7 October 2009: "Horrorcore is bad for society/humanity. Horrorcore must die."

This post is about the powers of horror. Carles contrasts two musical subcultures to investigate two possible escape routes available to disaffected or disenfranchised groups who either will not or can not abide conventional mores and the expectations of citizens in a consumer society. One might suspect that those who reject mainstream identities will have done so to avoid being implicated in its social class structure, but Carles demonstrates that the attempted mode of escape from the mainstream is perhaps more decisively indicative of class aspirations.

On the one hand there is the indie culture that Carles frequently documents (and subjects to critical scrutiny), which here he chooses to laud as a "healthy form of expression, celebrating ideas and themes the right way." The "right way" is a loaded term, redolent with hints of entitlement and class privilege, a point that becomes abundantly clear when indie is contrasted with horrorcore, which Carles veritably describes as anti-indie music. Horrorcore, Carles notes, is one of those "musical genres" which "are bad for society/inspire terrible people to perform terrible things". That is, it maintains coherent identity by setting itself in opposition to society, helping that society clarify its own values and strengthen their general appeal at the expense of the volunteer outcasts. This makes the would-be rebels dupes, useful idiots for the mainstream, which is why Carles confidently declares that "only ‘very stupid people’ would listen to [horrorcore]".

So indie music is in fact a distillation of mainstream values that allows people to internalize its codes of success without feeling coerced, or as though they have sold out and conformed. Horrorcore, though, is a moronic rebellion that props up those values while denying the success they offer to those propping them up. Horrorcore adherents become sacrificial lambs, which helps explain their lyrical preoccupations with gratuitous murder. This is the obverse of their own freely offered self-sacrifice, removing themselves from society so that it can function better in oppressing people like themselves.

The horrorcore fans both serve as the abject, as theorized by Julia Kristeva, for society and confront the abject at a more fundamental level in their practices. Carles notes that their "cries for understanding/empathy are ‘completely retarded.’ Probably ’subhuman’ cries for attention, since they are not yearning to be in touch with humanity." They grapple with the liminal to shore up the definition of humanity and in the process surrender their own. As Kristeva writes, "the more or less beautiful image in which I behold or recognize myself rests upon an abjection that sunders it as soon as repression, the constant watchman, is relaxed." Horrorcore activates that repression for the rest of us, inspiring a repulsion we direct against the abject residue within our own psyche. Note the vehemence of Carles repudiation: "These horrorcore songs really make me ‘feel ill’, I think.... I even find the Dirty Projectors to be insanely more listenable than Horrorcore."

The cartoonish Kabuki corruption and evil of horrorcore -- so amply illustrated by the Juggalos that Carles carefully documents -- functions as a distraction, a mask for the inherent corruption embedded in capitalism and embraced as bourgeois values by the respectable classes. Horrorcore is Celine for the 21st century.