How much of this is "metal" and how much of it is "fans", though?
They looked at fans, groupies and professional musicians; the control groups were people who "did not identify heavy metal as their preferred musical genre during their 1980s youth" and current college students. Given that this is apparently the first time this has been done it's understandable that they'd draw broad strokes, but it would be interesting to compare metal fans and people who just listened to metal if it was on, sure.
It's quite possible that no matter what you're into as a teenager, if you join the fandom and the fandom doesn't completely suck, you'll end up a better person as a result. Something supposedly counter-cultural, but which sold shedloads in the 1980s like metal, sounds like a good fandom to join in a pre-Internet era: you can be pretty confident of finding like-minded people in your area without fear of being ostracised too much.
FWIW, anecdotally, I understand that the skaters and the goths in 1990s Glasgow got on really well. If you're not a terrible person, you can recognise the value of other people even if they're into completely different stuff. Maybe that's the lesson metalheads learned.
Hopefully my cohorts rejected the sexism and racism found in some bands, Motley Crue, cough. Funny in a 'ew, gross' way how many went on to become conservative jerks.
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(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-19 11:24 pm (UTC)They looked at fans, groupies and professional musicians; the control groups were people who "did not identify heavy metal as their preferred musical genre during their 1980s youth" and current college students. Given that this is apparently the first time this has been done it's understandable that they'd draw broad strokes, but it would be interesting to compare metal fans and people who just listened to metal if it was on, sure.
It's quite possible that no matter what you're into as a teenager, if you join the fandom and the fandom doesn't completely suck, you'll end up a better person as a result. Something supposedly counter-cultural, but which sold shedloads in the 1980s like metal, sounds like a good fandom to join in a pre-Internet era: you can be pretty confident of finding like-minded people in your area without fear of being ostracised too much.
FWIW, anecdotally, I understand that the skaters and the goths in 1990s Glasgow got on really well. If you're not a terrible person, you can recognise the value of other people even if they're into completely different stuff. Maybe that's the lesson metalheads learned.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-20 01:47 pm (UTC)