Fans (HW3)

Whenever you go outside and saw a person with a long hair, wearing a black shirt, scary and weird looking, you must be wondering, what kind of people is that? They don't belong here in our society.

Heavy metal fans go by a number of different names, including metalhead, headbanger, and thrasher. This vary with time, subculture and regional divisions. 

For the social aspects, in place of typical dancing, metal fans are more likely to mosh or headbang, a movement in which the head is shaken up and down in time with the music.

Fans from the culture often make the "Corna" hand-signal formed by a fist with the "pinkie" and index fingers extended, known variously as the "devil's horns", the "metal fist" and other similar descriptors.

Metal fans not only embrace the music for the talent or the technical ability of musicians, and not only for the excitement of the sound; but also because of the sentiment that one can escape the dull and the mundane, or the stress of life and into the music itself. The music reflects this common attitude as well, especially lyrically as well. Metalheads internationally embrace the music style because of the way it can boost an individual personality over and beyond problematic issues of life. It is a style of music that makes the listener feel empowered.

To be a metal fan is to be part of a lifestyle, to feel a part of something bigger: a culture of individuals on the same wave length that are in the millions across the world. You either get it, or you do not get it. You don’t go through a “metal phase” – once you become a metalhead, it becomes part of who you are, part of how you identify yourself, and part of how you see the world. It is a movement beyond the music, but a movement that is fed by the music, and a music style that is fed by the movement.

Metal has long been criticized as blasphemous or anti-religion, but this stance has proven to be a catalyst for metalheads being well-versed and competent in understanding a variety of aspects of religion, faith, and belief. Whether a metal fan identifies themselves as an atheist, a Christian, a Satanist, or any other number of faiths, you will frequently find that metalheads are very well educated on many aspects of their chosen belief system or philosophy; as well as more often than not other religious beliefs as well.

However, fans become part of the subculture of heavy metal music only to the extent that their high sensation seeking is combined with alienation. Although all three people profiled enjoyed the high sensation qualities of the music, their involvement in the subculture varied according to the depth of their alienation. Jack, deeply alienated, was deeply committed to the subculture.