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Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews
https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=127149
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Author:  CheesusCrust [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

So are the admins ok with some of the old reviews where offensive language was more acceptable? I feel like MA is one of the few places I see ableist or homophobic words ("r*tard, "f*ggot") used not only on the boards but on reviews with no consequences.

Examples of reviews with offensive language; "When Down Syndrome And Vikings Collide - 1%" by GuntherTheUndying for In Battle by Kingdom of Fear-

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... ying/66976

"The Royal Seal of Gayness" by hells_unicorn for Roots by Sepultura.

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... corn/29518

Side note; one of many, MANY of his reviews using the word gay in a derogatory manner, pretty pathetic for a 30 year old man (at the time) to use such language.

"Ages Like Milk" by Trooper Ed for Into the Pandemonium by Celtic Frost

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... nium/3023/

"Except the problem with the execution of these new vocals is that they, for lack of a better term, are, well, there's no easy way to put this: Mr. Garrison, this is what we call.....gay. Really, really gay. I heard one reviewer considerably more elitist and conservative than I am refer to these as "homosexual mating calls" and while that's a little much, I'm afraid they aren't far from the truth."

There are many more examples if you search around MA.

Do we need ableist or homophobic remarks in reviews? Should older, insensitive reviews be deleted?

Author:  droneriot [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

There's a pretty clear line between insensitivity and bigotry or hate speech and strict rules against the latter are good and make sense, but for the former I hope you realise that it's perfectly fine to just criticise people for doing it and that you don't need to pull the sledgehammer for every little bit of lack of consideration? Like you can't go to the review subforum and criticise people for it, you need the full force of the law to rain down upon them?

Author:  LycanthropeMoon [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 10:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

I'm gay and the older more blatantly homophobic reviews don't offend me, but that could be because I've become inoculated against this kind of language since it used to be far more common in metal. Maybe don't delete them, but be a bit more discerning with current and future reviews?

Author:  droneriot [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 10:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

Recently a reviewer made dumb comments about Mina Caputo in a review, was called out for it in the review discussion thread, he changed it. I'm absolutely not a fan of having heavy-handed rules for things that can be addressed by talking to people.

Author:  Pichushkin [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 10:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

If you’re the type who’s easily offended then maybe Metal isn’t for you.

Author:  CheesusCrust [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 10:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

Pichushkin wrote:
If you’re the type who’s easily offended then maybe Metal isn’t for you.


Anyone should be able to listen to metal, the easily offended and not easily offended. The music is one thing but they shouldn't see reviews with this kind of language. If it was racist remarks they'd be gone but I can't understand why ableism and homophobia is ok. Don't even get me started on the toxic masculinity in metal.

Author:  HeavenDuff [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 11:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

It's a weird coincidence that this thread is coming up right now, because earlier last week I was going through some older reviews, and I noticed this Noktorn guy who's writen more than a handful of reviews, and he's a repeate offender for the homophobic slang in his reviews.

https://www.metal-archives.com/users/Noktorn

A quick Ctrl+F of the words "gay" or "fag" through his reviews gives more than a handful results. If you actually look at the reviews themselves, it's even worst. You'll easily find some hateful judgemental shit against other Finish people for instance.

I'm pretty much with the OP on this. Maybe the reviews shouldn't be erased, but the reviewers should be asked to change them. And if they don't, than yeah... erase them. I'm not even sure why we'd want them on here.

droneriot wrote:
Recently a reviewer made dumb comments about Mina Caputo in a review, was called out for it in the review discussion thread, he changed it. I'm absolutely not a fan of having heavy-handed rules for things that can be addressed by talking to people.


This kind of logic relies solely on the presumption that these people are actually bigoted shitheads but rather that they were akward or that they didn't do it on purpose. A lot of people aren't actually nice. And I don't actually see why we should be tolerating homophobia, sexism, racism or any kind of bigotry.

Consider the case of the guy I mentioned at the top of my post.

Author:  droneriot [ Wed Mar 18, 2020 11:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

HeavenDuff wrote:
This kind of logic relies solely on the presumption that these people are actually bigoted shitheads but rather that they were akward or that they didn't do it on purpose. A lot of people aren't actually nice. And I don't actually see why we should be tolerating homophobia, sexism, racism or any kind of bigotry.

Consider the case of the guy I mentioned at the top of my post.

No, the kind of logic where you talk to people does not rely on any presumptions whatsoever because you're not guessing what the person intended to say, you're literally asking the person directly. Only your kind of logic relies on presumptions because you're just randomly making up motivtions as you go.

Again, there is a clear line between insensitivity and bigotry and there doesn't need to be any heavy-handed approach in a situation where you can simply ask people to put a little more thought into what they write. We're not talking about some big anonymous social media platform here, we're talking about a site where most of the people involved talk to each other on the forums on a daily basis. People like the OP wanting to suckerpunch people with a moderator sledgehammer because you're too lazy to just point out dumb parts of reviews to them in the appropriate subforum? That's just weak.

In a nutshell: "Can't be bothered to talk to people to tone down their dated 90s metalhead lingo that has aged terribly, will accuse them of being bigots instead." Really upstanding way to go, right there.

Author:  HeavenDuff [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 12:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

droneriot wrote:
No, the kind of logic where you talk to people does not rely on any presumptions whatsoever because you're not guessing what the person intended to say, you're literally asking the person directly. Only your kind of logic relies on presumptions because you're just randomly making up motivtions as you go.

Again, there is a clear line between insensitivity and bigotry and there doesn't need to be any heavy-handed approach in a situation where you can simply ask people to put a little more thought into what they write. We're not talking about some big anonymous social media platform here, we're talking about a site where most of the people involved talk to each other on the forums on a daily basis. People like the OP wanting to suckerpunch people with a moderator sledgehammer because you're too lazy to just point out dumb parts of reviews to them in the appropriate subforum? That's just weak.

In a nutshell: "Can't be bothered to talk to people to tone down their dated 90s metalhead lingo that has aged terribly, will accuse them of being bigots instead." Really upstanding way to go, right there.


Did you actually read any of the reviews by Noktorn? Because your whole presumption of innocence is all nice and dandy until you actually take a real look, even a quick one, into what reviewers such as him actually write. It's not just about a dated 90's metalhead lingo here where "gay" means lame or some crap like this. The man actually makes an awful lot of references to how men sucking penises or taking it up their asses is something inherently wrong. Not to mention that this kind of "dated lingo" relies heavily on normalized homophobia. So yeah, maybe if we stretch this situation as much as we possibly can, the guy might not be an homophobic douche, but he's still using homophobic language and that's not cool either.

Saying anything about my logic is random is a very questionable use of the word random. There is nothing random about looking up someone's reviews and noticing the excessive use of homophobic slang. It's not just one or two occurances here and there in, it's a pretty significal amount of occurances, going up to as recently as 2012. If you were using homophobic slang by than you were obviously not doing it out of sheer ignorance, no.

As for telling the reviewers to change their shit. We might end up waiting for a long time if we do so. Especially with folks like Noktorn who seems to have left the boat about 8 years ago.

I'm not talking about banning anyone. But I'm pretty sure we don't need reviews entitled "gay", all that much.

Author:  CheesusCrust [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 12:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles

Quote:
I'm not talking about banning anyone. But I'm pretty sure we don't need reviews entitled "gay", all that much.


Besides being offensive to some, calling things 'gay' is just extremely childish and devoid of any originality. That by default makes the entire metal community look childish and potentially homophobic.

So Mr. Hells_Unicorn it would be great if you got rid of your "Royal Seal of Gayness" review titles. Maybe you are not a homophobe but a grown man pushing 40 should not be using the word 'gay' in that manner.

Author:  droneriot [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Noktorn was a full-on, Blake Judd-level self-loathing heroin addict at the time. No one would miss his reviews if they were gone, but he isn't really representative of anything other than heroin being bad for you.

Author:  Napalm_Satan [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 2:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Noktorn's review for Fall of the Leafe's Aerolithe was straight up deleted because the main critique of the album he was serving up - what he titled the review and what he referenced multiple times throughout it to be exact - was that the music is 'gay', as if that's a meaningful or mature or insightful critique. He did actually focus on the music but enough of it was taken up by that to have it deleted I think.

And yes, I am aware he is bisexual, so you can say he has stronger grounds for using that word. Well, I myself am LGBT too, and I think sincerely using 'gay' as an insult like that is derogatory and above all else, childish. Using it as the crux of a review is really fucking stupid too, as it's not a critique or something that means anything.

The review, if you're interested:

Spoiler: show
Unbelievably fucking gay - 10%

I... don't even know where to begin. Fall Of The Leafe's 'Aerolithe' is so horrifically embarrassing an album that it literally makes me grimace with shame while listening to it. Having never heard the band before this, I can safely say that I would murder every man, woman, child and farm animal in the world with my bare hands in order to never hear this again. 'Aerolithe' is the sort of album that would, upon being played for a priest, make him lift his rosary high into the air and then cast it to the ground, his soul shattered with the confirmation that there in fact is no god. In most circumstances I would find this to be a pleasing reaction, but this album has made me question my very purpose on earth and ask myself whether I am willing to go on in a world with things as horrible as this. The very presence of 'Aerolithe' in the world casts a cold, dark shadow on all that is good, causing the eyes of children to boil in their sockets and dogs to spontaneously combust in pure, unbridled terror.

If I was forced to attribute a single adjective to this album, it would be the word 'gay'. Fall Of The Leafe's music, at least on this album, is spectacularly, enormously, monolithically gay in ways described only in scrolls thought to have been destroyed in the burning of the Library of Alexandria. I have no idea how anyone in their right mind could call this heavy metal, or even significantly influenced by the genre. Even the most abrasive moments could easily appear on your average rock radio station. This is poppy to an insane degree and it makes even the most tame and accessible heavy metal look like Vlad Fucking Tepes in comparison. The only hint of 'metal' on this record is occasional double bass, some (very) brief tremolo riffs, and mildly harsh vocals that are more palatable to the musically conservative than your average Linkin Park record. The vast, vast majority of the music here is pure, poppy radio rock that would offend essentially no one, so tepid are the tracks on 'Aerolithe'.

Now, unlike many metalheads, I don't have a problem with rock music on principle. I like a great deal of it, grew up with it, go to rock concerts, etc. However, there's a thin line between rock music that is dramatic, emotional, even feminine, and what we have here. As stated before, 'Aerolithe' is fundamentally gay in stunning fashion, and overblows every display of emotion into a mockery of whatever the root feeling was. The guitars play riffs more sugary and accessible than Nightwish (and composed of even more hopelessly predictable chord structures), the drums are basic rock beats 'spiced up' with the addition of a second bass drum, and the keyboards (omnipresent and lurking like a great faggy vulture in the sky) mostly echo the guitars or use terrible 'electronic' effects stripped from the latest awful eurobeat single. However, none of this even remotely matches the utter humiliation that stems from the vocals of the war criminal known as Tuomas Tuominen.

No, he's not 'bad' in the traditional sense, but nothing on this record is. The agonizing hilarity of his vocal performance stems from the incredible melodrama that he inserts into every single line of cheesy-ass lyrics. Imagine, if you will, bleeding to death from a massive puncture wound in your thigh on the side of the road, and in the few brief, precious seconds of your life, a Band-Aid truck passes by. The final hacking, sputtering, bitter laugh that escapes your lips in that situation is the only sound that accurately describes Tuominen's performance. Every word has some level of absurd rock vibrato, and the content seems to alternate between emulation of Bon Jovi, Eddie Vedder, Sully Erna, and a moocow. Yes, a moocow. Tuomas Tuominen, for the record, at points on 'Aerolithe', sounds like a fucking moocow.

The music is catchy. Yes, many of the melodies on this record are pleasing and stick with you. But you see, the simplest pop melodies really are good regardless of whether it's quality music or not, so having a few pleasing moments of such hopelessly populist music really has no reflection on the band itself. Additionally, the concept of something being 'catchy' is something that needs to be reevaluated. Simply because something manages to be catchy does not represent any sort of quality. Case in point: the Macarena. Numa Numa. A dozen offhand Simple Plan songs. The Ebola virus is extremely catchy, but it is DISPLEASING, regardless of how well it sticks to you while it liquefies your organs. So, yes, Fall Of The Leafe is catchy, but instead of liquefying your internal organs, it merely does it to your brain and possibly any male genitalia you may so happen to possess.

'Aerolithe' is unbelievably awful and unbelievably gay. Please, for the sake of all that is good about heavy metal or music in general, don't listen to this album. If you feel the need to buy it to complete your Fall Of The Leafe collection, feel free, but don't listen to it. Simply do whatever you can to avoid exposing yourself to this ridiculous, soul-crushing album. I took one for the team so you don't. Excuse me while I go nail myself to the fucking cross.

Author:  Twisted_Psychology [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 8:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Thankfully this sort of talk isn't as common as it used to be, at least around here. 2000s-era review culture is truly a surreal experience when going back to it in 2020.

Author:  Empyreal [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 9:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Nobody would miss a lot of that shit now, I bet. But it was a different time and I'd hope most of these guys have grown up since then. I probably used some dumb wordings like that a few times too and I'd never do it now.

Author:  colin040 [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 9:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Empyreal wrote:
Nobody would miss a lot of that shit now, I bet. But it was a different time and I'd hope most of these guys have grown up since then. I probably used some dumb wordings like that a few times too and I'd never do it now.


I'll always remember your review for A Sense of Purpose which does show a younger, yet entertaining Empyreal! :lol:

Quote:
People will crow on about how The Jester Race and Lunar Strain were good albums, but most of those people don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and I say those albums were mediocre, and In Flames was never good.


And:

Quote:
But really, what is the worst thing about this at the end of the day? That Goddamned self-piteous, whinging, I'm-so-tormented attitude that has plagued so many bands these days. What could possibly be entertaining about listening to a grown man whine about "killing what burns inside" or "I feel like shit, but at least I feel something"? What could possibly be gleaned at all from that? It's pathetic, just another lifeless attempt to cash in on the feeble, angst-ridden minds of the fourteen year old '00 generation that think they have it so hard. Here's an idea: If you think you have it hard, with your two-story house, outdoor pool, married set of parents and nice clothes, how about you come over here so I can bash your fucking head through a wall and break your In Flames CDs in half? Now cheer the fuck up, enjoy what you have and stop listening to this crap!

Author:  Thexhumed [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 10:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

CheesusCrust wrote:
Besides being offensive to some, calling things 'gay' is just extremely childish and devoid of any originality. That by default makes the entire metal community look childish and potentially homophobic.


Not in the mood to stir any controversy, or to play the devil's advocate on a matter that is pretty menial, but to say that people will assume the entire metal community is childish and (potentially) homophobic based on old album reviews is to blow things out of proportion and a strong display of blind prejudice, if you ask me.

Author:  bayern [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 10:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Thexhumed wrote:
Not in the mood to stir any controversy, or to play the devil's advocate on a matter that is pretty menial, but to say that people will assume the entire metal community is childish and (potentially) homophobic based on old album reviews is to blow things out of proportion and a strong display of blind prejudice, if you ask me.


Yep... exactly

Author:  Derigin [ Thu Mar 19, 2020 2:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Homophobic, Ableist and otherwise Offensive Review Titles and Offensive Content in the Reviews

Quote:
So are the admins ok with some of the old reviews where offensive language was more acceptable?

For the record, we're never OK with homophobic or derogatory remarks in reviews and will reassess them as they come to our attention.

We have a thread for doing so here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4153

Please feel free to bring up reviews you feel should be deleted there.

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