Fishnets

Picture this:

You are at a metal show, thrashing your ass off in the pit destroying the dumb kids who think they’re metal during one of the opening acts. After about a song or two, when the energy dies down in the pit because the children have no clue what they’re doing, you decide to leave the pit and conserve your energy and anger for the headliner. Lo and behold, there stands a lone, buxom beauty before you (it could be a guy if, you know). You stare because you’re metal and creepy and try to pretend that you’re just looking at everyone and taking in your surroundings.

S(he) turns.

Suddenly, you see more of her/him and, you see interwoven strands of black, hemp-replacing fabric, sprouting forth from the wrist to shoulder, climbing the arm like diseased ivy, trying to choke the last bits of life from a dying soul. Hopeless.

Seriously?

 Brothers and sisters of metal, there is perhaps no bigger violation than wearing what have been dubbed “fishnets.” There is nothing of which I can think that even closely touches this in terms of disgracing your metal kings and metal gods other than poking out your thumbs, which by the way, seems to be common thread with those of whom choose to wear them.

There is nothing cool or metal about them, the interwoven threads of nylon or the ones who wear them. They look like something in which a douchebag Nine Inch Nails or Perfect Circle lover would decide to cover themselves, taking sadomasochism out of the bedroom and into public. A metal show is not a rave, it is not a goth-kid hangout, or a vampire club and metalheads want to keep it that way.

Metal is an exclusive club and metalheads do not let just anyone join. You have to prove yourself worthy enough for entry by wearing acceptable uniforms (denim and leather, metal, spikes, and chains), displaying the correct attitude, and doling ample punishment in the pit, taking it as given even. Those wearing fishnets are incapable of doing any of the above, in fact they take punishment - and they take it so hard - and seem to think that metal is the place where they can finally find acceptance. WRONG! You will never be accepted and we will never accept you.

He's been a bad boy and wants you to punish him, punish him like he's never been punished before. Oh, you're welcome by the way, for this image sticking in your head.

 Let us think about this for a moment. So, you feel unaccepted from your peers so you probably feel depressed and angry. Clearly you have options. You could turn on Taylor Swift’s new album, but that doesn’t convey enough of what you feel. You see these kids in the hall, though, punching each other in the arm, crossing their arms, scowling and laughing at everyone else. They wear black shirts with painted words and symbols, some familiar others strange and unique, like you. Slayer, Iron Maiden, some weird conglomeration of lines that you later discovered said Bloodbath. So you go home and (il)legally download their songs. They are angry, but are a little too much too quick. The next day, you happen to notice another similar group, sometimes interacting with the other, but not that much. This group seems a little larger, with kids wearing shirts that read Children of Bodom, Korn, Cradle of Filth, Slipknot. Later you turn them on and you connect, you feel the perfect amount of emotion that’s just you. So you go to the mall and notice that many members from both groups would go into this one store, Hot Topic, so you decide to follow. There you see before you on a wall are shirts reading Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Children of Bodom, Jimi Hendrix, Slipknot, and more. You see this dark, baggy clothing, and this webbing of some sort that you see on the mannequins is worn as a shirt for men or along the arms. You then conclude that both are one, one are all, and you stumbled into the world of metal. You buy everything you can afford, you walk across the mall to the record store and buy albums of the bands with names that are on your new shirts and you listen for them on the radio. You paint your nails black and wear your fishnets, looking like a diseased mermaid, and infiltrate our shows as your tastes begin to develop.

Fishnets as a fashion don’t belong in metal and they don’t belong on a boat. They don’t really belong anywhere, much like those that wear them. They are trying to be something they’re not, but in the end are nothing of what they try to be or what they were so forever are they bound to the outskirts, where they must roam in a desolate plane of limbo, isolated, dead and disregarded by everyone everywhere.

She'd accept me. She'd accept you too. She's open to everything.