As I'm approaching 30 I'm beginning to get pretty turned off by a lot of metal culture/aesthetics after being exposed to them for the better part of two decades. Particularly the facets that are done blatantly and specifically to shock or offend.
-Excessively gory album covers. I'm looking at you Death Metal. I mean, hey, go for it if you want to. As a Libertarian I'm not one for censorship, but have a little taste?
-Blatantly blasphemous names like "Rotting Christ" and overly satanic. I'm not at all religious myself, but again, have a little taste. Why go out of your way to offend others?
-Tattoos/piercings. Could it get any more ridiculous? Check a dating site or go to a show. Nearly every single woman on there with metal as a listed interest has marred their natural beauty in one way or another. The cuter they might otherwise be, the more they've fucked themselves over. Then these people with the band shirts and tats out the ass trying to pass themselves off as some kind of metal badass, but they don't know shit about the genre when you try to engage 'em in conversation. And I'm not even half the metal encyclopedia as some of the folks on this forum.
That being said, thankfully the genres go deeper. Viking/folk is largely not pro-Christian, but rather than fruitlessly tearing others down, they build up their beliefs/preferred aesthetics. Atmospheric BM and post metal tend to have a certain vagueness/subtlety in the aesthetics. If they do possess a certain viewpoint its less in your face and overtly offensive. Hell, we all know Varg's fucked up views, but it doesn't jump out at you if you buy an album and check the artwork, song titles, band name...
Guess I'm getting old
