Metalhead

A person who listens to metal music. Almost all metalheads are white and male, although they can of course be any race or gender.

One common feature of almost all true metalheads is a disdain for "fake metal" genres, that are often considered to be metal by the rest of society, such as nu-metal (e.g. Korn, Slipknot, Linkin Park), metalcore (e.g. Avenged Sevenfold, Trivium, Bullet for my Valentine) and screamo (e.g. Alexisonfire, The Used, Underoath). Metalheads tend to consider such genres immature, referring to them as "mallcore". Metalheads usually hate to be erroneously associated with these types of music. Metalheads also hate to be associated with goths.

Other common features among metalheads tend to be black clothes, long hair, beards, tattoos, piercings and band tees. However most metalheads agree that it is not fashion, but passion for music, that defines a metalhead.

Drugs are not integral to metalhead culture, though the vast majority drink alcohol and a lot also smoke weed, while a smaller number do harder drugs.

Metalheads tend to be very intelligent people, with a lot actually being quite nerdy. They're generally not violent, except when moshing (an aggressive form of dancing) at concerts.

At British universities, metalheads tend to congregate at so-called "Rocksocs". That is to say, "Rock Societies" or "Rock and Metal Societies".

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mallcore

A derogatory term used, primarily by metalheads, to describe music that is often mistakenly considered metal.

Originally the term referred to nu-metal bands, such as Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Papa Roach and Slipknot. More recently the term can be applied to screamo, emo and metalcore bands such as Bullet for my Valentine, The Used, Avenged Sevenfold and Senses Fail.

The defining feature of such bands is that they make angsty, commercially-orientated hard rock targeted at "rebellious" teenagers.

14-year-old kid with dyed-red shoulder-length hair and black skinny jeans: "I'm a metalhead, fuck the world!"

26-year-old metalhead: "Fuck off kid, you don't know shit about metal! You just listen to some bullshit mallcore. Power metal, speed metal, folk metal, black metal, death metal, thrash metal... those are all real metal genres. The shit you listen to isn't even close!"

14-year-old kid: "Jeez, man, thanks for the lecture you fucking nerd!"

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