On The Direction Of This Site

I know that many of you have comments regarding the future of the DMU and what direction it should take, and I want you to rest assured that I do not care at all what you have to say unless you are one of the 5% of humanity that is capable of actually doing something, i.e. making a contribution here. The rest is just chatter by filthy little monkeys posturing at self-importance and trying to stay relevant because their lives are entirely irrelevant.

The internet — which now serves the same role that daytime television did in the 80s — has become an echo chamber of the self-important as they try to use pretense and pretending to make themselves appear more important than other monkeys. An internet “intellectual” or “virtue signaler” is the equivalent of a monkey decorating its fur with cast-off bottle caps. The internet has given rise to many terms describing variants of this behavior, like humble-brag, frenemy, and SJW. It is all the same pathology: the scream of the insignificant for attention.

Newsflash to monkeys: you only become important by doing something for other people or, better, some thing that people find meaning in. I write about sex, drugs, politics, and metal; all of these enrich lives when done right, and destroy civilization when done wrong. In my experience, most people want life to be like a grocery store where they just select what product flatters them and makes them look special to the other monkeys, and then not have to invest any more time in the upkeep of those products or responsibility for their decisions. Ideally, it would be like buying junk at Wal-mart: you take an identity off the shelf, pay for it, take it home and use it, then toss it thoughtlessly in the dumpster, ignoring the towering pile of landfill slowly consuming your world.

Perhaps the above was harsh. It is not so much that I do not care about what non-doers think, but that I have no time for it because they have no skin in the game and thus, by the rule of human socializing, they are simply posturing. 99% of the suggestions made to this site are made in public by people who want the other monkeys to start screeching in approval. They hope to gain a rise in troupe status (sorry, “social” status) by tearing down something above them; this is a common activity of the nearly intelligent, sometimes called the merely clever by pedantic but accurate elitists.

Let me explain to you the situation so that you can use it to make more informed misinformed monkey critique: this site has fallen on hard times. When the internet was mostly the domain of brainier people, content like what is produced here was rewarded. But once the television crowd comes in, they want intellectual posturing like is found at idiot magnet sites like Wikipedia and Metal Archives; they do the same thing to the music, as well, which dovetailed with the reduction in quality of the underground as its original bands expressed their fundamental ideas.

DMU does not face this problem alone. All of Western Civilization is facing the same “race to the bottom” in pursuit of whatever trends and fads please the herd at that very moment because when a half-billion monkeys with money decide they like something, whoever owns it finds themselves rich enough to exit the modern cycle of jobs, stress, shopping, drunkenness, and politics. You can take your hundred million and buy yourself an island off of one of the tourist-stabilized third world nations and then hire private security. The rest of your life will be quite pleasant. This is why people are obsessed with making their own mediocre version of whatever is in the news or trending on Twitter, and it is why underground metal was opposed to trends, instead looking toward what is timeless, eternal, perpetual, perennial, and otherwise not just a monkey herd behavior.

DMU can succeed, but it requires acknowledging the truth of the situation.

The first ugly reality is that there are many audiences and they prefer whatever flatters them, and there is a solipsistic unrealistic nerd contingent on the internet that only wants long articles bloviating about concepts from community college philosophy classes and TED talks. This audience murders anything good because they miss the point that actual thinkers are not merely “intellectuals,” or those who think to have a reason to be relevant, but applied theorists, or those who think about things which can produce real-world improvements.

The second ugly reality is that this “autistic” nerd contingent, which really got a kick-start with Swedish degenerates like Opeth and Meshuggah, exists as it does mainly because the rest of the audience is even more blockheaded. The Pantera kids — true American degeneracy — are the classic case of rock listeners who want the appearance of metal. They will moronize even the best forms of music, but anything of actual intellectual challenge drives them off; they can like the Eurasian-era Burzum albums, but are baffled by the first one, for example. They will proudly display their Tchaikovsky and Copeland albums, but find Bruckner inscrutable. Both they and the “autistic” nerd contingent are examples of the Dunning-Kruger-Downing effect, and they drive away anyone intelligent, which dooms a genre to stupidity and thus, failure.

The third ugly reality is that most people simply want good music but they are not going to commit much further than to choosing a radio channel, stream, or site to tell them what to listen to. They are not music nerds or obsessives. They have lives and reasons for their importance — usually local reasons, like family, career, culture, and proficiency — outside of music and they do not need to use it to posture around. This audience is virtually unrepresented on the internet because they are also not prone to spend a lot of time dicking around social media, forums, and search engines. They have other stuff to do, but they like killer tunes.

To reach this audience, we have to be popular enough that we are highly visible, and yet distinct enough that they can grasp what we are on about. This requires covering more mainstream heavy music. The point is that if people find a trusted resource which adherence to the DMU’s mission statement of elitism, or praising only the good music so that Darwinistic natural selection drives out the bad, they will follow it, and then will pay attention to its underground metal recommendations.

The monkey troupe wants a site that praises crap so that the monkeys can feel validated for their own poor taste, which is another way of saying that useful idiots want to be “equal” so that no one notices they are idiots and downranks them for being less useful than people who are not idiots, or at least, less idiotic. DMU has stood against this mentality for years because it leads to crap music becoming profitable, which in turn causes more crap music to be created, at which point talented musicians flee the genre because they realize that they will be ignored while crap is praised, which basically makes these talented musicians waste their lives in exchange for abuse.

If you want a future for this site, it can be found in being effective, which requires the initial appearance of selling out so that the site can deliver the one message that cannot be sold out — good to the good, bad to the bad — and therefore in turn requires people of wisdom to implement it. Everyone else will screech for their own personal pretenses and in doing so, both fail to achieve what they claim are their aims and waste the time of anyone involved.

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110 thoughts on “On The Direction Of This Site”

  1. JohnnyReb says:

    That is a summary of the comments critical of many of the articles here since Daniel and Titus took over as editor. And as stated in many of those same comments, readers continue visiting this site expecting a return to form.

    1. For a return to form, we need:

      1. People willing to uphold the form.
      2. More media traction.

      Screaming into the dark is not helpful.

      1. JohnnyReb says:

        Agree. What is the plan to get more media traction?

        As far as screaming into the dark goes, as I posted on another site recently, this website inspired me to create my own blog for the purpose of metal analysis, but I don’t believe it yet meets the standards required for submission here. Until they do, I’ll continue to work on it over there.

        1. Spinal says:

          URL?

        2. What is the plan to get more media traction?

          Cover more bands that people recognize, i.e. all “heavy music” including heavy metal, hard rock, distorted rock, industrial, noise, Christ-fistin’ reggaeton, IDK LOL.

          1. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

            This article is exactly why people complain: DMU has entirely lost sight of its proper audience and has sold out.

            This desire for more media coverage and access to the mainstream is completely misguided and runs irredeemably contrary to any notion of real elitism. You said it yourself with your “third ugly truth” and the paragraph that followed – you are trying to reach “most people” by covering mainstream music. Let’s set aside for a minute that you have completely failed to even do this and that any substantive articles about more mainstream metal bands have been completely drowned by floods of SMRs of shitty bands that nobody has heard of and ultra-faggoty “ironic” junk like this (https://www.deathmetal.org/news/stupid-poseur-thots/) piece of shit.

            DMU’s audience should NOT under any circumstances most people, and covering mainstream bands only serves to legitimize them. People, NOT most people, but people with the natural capacity AND curiosity to appreciate quality metal, visited DLA and ANUS metal reviews so that they could find quality music that they hadn’t heard. If people don’t have the natural curiosity to be looking for resources on quality music, they DO NOT have the natural curiosity it will take to have their worldviews challenged or to appreciate what any of it means.

            This article is a sellout’s manifesto, a rationalization of the complete and utter embarrassment DMU has become. DMU’s elitism is a LIE.

            1. Titus Pullo says:

              Hell yeah brother! Prozak is posing and shilling now.

              The staff thought similarly and figured out who was the problem:
              https://www.deathmetal.org/meta/this-is-the-end-prozak-prolapsed-lost-in-the-anus/

              1. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

                I wasn’t sure if that article was actually staff or a user submission because it was so completely the opposite of this one. If that’s indeed your official position then I have hope for the first time in forever. Don’t fuck it up!

                1. Titus Pullo says:

                  Prozak was too autistic to realize we quit there. We had to drop the bomb twice.

  2. Negrew says:

    What a joke of an article. Oh you poor babies, the West is “racing to the bottom” and no one is sophisticated enough to appreciate DMU.

    Uh… have you seen the shit you’ve been publishing lately? Like those stupid “kyle” articles or the repetitive, lowbrow, uninformative Sadistic Metal non-Reviews.

    Maybe part of the reason that the website has “fallen on hard times” is, you know, lame content that no one cares about.

    Stop blaming the everyone else for your choices to publish garbage content.

    CUCKS

    1. Kyle says:

      Listen man there is some shit that’s like no way man it can’t be like legit but it is and you know people are always all yeah dude I dunno you know but seriously man that’s how you know you know it’s always like whoah man as if I see it and you hear it but like we don’t and I don’t and you don’t but we do too at the same time but different and differently each but sometimes we hear and know the same thing and that’s life but not really cause it’s crazy like that but sane and rational and believable in a way you cant believe man

      1. Burzum & Darkthrone with Demilich says:

        Your writing sucks.

      2. Negrew says:

        Yeah whatever, the “kyle” thing is stupid and not at all funny. Whichever editor came up with this is obviously stupid and probably a fat virgin.

  3. El Bastardo says:

    Daniel needs to go. His content is weak – 100% unsubstantiated vapid opinions. Having time to work on this site as main qualifier doesn’t cut it. I agree with the above poster – take some responsibility.

    1. Robert says:

      Agreed. Get that Mallrat/Marmot guy outta here. He brings the quality of this site down. Where SMR was hilarious, while being exceptionally well-written, it’s gone to shit when he’s reviewing bands.

  4. Rainer Weikusat says:

    As genuine contribution, here’s a set of neologisms ending in -core which may come in handy if someone’s ever short of labels to stick on something in lieu of criticizing it:

    Intolitarian nazicore
    Nyogthaeblisz antisemiticore
    Immolation vinegarcore
    Graveland pagancore
    Burzum ad&dcore
    Mayhem deadcore
    Infester diarrheacore
    Morbid Angel Steve’s treycore
    King Crimson eclectic frippcore
    Sacramentum blackened kitschcore
    Emperor the wizards eclipsed core
    Blood Speyrer Domchor

    1. Attention Defecate Disorder says:

      Some of these really work. blackened kitschcore, pagancore, ad&dcore.

  5. 1349 says:

    “If you want a future for this site, it can be found in being effective”

    In WHOM being effective?
    Do You mean You’re proposing tasks to readers? (But what tasks?)

    …I guess the real problem is that You personally have no time to run & write for this site.
    I understand perfectly well that good writers (educated thugs, applied theorists) can’t be found anywhere – even if one has millions of bucks to pay them.
    I can’t help in running this site, for a number of reasons. That’s why I keep silent when I see mediocre posts here.

    DMU has been great. It has been useful. No matter what happens to it in the future, it has done much already. I won’t be critically upset if it disappears or gets irreversibly irrelevant, because I know that You, personally, will do useful things someplace else. (Maybe they’ll only be useful for Your country, not ALL countries – that’s not a big problem.)

    If DMU “sells out” on the surface and keeps actively working, that’s great.

    1. Brett, could you write a brief list of the most important actions that need to be taken? Then we will get started.

    2. The problem is that any volunteers need to be managed. If you hand people random tasks, you get random results, and then someone needs to integrate those into the rest. We have not had staff for that for a long time.

      1. I guess don’t see the “problem”. Of course there shouldn’t merely be random, decentralized, chaotic “contributions”. There should be some minimal level of hierarchy and division of labor so that results are reliable and high quality. I had thought that was a given, especially for you. So again, what do you need?
        How does one become a staff and how is that different from a contributor? Consistency?

  6. Psychic Psych Toad says:

    DMU has always grown better and this little phase will be the same.

  7. Black Commentary says:

    Johan numbered paragraph essays: 7 comments.
    One sentence smrs: 65 comments

    Maraat is exactly what we deserve lbh

    1. JohnnyReb says:

      Johan is a great writer and many of his articles have plenty of comments. I may be in the minority here, but I’m not all that interested in prog rock bands. But I have sent those articles to the stoner 3 bays down from me. He really likes them.

    2. I think this makes a good point: when the metal audience does not reward quality music or quality writing, few will take the time to do it.

      The solution is to widen the audience so that more people see the site and those that can understand it — probably a fixed percentage per the “bell curve” — then are able to encounter it.

      They will not go looking for it, generally.

  8. Deathevokation says:

    Right, cause this HIPSTER website didn’t do it to itself with articles on beards, beers, pipe smoking, and by doing reviews for power metal. Brett and company can’t get past the fact that everything becomes a sell out in a crass capitalist society even as they write reviews for fine tobacco, beard grooming, and while bashing the latest rubbish that doesn’t sound exactly like Burzum. Then in pathetic self indulgent pseudo-intellectual wankery, Brett writes a lengthy article blaming everyone except himself. This site hasn’t been relevant in a long time. It’s only resource is the old reviews for albums of the pioneers of metal along with articles on metal history and it’s philosophy. Brett and deathmetal.org can blame themselves, and the law of unintended consequences for the sites failure.

    1. So Brett made some mistakes and is still a bit confused. So what? That’s not what matters. It’s not about Brett, or about us. It’s about what needs to get done: 1. Define what would make a good metal music website. 2. List what steps and tasks we can we do to work toward that. That’s all that matters.

      1. I agree, and I am not even sure that mistakes were made, unless we are saying that the metal audience made them.

        This site has continued doing what it has, given that its staff has changed because its original writers have had to dedicate themselves to newer projects.

  9. HH says:

    > Be DMU
    > Gain notoriety for elitist attitudes and witty iconoclasm
    > Fuck all that up
    > Blame lack of meaningful content on non-contributory readers
    > Become disillusioned with dwindling web traffic
    > Seek a broader audience with sadistic troll reviews of ‘mainstream’ metal albums
    > Ignore fact that no one has ever heard of any of the albums
    > Ignore fact that the Kardashians wear designer 80s era Slayer shirts on red carpet
    > Call new visitors autistic retards every day until the simpletons are weeded out and only fans of underground death metal and Sorcier des Glaces remain
    > Call these people “monkeys” in search of “community college philosophy” who are “racing to the bottom” because they came to Death Metal Underground to read about death metal and not (b)latent homosexual pseudo satire about Sodomizing the Weak for the 666th time.

    1. Tito's Pollo says:

      Why would you come to the DMU to read about death metal?

      I came for the corn!

    2. > Blame lack of meaningful content on non-contributory readers
      > Become disillusioned with dwindling web traffic

      You have the order backward. First there was dwindling web traffic, mainly because there was diminishing interest in underground metal and changes to what was popular on the web (i.e. Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, Metal Archives). Then there was a lack of incentive to make meaningful content, especially considering that other sites are better places to get published.

      As social media craters, this is going to change, and this post was designed to position us for that eventuality.

  10. Brett, please try to be more positive. Daniel especially. You’re very smart, but also very smug. Also, there is nothing wrong with covering more “mainstream” music for click bait. No one here will think you’re abandoning your principles for expediency. Your problem is really exactly the opposite: you still need to learn how to forgive the human herd. Instead of insulting and attacking it, use it as a force for your own goals. I hope to soon have more time for metal and sites like this, and I hope others do as well. We need to do the work to preserve the best.

    1. Let me clarify one thing: no one is blaming the herd; I am pointing out that there is a reason for declined investment in underground metal — the stupid music took over and the smart people fled — and for ignoring certain opinions, which is that people without skin in the game are stupid monkeys who make suggestions to make themselves feel intelligent and cool, and their suggestions are correspondingly of low quality.

      1. For sure. I just personally think your level of Spenglerian pessimism has always seriously hindered you and your work, but you are your own man and I am not a know-it-all. Maybe it’s for the best.

        1. Wait until tomorrow’s article (at the Other Site).

  11. Marc Defranco says:

    Honestly bring Daniel back at this point

  12. national geographic nipples says:

    Wow, DMU actually got triggered by the comments? Not a good look. Strip out all the Brett terminology and this article doesn’t look much different from a 14 year old girl’s facebook post ranting about how much she doesn’t care about people “judging her.”

    you even admit you cover shitty stuff for clicks. that might have been best left in a staff group email.
    if you want to thrust DMU into greater relevancy:
    1. keep following Daniel’s obvious strategy of alt-right (the new angry youth counterculture, like it or not) pandering, but have him improve his sloganistic writing or have someone else do it. DMU and Amerika are basically the same thing, make it a gestalt.
    2. hire an editor or at least use spellcheck.
    3. work on yourself as you work on the site. The reason this site fell back on memes and messy philosophy in lieu of musical analysis is because there was never actually much technical/theoretical rigour anchoring any of those anus beat poetry reviews. So as soon as you abandon that stream of consciousness style you stay away from musical analysis in general so you don’t reveal yourself as a semi-charlatan who’s really just about “the feeling, maaaaan.” Get more guys who know their theory like Johann and merge that into the cultural angle of Brett’s writing.

    good luck.

    1. Tito's Pollo says:

      I thought Tito was the new editor.

      He needs to have a job so he can afford to feed me.

    2. The reason this site fell back on memes and messy philosophy in lieu of musical analysis is because there was never actually much technical/theoretical rigour anchoring any of those anus beat poetry reviews.

      Clever but not correct.

  13. Negron says:

    Bring in the trannies

  14. Crow says:

    Brett Stevens,

    Do not blame other people for the fact that your idea of making a blog out of metal didn’t work and quickly receded to the lowest common denominator.

    Plus, the idea that ‘people who don’t contribute should stay quiet’ is bullshit. You don’t contribute to writing metal, yet to don’t stay quiet about metal.

    Lastly, the idea that people using anonymous names and posting a few troll comments are looking for boost their actual social rank by using anonymous troll names is fucking absurd.

    We, your long time readers, are telling you that your recent work sucks. Just like you tell modern metal bands their work sucks.

    1. Crow says:

      On the positive side:

      1. You’re not going to get far into the ‘mainstream’ if you keep mixing alt-right anger in various posts and also constant talk of sodomy, AIDS etc and finally things like pictures of people’s heads literally ripped apart.
      2. Get a writer who isn’t so obviously clinically depressed like Mallrat and who injects literal depressive anger in all his posts.

    2. Emanuel Darrat says:

      I remember you on the old forum here! You were the biggest autist on the forum and you LARPed as some kind of cryptic wizard with secret knowledge of the universe hahahahahahahaha.

      1. Titus Pullo says:

        Brett’s chosen cheeto raccoon took office and America has all the same problems as before. It’s like when women change their hairstyle or trannies their genitalia: they’re still the same people with the same problems.

      2. Raging Steer says:

        Do not criticize the chosen fursona of someone, it does not go in line with the new open and tolerant direction of DMU.

        1. Watch our “gender” field expand.

    3. Titus Pullo says:

      “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Hi I’m Crow, the asshole autist with a stick up his ass who killed the ANUS forums. I don’t like what you’re doing here Prozak. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

    4. Crow says:

      If you small boys think this is really Crow, you’re pretty stupid.

      1. Emanuel Darrat says:

        RUSED BY LE CRYPTIC RUSE-MASTER

    5. Do not blame other people

      “Audiences shift” equals “blaming other people”? Not logical.

  15. Laozi says:

    Great article, Brett. This site is still much better that BBN sites, no matter if the articles reference music or not.

  16. thewaters says:

    I personally only ever come back to this site because of the periodic Brett Stevens post. If you want to help out link to some relevant news that the site can use. If any of you read about a reissue, or a cool tour send a link to Titus and Brett or whatever. It’s not much but it certainly can’t hurt. Maybe you could even try a review and see how it goes.

  17. Trashchunk says:

    It is good to realize you are meaningless and will not impact much, it should be a liberating feeling if you are not at the top but also not wallowing in the retarded bottom.

  18. Seth says:

    Though much of the writing of late has lacked a certain eloquence, the assessments given are still accurate to a high degree. With that said, I think the idea of contribution should be taken seriously by anyone who wants the underground to survive. There’s a unique opportunity to form one which hipsters, posers and SJWs can’t penetrate, because it would be based on quality, which the aforementioned cannot distinguish between quality and the appearance of quality. Though with only DMU, ODB, and Praefuscus Ferrum pushing it forward, it’s aggregation remains only partial. Part of the current illness in the nascent new underground, and I have to agree with Brett here, is that people try pull down anyone working towards some kind of contribution. I realized this most starkly when I found myself being criticized for wanting to find new, high quality bands, polish my writing and musical analysis skills, and contribute articles on occasion.

    1. Though much of the writing of late has lacked a certain eloquence, the assessments given are still accurate to a high degree.

      I agree. Our volunteer editors and writers have on the whole been excellent. DARG handled theory and artistic context well, and Maarat and Titus handled spirit. Devamitra did a great job of staying current.

      With that said, I think the idea of contribution should be taken seriously by anyone who wants the underground to survive.

      I think this is the key point. We have lots of monkeys who want to criticize, and hoot and holler about how “someone” should “do something,” but at the end of the day they are solely armchair whiners. People who contribute have important opinions. Others are just background noise. Same way it was in the old underground, for those who were there or could understand it.

      1. Seth says:

        Granted, I’ll admit I eyed Maarat with suspicion for a while. Upon reflection, I’ve come to realize there has always two sides to Hessian spectrum, the essentialists and the analysts. The former may seem like blockheads to some, but they live a lifestyle according to the core principles of metal, but express it in the form of savage emotions and a sense of triumph through entropy (MkM of Antaeus comes to mind). The latter then focusing on exposing the naturalistic and occult roots of the lifestyle, I think of Varg as the top-tier. Perhaps an article on this should have been written to prime readers for different approaches to writing about metal, then again, perhaps it’s more amenable in the long run not to spoon-feed concepts to people that (ideally) should be perfectly capable of figuring it out for themselves.
        On a positive note, the new underground, though sparse and disconnected, is starting to create a presence again through invite only shows (especially in places like Portland, OR). Though the leftists intended on shouting down anything they could misconstrue as offensive, this in turn is allowing us separate the wheat from the chaff. Chaff which I think has always been there, though until recently, had been smoldering beneath the duff waiting for some cronyistic social movement that would allow them to abandon their prior pretenses of hessian values in exchange for some temporary social credibility.

        1. Rainer Weikusat says:

          If Hessian essentialist amounts to making demonstrably wrong statements such as “with frequent breakdowns and bluesly guitar solos” about a track which contains no ‘breakdowns’ in the deathcore/ suffication sense but some breaks aka pauses, a musical device which predates Sufficationcore by a few centuries, and a solo which is decidedly not blues-styled (I happen to know a bit about this), I think I prefer »blockhead«.

  19. Psychic Psych Toad says:

    Ultimately, the next greatest band of the future would arise from this site’s members and dominate the extreme metal landscape without question. The entire internet would continuously research our back catalogues for further inspirations.

    They say it’s not black, but I don’t believe…
    For fans of old school black metal only.
    Morbid Angel is the pick of the aeon!

    1. Raging Steer says:

      Like that Goatboy project, or whatshisfaceagain?

  20. Johnny cab says:

    Cool, so you’re a drama queen who can’t handle his stock taking a tumble.

    I think most people were trying to tell you that beard oil and cigars are fucking gay. You can call it “sophistication”, but it makes you look like a soyboy and it’s cringe-heavy.

    Face it. ANUS was a go-to back in the day for the quality of the writing, people came to read and absorb the information. It went to shit, it got (sorry to say this) swallowed up by the leftist surge of shit coverage of heavy metal and now you’re nothing. There is a hole for somebody to make a proper site that fuses subjects like heavy metal, philosophies, and social decline into one nice cohesive call that doesn’t involve beard oil. You are no longer right for the hole. That hole will belong to somebody else. Kick and thrash all you want, your cucking is self-propelled, your own accelerationism is complete. Go into the woods and be free.

    1. Why make it personal? Sure, Brett is a very flawed, imperfect person. But so what? It’s not about Brett, or even about DMU. It’s about metal and ideas. Is it really intelligent to abandon this site? Is learning and reform impossible? What would this site redeemed look like?

    2. There is a hole for somebody to make a proper site that fuses subjects like heavy metal, philosophies, and social decline into one nice cohesive call that doesn’t involve beard oil.

      No, there is not, because it would receive fifty visitors a day and thus be totally irrelevant to the industry and therefore have no influence, at which point its writers would abandon it. See: the long list of people who have started sites of this nature only to flake out two years later.

      There is room for the Opeth version of philosophy applied to music, and some have gotten famous doing that, but… well… at that point, you might as well just write “The Tao of Pantera” and go big time.

  21. Psychic Psych Toad says:

    I love looking up visits her oath on YouTube and getting a commercial ad for the smart beauty mirror beforehand. Wifey wants it now but I guess for 30 bucks I will spend 150 and make her 5x happier!

    Happy Kwanzaa everyone!!!

  22. Death metal as philosophy says:

    Many people are qualified and have volunteered to help this site yet you refuse all help

    1. I have referred all volunteers to the Editor.

  23. Death Metal Gear Solid says:

    Bad to the bad – that’s what’s going on here, no discerning guidance required

  24. Rainer Weikusat says:

    A crucial aspect of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that it manifests itself in self-assessment – incompetent people tend to overestimate their abilities because of their incompetence – and not when being assessed by others: What I believe about me will be clouded by the DK-effect at work in me. What you believe about me by the DK-effect at work in you (and vice-versa, obviously).

    1. I think your understanding of the Dunning-Kruger and related Downing effect is imprecise. DK states that people understand things only until they reach their competence ceiling, after which anything more complex seems like bizarre voodoo nonsense. Downing says that those who understand more are aware of more complexity, thus less prone to strong and absolute statements. So DK does not apply equally as you suggest.

      1. Rainer Weikusat says:

        I didn’t suggest it applied equally, just in both directions. I read the original paper yesterday and that’s definitely among the claims: The so-called Dunning-Kruger effect manifests itself as people both overestimating their abilities and underestimating those of others. Somewhat polemically worded, a dimwit will be convinced that everyone but himself is a dimwit.

        This should also be taken with a big grain of salt: First, this was a one-off study (AFAIK). That’s what a certain Mr Feynman used to refer to as »junk science« because an experiment which isn’t provably repeatable is worthless.

        This was based on 4 experiments (called ‘studies’ in the paper). The first can be discarded outright because it was about ‘assessing humour’. There are no objective criterions for that, hence, nothing can be measured here. The 2nd was about ‘logical reasoning’ and the 3rd and 4th where about ASWE grammar. This is a very limited set of topics. Then, people’s estimated of their abilitiy in performance where by-and-large the same regardless of their actual ability and performance. Effectively, low performers grossly overestimated themselves and high performers slightly underestimated the outcome of their performances but they all believed to have scored >50 and <80, with the low performers believing that they had performed worse than the high performers believe they had.

  25. Skull Powder says:

    As a member of the third ugly reality, this site is quite useful for finding great music I wouldn’t find elsewhere. Not all articles interest me, but I can scroll past them as easily as I scroll past whining comments.

    That usefulness does apply to the tobacco and alcohol reviews too (though obviously it’s not the main reason to visit the site). People who are very sensitive to how others view them often project that onto others, and falsely believe that everyone else is acting primarily for appearances. When they see someone doing something for reasons other than appearance, that real reason is invisible to them, and so they invent a reason that fits into their understanding, which means they imagine a silly reason why that person would think that their action makes them appear favourably to others. This can make them angry, as the action appears foolish to them (it will not achieve the result of appearing well that they think is the intent).

    Thanks to everyone who has put effort int this site and produced something good!

    1. tiny midget says:

      thank you and I love you ! ♥

    2. When they see someone doing something for reasons other than appearance, that real reason is invisible to them, and so they invent a reason that fits into their understanding, which means they imagine a silly reason why that person would think that their action makes them appear favourably to others.

      As a long time pipe smoker and beer fan, I see a utility in applying the same natural selection style sorting process to those genres as to metal.

      1. Skull Powder says:

        That is readily apparent. The beer and tobacco content also has the secondary utility of promoting effective ways of using these enjoyable tools.

  26. Hessian Murderer of Black Death says:

    Yeah, ok, but the site is still bad. That’s still how it is.

  27. Hessian Murderer of Black Death says:

    “This is a problem. You should fix it”

    “I’d like to see you do better!!!!!!!”

    “You haven’t addressed the problem though.”

    “You’re no better!!!!!!!!”

    “But the problem is still-”

    “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

    1. “I’d like to see you do better!!!!!!!”

      Your understanding here appears incorrect. The argument is not “you should do better” but “if you do not have some skin in the game, your opinion is irrelevant because it is based in your attempt to control others for your own gratification.” The proof is in these comments: people who contribute an honest effort have something useful to say, while the others are just monkeys trying to look cool and/or justify their failing lives as important.

  28. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE says:

    >DMU does not face this problem alone. All of Western Civilization is facing the same “race to the bottom” in pursuit

    Really Brett? Way to paint DMU and yourself as the victims because you now that papa Blumpf has taken the office you’ve discovered your new found political ambitions you peddle regularly at amerika.org due to which this site has completely declined in quality.

    I think it is time to let DMU die, maybe something will rise from the ashes or maybe nothing would, but either way I’m sure Arminass would agree that it’s time to pull the plug. Practice what you preach faggot.

    1. Nib says:

      Why don’t they
      Pull the plug

  29. canadaspaceman says:

    can’t understand it. People that hate this site keep visiting, and then also say to shut it down?
    For example, I hate facebook, so I don’t visit there; and if I do, I get the info I need and LEAVE.
    If anyone leaving comments thinks they can do better than DMU, why not start your own site and link to it in the comments, and see if anybody agrees with your views.

    It reminds me of when I played in a band in the 1990s, and told my Dad there were protesters that wanted a bar to shut a gig I played at. He asked, why don’t they get their own bands and sing about what they want?
    Because that would make too much sense, wouldn’t it?

    1. Titus Pullo says:

      Death Metal Underground started off intelligent but those guys were sacked in favor ANUS 2.0 minus the community. The then readers wanted to feel smart about themselves making sense of drug-fueled, impressionistic ramblings from Prozak that aren’t written often anymore as Prozak is old and drugs are bad so the editor’s chair was handed over. The audience then experience fruitcake occultist sugar overload which was the equivalent of listening to In Flames. Then the sugar comedown back to street level happened with Kagan and Maarat and the whiny pretentious autists bitched enough for Prozak to rant here.

      1. thewaters says:

        I’m curious to know which era of Death Metal Underground you are referring to. Would you consider the site as it was run under Devamitra the first incarnation of this site? Or only the site after the official name change to Death Metal Underground?

        Whatever did happen to Devamitra, Helmholtz, and ObscuraHessian? Those guys used to produce great articles.

        1. Titus Pullo says:

          Check your email in an hour.

        2. Suckoffgaymen - Effigy of the Faggotten says:

          Do you not play in a band with Helmholtz, which has been featured on this site?

      2. Shut the fuck up you familyboi sub-120 normalfag facebook moralizer. NATURE IS A BUG-WRECKING MACHINE I TELL YOU WHAT

      3. “Death Metal Underground started off intelligent but those guys were sacked in favor ANUS 2.0 minus the community.” Please tell a bit more about this point in the history. (I’m a reader since 2005.)

        1. I would be interested as well. We had one team that insisted on praising mediocre music because it was current, and that led to internal disagreement. When it comes to quality versus popularity, we always choose quality. The way around that is to write about popular stuff with an eye toward quality, but this argument has not been understood by many, least of all by its critics.

      4. The then readers wanted to feel smart about themselves making sense of drug-fueled, impressionistic ramblings from Prozak that aren’t written often anymore as Prozak is old and drugs are bad so the editor’s chair was handed over.

        Not accurate at all. The original writings are highly structured, and the editor’s chair was handed over so that I could pursue other projects. During that time I have written two books, published one, and written a few thousand pages of blog posts plus created a podcast. The main problem with ANUS was that it demanded I limit my other contributions so I could focus on this at a time when the audience was fragmenting:

        1. True believers: really loved the underground, stopped paying attention in the middle to late 1990s.
        2. True hipsters: declared the underground dead in 1992, only listen to the second Carcass album, and now are into retro-electro.
        3. Funderground: want to praise 1994-present day works that are mediocre as hell just because “they have that old underground spirit.” They have a new favorite every week, and these favorites are forgotten within a year. See also: NWN/FWP crowd.
        4. Rock fans: just want some version of Krallice to be endorsed by this site or other authorities so that they can feel respected.
        5. Profit maniacs: want to keep the metal mythos, etc. etc., alive so that they can sell you more books, magazines, music, and internet advertising.
        6. NSBM lunatics: want us to turn our “metal = realism + natural selection + mythic-historical viewpoint” into “metal = today’s flavor of National Socialism inspired dreck.”
        7. The Left: mental health cases who should be dropped out of helicopters. Ideally, we could just relocate them to Mexico, so “dropped out of helicopters into swimming pools near ethnic restaurants” might be more accurate. Love grindcore and anything “precious” or iconoclastic, like Deafheaven and Babymetal.
        8. Armchair neurotics: they confuse something going on in their world with something going on.
        9. The rest of the monkeys: just want to feel self-important for a few minutes, so they make useless and destructive “suggestions.” I have seen this over the past two decades and it is why I treat such people as if they are retarded and destructive.

    2. People that hate this site keep visiting, and then also say to shut it down?

      Exactly my point about those without skin in the game who want to make useless suggestions that waste time or sabotage those that are above them. Ressentiment from tarantulas, indeed.

  30. discomfort says:

    This article is a long passive-aggressive ad hominem. Who cares what WE are doing, we’re busy with other stuff and we (literally everyone) also notice this site has turned to shit.

    By the same “What about YOU?” logic, no one should piss on Metallica if they haven’t contacted them and tried to help them improve their music.

    1. desu metal says:

      Yeah this.

      I recall a handful of times when some butthurt band member read a review that trashes their shitty band and whined in the comment section saying that critics should just produce better music if they know so much about what makes music good or bad.

      Usually then the reviewer responds with insistence that they need not stoop to the level of content creators since they already maintain the lofty position of taste shapers. And now Brett is inverting that argument; “if you don’t like it then you do better” and it’s like uh ok bro why don’t you write some good metal then or save America or be useful in some capacity or another actually.

      1. And now Brett is inverting that argument; “if you don’t like it then you do better”

        You misunderstood the argument about skin in the game. The charge is not to “do better” but to “contribute so that you are not a drive-by concern troll.”

        1. desu metal says:

          Are you telling me you have no skin in the game when it comes to quality metal being produced? At least be consistent m8

    2. Who cares what WE are doing, we’re busy with other stuff and we (literally everyone) also notice this site has turned to shit.

      Busy with other stuff is only as valuable as that other stuff is. Everyone has a few hours of free time a week, and if you contribute nothing, you are merely manipulating others for your own amusement or to make yourself look cool to the other monkeys.

  31. Please don’t mind my scrappy neocon younger brother, Brett. Rest assured – DMU is totally cool alt-right material for disaffected young white males who like hard rocking music, the same as always. Hey, who else are you going to trust for all your opinions on how to identify yourself? Those uncool fakers at Metal sucks? Stay cool, groovy dudes.

  32. DescendIntoTheAbsurd says:

    I actually appreciated those beer reviews. It’s culture to enjoy whilst you listen to Metal.

    1. Metal culture is a philosophy (roughly: raging realism + historical time frame + mythic/pattern language + Nietzschean hessian aggression).

      It needs to expand to other areas. Lifestyle (beer, books, movies, other genres, tobacco, martial arts, woodcraft, hunting) and politics (eugenics, patriarchy, intolerance, nationalism, deep ecology, aristocratic elitism) are two big targets.

      Of the two, lifestyle is a lot easier.

  33. Poserslaughterer666 says:

    Everyone knows you’re a poseur Brett.

  34. The Echo (Replacement) says:

    This website is suffocating under the weight of decades of accrued bad karma. Turns out if you’re a fascist (spare me the metapolitical diversionary argument) and an asshole and all your friends are motivated by hatred and disgust for humanity then you can’t get much done! The secondary talk about the beauty of nihilism and the grandeur of nature’s law never convinced anyone. That’s why prozak’s philosophical ramblings never needed to be rigorous and historically airtight, it’s because that’d be a waste of analytical skills: the metalheads that were schooled in anus liked hatred. That was their malignant fascination, it wasn’t to create a better world, it was to destroy a world inside of themselves and marvel at the vacuousness. There is no tender heart beating inside the fascist and people come to this website not because they love nature and good metal and beard oil, they come here because they love some arbitrary pattern selection of metal prozak decreed worthwhile 20 years ago and because they hate brown people. That’s the mix you’re peddling. Are you surprised it’s poisonous?

    It’s interesting to watch this edifice crumble in slow motion and I hope that the ideological foil that best captures the potential of heavy metal music in the future has space in it and better tools for self-reflection, imagination, kindness and understanding. How un-metal, huh? Well, otherwise it’s just going to be this perpetual bad karma neo-nazi shitstorm fueled by astounding ignorance and bigotry. I’m sure you guys had your fun and you certainly did your damage for a time but I’m not surprised there’s en expiration date to this fascination. ‘Sodomize the weak?’ You are in your own company, you best find a way to treat each other better than that. The air around here is tainted with suffocating smoke, the crematoria you so like to shock with have poisoned your garden. Philosophy (and everything else) doesn’t thrive in a grave, it thrives in a garden.

    Heavy metal deserves better. Anyone who actually has ‘skin in the game’ knows this. But you can’t do anything good for this music when all you do is hate. Do good deeds instead. Clear some karma.

    1. Titus Pullo says:

      You’re a fag. Go suck a dick.

      1. tightass pullup says:

        What if I told you that sucking cock was still less gay than sodomy

    2. (((The Echo (Replacement)))) says:

      Metal was founded with hatred in mind. Hatred for shitty music and people like (((you))) who constantly shill for it.

    3. Life affirming positivist of a new era says:

      Life metal vol.2, the surgical reconstruction of a sodomized anus in the form of purity, love and nature. We shall be shiting rainbows in no time… AIDS really does have a cure after all and we can all just get along. Just give it a go, you will have nothing to lose.

    4. Doug says:

      Damn, how long has that been percolating?

    5. JohnnyReb says:

      Your entire comment is based on karma. The idea of karma exists for people who are too weak to take risks or hold unpopular opinions. With the redefining of fascism in the current year, count me in.

  35. thewaters says:

    I may be wrong, but this whole drama between the Stevens and the old editors seems contrived. How do Pullo etc, still have access to the site, and the ability to post if they have been canned and/or quit? Call me suspicious, but I’ve been reading Prozak and the DLA long enough to know that there are 3 hidden purposes behind every post. And all of a sudden Crow reappears? Come on…..

    On a side note, I was unaware Devamitra was still contributing to this site. Good on you for your loyalty and dedication Devamitra (should this be true).

    1. tightass pullup says:

      You may have been reading for a long time but haven’t been paying much attention if you think Crow is posting here

      1. Crow says:

        Oh, really?

      2. Enda Miller says:

        Crow was just Brett Stevens’ alter ego designed to stir up controversy on the forums for the purpose of gaining readership. Crow for new editor!!

      3. Thewaters says:

        Yes, that was my point. Hence, “come on”, as in, that is ridiculous. This whole thing is a setup!! Lol

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