Juggalos Explained

A more nuanced explanation than you’re used to:

“Somewhere along the line they changed to Insane Clown Posse – they created a fantasy world from which they rapped about, taking on personas of rapping, insane clowns. This fantasy world was called the Dark Carnival.. which would do psychopathic murderous things to child beaters, greedy fat cats, and rednecks.

Their music was usually fairly offensive but once you got past the shock there were …amateurish attempts to talk about a lot of problems that plague children of poor and broken homes, who experienced grave alienation and isolation. They talked a lot about child abuse, or a school system that rejects you, parents that reject you. It was for the people… who didn’t fit in anywhere. There’s this really bad, and contradictory, attempt at being conscious rap that’s this undercurrent for their childish shock-rap.

And often – poor, uneducated white kids who felt lost gravitated to them.

As i’ve grown – i found them to be incredibly ignorant. But i’ve never seen so much love at a concert in my life. I’ve been to endless punk shows, nu-metal shows, raves, metal shows, reggae shows, hip hop shows, country concerts, family friendly radio band shows, and… i’ve never seen so much undiscriminating love at a show as i’ve seen as ICP shows. You show up there, and you’re a brother and sister to everyone there. They might tend to be fat, sweaty, ignorant or wierd… but those shows are the only place some of these kids feel at home or like they belong. It’s the only place they really get to let loose without judgement. I’ve never been to their big festivals called “The Gathering” and i never will. A lot of the footage i’ve seen from there was nothing like the shows i went too.

And as much as i don’t think ICP are talented, or that their message(s) are positive or intelligent – b/c they are none of these things, there’s this element that gets lost when the internet gets to circlejerking about how “stupid” and “trashy” they are. Not just of the group, but of the fans.

underneath it all, these kids are people too – and the ones you see doing really dumb (and sometimes dangerous) things on youtube vids of outdoor juggalo gatherings, it’s really a symptom of class, and broken homes and kids who don’t fit in anywhere more than anything else. And to mock that is really shitty.

I was friends with a couple of hardcore juggalos and almost in every instance – male or female – the word i’d best used to describe them is “lost”. Being a juggalo was a cathartic symptom for them, not the problem.”

Full discussion http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xikrw/eli5_juggalos/cfbplc1

Photo from http://www.musictimes.com/articles/3912/20140203/insane-clown-posses-gathering-juggalos-announces-new-location-festival-dates.htm


Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *