Ever wondered why mainstream media gets so hysterical over death metal and it's lyrics? It's like they're dying to label metalheads as violent people.
Guess what? When listening to death metal, the fans of the genre feel joy, not an urge to be violent. Maybe because they know the narrator is somewhat a whole different entity from the author - such a wild concept!
And now we actually got scientific proof of this phenomenon. The findings are published in the Royal Society journal Open Science,
"[Death metal] fans are nice people," said Prof Bill Thompson, from Macquarie University's music lab. "They're not going to go out and hurt someone."
For the study, there was a test involved asking 32 fans and 48 non-fans listen to death metal (actualy Bloodbath's Eaten) or to pop whilst looking at some pretty unpleasant images. Fans of death metal showed the same reaction as the "normie" crowd, which tell us they did not get desensitised by extreme music.
"If fans of violent music were desensitised to violence, which is what a lot of parent groups, religious groups and censorship boards are worried about, then they wouldn't show this same bias. "But the fans showed the very same bias towards processing these violent images as those who were not fans of this music" Prof Thompson explained.
So, there you go: you're daily dose of "I always knew that". But now you have science on your side! Share this with a friend.