It's been a weird few days for a portion of Slayer fans. A few days ago, Tom Araya posted a controversial image which was doctored to show Slayer posing with Donald Trump, who just so happens to be the 45th president of the United States.
The photo featured a rather condescending caption, part of which read "I was amazed at the comments about the picture some positive some negative more amazing was in 2 hours there was 10,000 likes … But i never would have guessed that there where so many snowflakes commenting their distaste for the new president. Like him or not he is the president"
Within the comments, when a self-identified gay fan warned Araya to be more worried about the type of liberities Vice President Mike Pence would take away, Araya made an insensitive gay joke about Pence "turning fruits into vegetables" likely in regards to Pence's support for gay conversion therapy, which has been proved to be ineffective and inhumane.
The comments and the controversy that arose from it resulted in Slayer posting a statement yesterday distancing themselves from Tom's actions saying the image "does not belong on a Slayer social page. We all have our personal opinions, some of which we have voiced in the past, but Slayer has never endorsed any political party or any candidate, and the band intends to keep it that way."
The statement came from the band as a whole, and I guess that wasn't enough for Kerry King, who wanted to release a statement of his own. King voiced support for Hillary Clinton last year, calling Trump "a sideshow," adding "He's the biggest liar I've ever seen in politics," he says with a laugh. "I mean, most of them are liars, but he just outright in-your-face lies."
King wanted to make sure people heard his side of the story, and while the Slayer guitarist does not have any social media pages of his own, he sometimes shares info through his wife's Instagram page, and she shared this note which he wanted fans to read:
Ahhh, the election.., this one has definitely been the most divisive and polarizing event I have ever experienced. My thoughts on the last few days are simple. To me, social media has more benefits than detriments. There is a gigantic upside to band social media, but band social media is just that. Not for everyone's personal tastes. And by that, I mean that I'd rather talk face-to-face with you so that there is no misunderstanding about what either of us are saying. That's why I don't post on personal OR band social media. With social media, there's too much room for misinterpretation, and we all just had a giant taste of that.
Joke or not, my opinion is that our war of words should be with people who don't believe what Slayer is about. NOT with our own fan base.
Make no mistake; this is NOT a Kerry vs. Tom thing. Tom is my bro-PERIOD. Difference of opinion about the photo? Absolutely. End of the world? Not hardly. I LOVE the relationship that Slayer has with our fan base. Best in the world by far! Let's just concentrate on Slaying our COLLECTIVE enemies.
Kerry makes an excellent point. I really have nothing to add here, and hope we can move on from this "controversy."
However, I do want to repost one thing I saw on MetalSucks, which was written by Justin Foley from the excellent band The Austerity Program:
“That Tom Araya thing is so baffling to me. Though they are not underground anymore, Slayer’s whole image is being transgressive. Nihilist, even.
“What could be more the opposite of that than cozying up to the next recently-elected U.S. President?
“Like, if you want to kid yourself that you’re being devilishly contrarian by ‘pissing off PC snowflakes,’ recent election results show hat you’re not being contrarian at all. You’re utterly mainstream.
“So your ‘extreme’ art shows that’s it’s either a) just affectation or b) that you suffer from an almost unimaginable lack of self-awareness.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPwalmeB3Fu/?taken-by=slaywhore
