The 5 Most Important Sheeple in Metal
Carving your own path in this world is a made up fantasy constructed by idiots. Let’s meet the true heroes, the ones who, against all odds, surrender to a hivemind and show us that we all can fit into tidy little personality boxes.
Dan “Clown” Gregory
Dan is just an ordinary 30-something accountant from Des Moines, Iowa, who has a moral edge over his co-workers because he listens to SLAYER!!!! Ok fine, he only sometimes listens to Slayer, but he knows every Slipknot lyric by heart. He likes his news straight-up with no spin, which is why he waits for Corey Taylor’s reaction to all news events before weighing in himself. His greatest accomplishment is getting one of his friends to drive him to a Knotfest (he has a DUI) and that friend now occasionally listens to heavy stuff like Hatebreed and 5FDP.
What makes him an important Sheep? He laughs at those idiots who follow Fox News and spit back whatever O’Reilly tells them. He is a follower of correct leaders, which somehow makes him a leader too, right? He’s living proof that just being aware of sheeple does not necessarily make you ascend above them.
Randy Cleanson
Randy just finished his last season as a trombonist in his collegiate marching band. He has tried, on more than three occasions, to get into harsh vocals. But always failing, he avoids the argument by only listening to instrumental progressive metal. He is always up against the stage at shows so he can prove his knowledge of the songs by wiggling his fingers at the guitarist every time a solo is about to show up. His greatest accomplishment is learning how to play everything but the solos on the first Animals as Leaders album.
What makes him an important Sheep? Being so afraid of being called a poser, he pigeonholes himself in /r/progmetal and downvotes things that aren’t proggy enough. He keeps his community safe and pure.
Primordial Smith
Originally born with the decidedly un-kvlt name of Gary, he changed his name around the time his hair reached his lower back. Listening to only the fuzziest lo-fi black metal recorded above the 66th parallel, he knows everything there is to know about his genre. His constant bickering with people who like to hear a few notes on a scale in their music keeps him as isolated as his cold heart longs to be. His greatest accomplishment is that his wolf howl mimic occasionally returns actual wolf howls. Or maybe it is just his neighbor’s husky.
What makes him an important Sheep? Similarly to Randy, he has a one-track mind that shows us that we can, if we really try hard enough, be so individual that we end up following made up rules. By being so strict, he became his own beautiful hivemind.
Coffee Rage’n’maim
Coffee runs the mid-afternoon metal half-hour (recently reduced from a full hour) at his university’s student radio show. He insists on starting off every show with powerviolence, so even the few avid listeners skip the first few minutes. He compromised with the station manager so he can have his one song as long as he plays the hits for the rest of the show. He insists on speaking like a demon between songs, and his jokes would be funny if anyone knew the references. His greatest accomplishment was avoiding being called a cuck for 3 straight days.
What makes him an important Sheep? Instead of using his limited but present platform to play interesting metal, he insists on playing genres that only he likes and songs that everyone already knows, thus perpetuating the sheeple-ness of us all.
Shreddy Vedder
This guy clicks. He clicks on everything. He opens up metal news articles about outspoken members of should-be-defunct bands and comments on them constantly. He leaves the page, comes back three minutes later, and comments some more, even if he doesn’t even care about the band, the person, or the news being discussed. He simply loves to ensure the continued success of people that post the articles he often doesn’t care for. His greatest accomplishment is that he once got over 20 likes on a comment for calling the author a “useless sack of donkey scrotums”.
Why makes him an important sheep? By donating all his free time to clicking on articles, he generates an impression of false interest on websites that report the good stuff. The stuff we all need to get through the day. Arrests, racist comments, fake controversy; we should be grateful that he helps someone get paid to bring all that information to us.
