People's reaction after finding out you like metal

666sharon666 wrote: I can recall some reactions that fit in well with this thread. Most of them centre on me being both female and a metalhead, which doesn't seem to be something many people can get to grips with. I think that perhaps being a girl did also mean I avoided some of the more hostile encounters you guys are describing though. Anyway a couple of examples: "But you're a girl!" - my then future stepmother. Very anti-metal. I've always been surprised that my Dad married her. I guess he must see something in her. "You seem too feminine to be a metalhead" - guy I went to university with. Honestly this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Of course what I always hated the most was when a guy tried to hit on me who obviously didn't know anything about metal but still tried to pretend he did in an effort to impress. Naturally it always had the opposite effect. Silly really as I did date guys who didn't like metal so long as they respected that I did. Pretending though, that really irritated me. My favourite reaction though, from one of the women where I used to work: "Oh, so you don't want to come see Take That with us then?"

In 2019 I saw Marillion, IQ, Cellar Darling, Ghost, Devin Townsend….and Take That! And all 6 gigs were brilliant 😎

I work in the office of a traffic management company where the absurdly poor radio is played constantly. Sometimes, I have to go to meetings with colleagues and we'll jump in my car where they're met with full blast Gorguts. They protest telling me the classic lines "its just noise" and "you can't make out the words" to which I just tell them they're not listening properly 😉

The heaviest thing any of them like is Boston.

adg211288 wrote: my mother at least is still waiting for the day when I decide that I own enough CD's and will never buy any more music.

keefer1970 wrote: When I'm at work I get a lot of "You don't LOOK like a metal head." Well, duh. An Iron Maiden tee would be against the dress code.  I also frequently hear "You still listen to that stuff? At your age?" (I'm 47)... yeah, sorry, I didn't get the memo that said I was supposed to start wearing sweaters and listening to Dave Matthews Band as soon as I hit 30 :D

My mother is still waiting for me to grow out of it at the age of 44.

At work colleagues dismiss it as "Chris listens to that loud metal and punk shit" although some will proudly tell you that somewhere they have a Back in Black or Number of the Beast CD.

I remember when I started listening to rock and hard rock music in my 12-13s (Kiss, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses...) that some of my classmates occasionally tried to tease me for that. I didn't care much about it and found it extremely stupid, so it didn't affected me at all.

After that I haven't really encountered annoying reactions from people. Since I listen to metal music at home almost every day (especially black/death metal), my family usually say things like: "Turn down that devilish music!"; "I don't know how you can study with that music" and so on, but they never say it in a mean way, just for fun I'm looking forward to my mother's reaction when Slayer's Reign in Blood arrives home

My girlfriend is now accustomed to it, but when we started dating she couldn't understand why I listened to metal music and stuff, partly because I don't have the "usual" metalhead appearance. But I showed her some softer heavy metal songs (mostly ballads and instrumental tunes, which she liked) and told her "para gustos los colores" (something like one man's meat is another man's poison).

Fortunately, I have friends with similar tastes in music and, since I started university, I've met many people who like rock, punk, electronic and a wide range of different musical genres, so I've learned from them too.

However, what I've learned is that there are still a lot of prejudices against metal music. The ignorance speaks for itself when people simply relate heavy metal to satanism, freaks, emos or goths. Either it is ignorance or sheer idiocy. People should respect other people's musical tastes, as I suppose every one in this site does (for example, I hate reggaeton music and its branches, but I don't despise or look down on others for liking it).

As some of you know, I work as an associate professor, which means that I teach a lot of classes and have had a lot of students in my time. I have long hair and a braid in my beard, and I wear band t-shirts when I teach, because that's my everyday apparel. I have never had any negative responses from my students. On the contrary, they think it's pretty cool that their teacher likes metal and appreciate that I don't look like your stereotypical professor. I think it makes me seem more like a regular dude and real person to them and not some ivory tower-dwelling egghead (in reality, I am an ivory tower-dwelling egghead ;-) ).

Ahahaha, Antimetalclub, I remember that. We had some discussions on that stuff on the old Haven youtube group. Can hardly believe its been so long.

Anyways, I usually dont get much of a reaction at all. Most of my wardrobe is band merch and I have long hair and a beard so my musical preference is really rather obvious to most people. I very occasionally get some comments (or shouts) from random strangers but they are usually drunk or something and I pay that stuff no mind. Most consistent reactions come from relatives in the form of "cut your hair/shave you beard" kinda comments but they are usually not in a negative tone so I'm mostly fine with it.

I guess you could've also explained about all the subgenres of metal and explained how the gothic part can only be ascribed to a couple of categories. I mean there's so much to heavy metal these days you could offer it as a course at college.