Headbangers To Protest Mainstream Media Perception

The Hessian Studies Society, self-described as a not-for-profit cultural education apparat dedicated to preserving and promoting the culture of "underground metal," or heavy metal music produced outside the handful of companies that control major record labels and news media, has issued the following press release:

Money rules our society, and determines what gets into the news, which is why metalheads across America are objecting to a recent spate of articles attempting to dominate their culture with status quo norms.

"I opened CNN.com and thought, 'Why aren't they letting us speak for ourselves'?" said Houston metalhead Steve Craig of the article "Metal gets a makeover: Bands focus on politics instead of parties." (Read the article at this location.) Craig, who plays in Houston metal band BAHIMIRON, said he felt that metal culture existed independently of the mainstream media, and was now being "normed" by the article.

"They're trying to make it like everything else," he said. "Accept the same way of thinking, which is that humanism and materialism are the only way to live. That's not true. If we believed that, we would be in punk or rock bands instead."

The Hessian Studies Society, a not-for-profit cultural education apparat dedicated to preserving and promoting the culture of "underground metal," or heavy metal music produced outside the handful of companies that control major record labels and news media, has intervened and is organizing protests worlwide.

In their article, "Underground Metal Disagrees With Mainstream Political Trend," the Hessian Studies Society points out that metalheads have always had political beliefs, and they have never needed a makeover. Moreover, this "makeover" involves bringing those political beliefs more into line with accepted norms instead of appreciating them for their unique and insightful view of Western culture.

The article, which can be viewed online at Hessian.org, lambasts the media for making news into a product and denying the veracity of the unique and vital subculture of underground heavy metal.

About Hessians: Hessians, or metalheads, headbangers, threshers, heshers, rivetheads, metallians and longhairs, are a cultural resistance movement founded in the industrial West upon the idea that our flight in fear from the coarser aspects of nature leads us to a spiritless existence, and that only heavy metal music can restore our spirit and thus existential enjoyment of life.

About Hessian Studies: The Hessian Studies Society aims to study Hessian culture, promote it and defend it in the battleground of ideas that is modern society.