Do you consider gatekeeping negative and undermines diversity and inclusion in the community?

Depends on what you're calling gatekeeping. Gatekeeping entire groups of people (Women, POC, LGBT folks) is definitely a huge no. Though if you're calling a statement like "Nu Metal isn't Metal" gatekeeping I'm gonna have to take away your keyboard privileges.

It's just loud morons being loud morons.

It's utter rubbish, that's all.

It's a necessary evil, I think. You need to keep trouble makers and rogue elements out. Ban hammers exist for a reason, right?

I think it is also okay to not want to be associated with certain ideologies. I don't think anyone should feel bad for disapproving of NSBM bands, for example.

I don't think this is gatekeeping at all.

Saying X band is or isn't metal does not prevent anyone from listening to them or going to their shows. In fact, it makes no material difference at all. It's a fake problem suffered by the hypersensitive.

Elaborate.

When in a community with a large number of people who consider anything they declare "not metal" to be weak, commercial, unartistic, and/or unintelligent?

As far the question itself: Generally, I consider gatekeeping, both artistic and social to be a bad thing. Both cause the community or the artform to petrify, rot, and die.

Art without new influences is stagnant.

Yelling at all these kids today with their synths, misplaced piercing and incorrect hat wearing methods to get off our lawn is annoying.

I want to update "If it's too loud, you're too old," to "If it's too different, you're too old."

Just my opinion, but I think it's horrendously stupid.

Why the heck wouldn't you want more people to enjoy the music you like?

I guess it depends..? I tend to think calling someone a poser for liking a genre or band you don't is dumb high school bullshit. If you still do that as a grown adult, you need to sort out your priorities. Being belligerent toward someone for liking Suicide Silence or Deafheaven or whatever is dumb.

However, I also think it's fine to correct someone and be like "actually [x band] isn't really [x genre]" - for one thing, it's entirely possible to do that without being a dick. Not really sure that qualifies as gatekeeping anyway, unless you are in fact being a dick about it.

I don't mind being gatekeep-y towards tourists, however calling certain genres of metal not metal just cause you don't like them is stupid, yes

I think when it comes to classification of bands, a certain amount of gatekeeping, within reason, helps to clarify what style of music a particular band plays, and to which general scene they are associated with.

The key being, "within reason," as there have been endless debates on these forums as to whether some specific band should be classified as "Brutal Death Metal" vs "Tech Death" vs "Slam Death" vs "Goregrind," etc. I'm not arguing that there aren't specific musical differences within these genres- there are! But a lot of bands kind of straddle the fence between one genre and another, and thus are hard to define as one thing or another.

And as far as "The Scene" I have no problem gatekeeping against the neo-fascist, racist, and far-right trolls that have infected the fringes of the metal scene, much like they have infected just about everything else in society these days.

But I suppose, even that is controversial. I mean, you have blatant hate-mongers and outright goosestepping Proud Boy white nationalists. Should be no argument there. But you also get guys who may have jokingly made a thoughtless comment 25-30 years ago while they were dumb drunk 18 year olds, and suddenly they are culture-cancelled. Or bands who played a show with a band who once played a show with another band who was on a label that put out white-power music, and suddenly that band is blacklisted. In other words, you can get carried away with the same hyper-sensitive gatekeeping even with good intentions.

It’s extremely juvenile as a whole. Setting standards for what constitutes metal is expected, and not something everyone will always agree on. Everyone also has a right to listen to whatever they want.

I think a certain amount of gatekeeping is healthy, or otherwise you get a rock n roll Hall of fame scenario, no thank you.

Gatekeepers should be banned from listening to metal. Not a fan.

I don't think keeping bigots out of music is gatekeeping. For me gatekeeping is trying to keep people out based on the perception that they are inferior because of their taste, knowledge, age, etc. The whole "false don't entry" attitude.

Depends what you mean by gatekeeping. Actual gatekeeping is moronic but some people consider anything as banal as calling a band a certain genre "gatekeeping".

It's a paramount and essential part of any culture....IF done the right way.

The problem is every moron that does it does it completely the wrong way.



100%. The worst kind of gatekeeping. The other worst kind is harassing people because they got into metal through mainstream means (you know, like EVERYONE did back in the 70s, 80s and 90s), whether it's Stranger Things, Tony Hawk Pro-Skater, Guitar Hero, Grand Theft Auto, the South Park soundtrack. No one comes out of the womb knowing Reign In Blood and Altars Of Madness by heart. The people to gatekeep are a) the ones with shit taste, b) the normies who think that because they are of a higher caste they think they're better than everyone else.

And since the conversation is gonna turn in this direction sooner or later, let's bring up celebrities. I think it comes down to metalheads picking and choosing who they want to be in "the club." The beebers and the Kardashians: fuck off. The Aubrey Plazas? Hell yeah.

I also started a thread about gatekeeping (and Metallica and thrash kind of being what started it) a few months back:

https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=138002

Isnt that Gatekeeping?

I really think you quit caring about what types of people are listening to your music once you have any real life problems.

So they should be gatekept from metal...?

Its rubbish in general. Online though, the number of people who seem to confuse almost anything for gatekeeping is bizarre. Knowing what genre is isn't gatekeeping, but there's always those "its all metal" type people.

That’s what I mean by Rock n’ Roll hall of fame scenario. Lol

I think there are a couple of different things here:

1) I will be the first one to criticize the arguments over whether a band is "blackened death metal" or "deathly black metal." I will also end up partcipating in those debates for some odd reason. Actually the reason is not that odd. I'm fascinated by (sub)genre and the reason is because I consider genre and music theory in general to be descriptive, not proscriptive.

And that's how it should be done. Create the music, and then descriptively classify it.

BUt you never know what is going to be important. One of the failed musical projects of mine, that I most wish had gotten off the ground, started out as a joke about genre . . . that we suddenly realized was a cool idea.

I was hanging out with the lead guitarist in my band, my best friend at the time, and another metalhead. The other metalhead had gotten a catalog from some underground extreme metal label. (Don't remember which one). All the releases had these subgenre listings which were at least three words, usually more. Two bands listed one after the other one was something along the lines of "deathly war viking black metal" ane the other was "blackened viking death metal." (These aren't exact, but they were that specific.) THis was in Louisiana, and one of us (don't even remember which one) jokingly used the prhase "Cajun blackened death metal." And we started talking about what that would be: Washboard percussion mixed with the blastbeats and wirey black metal riffs, lyrics about swamps, rot, voodoo, Cajun and Creole folklore, loup garous, swamp witches and curses etc.

And realized that our joke had just become an awesome idea. The thing is, it was also no longer a joke.

2) Your influences will always shine through. THe project I am currently recording I am not calling metal. I don't really consider it so myself, it's some kind of weird gothic industrial/witch house thing. But I've realized that both from hearing what I'm working on and playing it for other people, even though there is no way at the moment to clearly define the genre, it is clear that it is "something written by a metalhead."

I'm primarly a vocallist, and when I was yougner and practicing daily, I was quite good (or at least had good range and flexible tone). But I come from a family where 90% of the people can't carry a tune in a bucket. So I taught myself to sing by diong the vocal equivalent of learning guitar by ear. While I learned to growl listening to death metal, and to shriek listening to black metal, I extended my lower range copying Leonard Cohen, and my non-shriek scream by singing along with Jessicka from Jack off Jill and Kat Bjelland from Babes in Toyland. I listened to "Zombie" copied the tone, and then forced my voice higher into actually "keening" range. That same grunge/metal/goth/punk/art rock/noise will always be in whatever I write, regardless of the genre. But for that matter, so will Mahler, so will 60's psychedelic, so will 80's goth, and 90's alternative.

Regradless of how we *choose* to apply our influences to our art, we are and our art will always be the sum of our influences. The difference is some of us are more willing to admit it, and risk somebody thinking we aren't sufficiently "trve."

3) I absolutely want to keep fascists out of metal. I actually want to want to keep them out of everything.

4) (or 3b). I've said it before and I'll say it again. You know who says bigoted things while drunk? Bigots. They think the same crap sober, they just can't hide it drunk.

4b) (or 3c) Again, I am from Louisiana, I am aware of the existance of David Duke. People who declare themselves no longer Nazis, but still have the same far-right bigoted beliefs are still Nazi's . . . and they'll go right back to admitting it as soon as that gives them more money/cred. If someone claims to stop being a fascist, but doesn't become anti-fascist, I don't believe them. It's a matter of reality. If I drop a rock, it falls. Water is wet. Fire is hot. Fascists who still hold fascists beliefs after claiming to change are still fascists.

You are talking about keeping a specific demographic out of music, which is the function of the gate in the gatekeeping analogy. I agree that gatekeeping is often abused to deter people for completely unacceptable reasons. However, "bigots" is also a specific demographic. If you want to keep bigots out, then you are gatekeeping them.

Has this really ever happened that many times, or is it just that some people are outspoken about not liking these guys (which is OK) and that gets mistaken for them being blacklisted?

Not really, in my experience it's more like this: Person one asks if a band has Nazi ties, Person Two verifies that they do, and then People Three through Ten come up with reasons to justify Person One still listening to the band anyway. Person One makes their own decision of either "well that sucks, I'm not going to listen to them anymroe" or "well that sucks, but I'm giong to listen to them anyway," Person One and Two then move on with thier lives while Persons 3-10 continue to argue amongst themselves that everyone else is too sensitive.

Rinse, repeat.

It always happens on this board and it was always annoying because some people would essentially be inching toward arguing that it was OK to be fascist because we like bands that did other bad things, too. Just tiresome. Not worth it anymore.

I don't care what bands other people enjoy. But when a Kardashian wears a Slayer shirt, I think it's fair game to ask her if she can name 3 Slayer songs.

At the same time.....she paid for the shirt, and the band got their royalty. So....good, I guess?

No, this is a pointless and silly thing to care about.

Ok.

I personally think metal just isn't for certain people, it's definitely exclusive just by virtue of the fact that it's a niche style that requires a certain mindset and appreciation of non commercial expression

I think the music itself tends to invoke a certain fuck you attitude and In my opinion I get somewhat irritated sometimes over the whole "we're positive people and inclusive and nice" thing people on here sometimes do

Btw that's not about any ethnic or gender group, i think it's stupid to draw the line like that and it's not in any way what I'm referring to, so spare me that argument, it doesn't apply

I think nowadays metal has definitely been kinda co opted into being full of mainstream type people and I think that definitely kinda blows but I'm not gonna really cry about it, I just think the music has kinda lost its danger and balls.

I think people that really bitch about gatekeeping are lame and seriously if you're that soft I don't know why the fuck you listen in the first place, grow thicker skin imo

Bro who really cares? Read the room, In life who the fuck wants to be around a person constantly bitching about gays or blacks or Jews or whoever? it's just boring shit.

Gatekeep them all you want, just don't expect them to care, they're probably more preoccupied with hating everyone than music anyway they'll show themselves the door eventually

I doubt it happens that whole argument is stupid anyway, people know who's a Nazi or who isn't and they might decide not to support there is not a witch hunt

Yeah maybe from super liberal morons who just characterize everything on the right as Nazi, but why would you take them seriously anyway enough to discount them, they're clearly dumb, time to move on

That is my point, yes. No one wants to be around someone constantly bitching about the gays, the blacks, and the jews. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I don't trust that bad actors will just leave on their own. And even if they did, why put up with them in the interim? Or better yet, why let them in in the first place?

Yeah, it's a little sad.

Well those balls got emptied once Napalm Death came along. As for danger, hard to top the likes of Mayhem. That's a while ago now...
I don't envy todays bands. They've got their work cut out for them if they wanna get dangerous, fill up those balls and try and compete with what's come before and not come across as try hards or copycats and try to win over jaded old (and new) cunts who've seen and heard it all before.

Id prefer if you defined it before commenting. Lots of people went ahead and engaged anyways though.

Gatekeeping prevents both musical exploration and exploration of genres in general. Just because somebody has different tastes from another doesn't mean they can't get into new things at the same time. For me the true definition of a poser is somebody who likes the imagery of something rather the true entertainment involved. If somebody likes a genre outside of the standards, they can like it, if a person likes a polarizing or different album, they can like it.