanded nuance and detail. Listening to Fuck the Facts, I can’t help but to reflect on the poor state of societal discourse we are having. In dismay of current waves of anti-intellectualism, rapid jumps to conclusion and logic shortcuts, I say: “Fuck Alternative Facts”.

This text is an opinion piece, but its ideas are informed by the following readings:

Basu, Tanya. (2020). How to talk to conspiracy theorists—And still be kind. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved December 11th 2020, https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/15/1004950/how-to-talk-to-conspiracy-theorists-and-still-be-kind/

Brotherton, R., French, C., & Pickering, A. (2013). Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 279.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00279

Harari, Y. N. (2019). 21 lessons for the 21st century. McClelland & Stewart.

Jouet, Mugambi. (2019). EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA: What divides americans from the world and from each other. Oakland: University of California Press.

Laurin, K. (2018). Inaugurating Rationalization: Three Field Studies Find Increased Rationalization When Anticipated Realities Become Current. Psychological Science, 29(4), 483–495. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617738814

Lorch, M. (2017). Why people believe in conspiracy theories – and how to change their minds. The Conversation. Retrieved December 11th 2020, http://theconversation.com/why-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-and-how-to-change-their-minds-82514

Prooijen, J.-W. van. (2017). Why Education Predicts Decreased Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31(1), 50‑58. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3301