Juggalos Aren’t Gonna Save You

I saw an article today in the wake of Joker thinkpieces suggesting that Juggalos should be the face of the anti-incel movement. Their reasoning was as follows:

“While incels heavily fixate on their height and the shape of their jawbone, Juggalos confidently walk around shirtless at shows without a care in the world. While incels go on racist diatribes, Juggalos actively fight for racial and socioeconomic justice. While incels go on rants about how desperate they are to feel the touch of a woman, and are in fact entitled to it, Juggalettes get nude at the Gathering, and it fazes nobody in attendance.”

Now. I love being a new to the fold Juggalo. I have written extensively about my experiences with Juggalos, an incredible family of people who care deeply for each other and offer mutual aid despite poverty and the sneering of society. But I think this article misses an important point. Juggalos *love* the sneering of society. Juggalos aren’t looking to be accepted by the mainstream, and they’re not your fucking saviors.

This is your mess. You clean it up.

Sure. Juggalos are a prime example of how you can be a working class white man and still be against bigotry (after all, “you get punched in the faces, reppin’ the racists”). But just like when everyone got so excited about Juggalos fighting Nazis at the National Mall, I have to stop you there. Juggalos identify pretty strongly as apolitical (even while ICP lyrics have some clear political leanings against cops, classism, and racists). Shaggy 2 Dope even said (correctly, as it turned out) that if anything happened at the Juggalo March, it would probably be because a Trump supporter decided to start shit, cause Juggalos don’t give a fuck.

Here’s the thing — after the Juggalo March, people stopped caring about Juggalos again, and went from deifying them as Nazi hunters to deriding them as dirty, violent assholes with bad musical taste. While people should have been impressed at how Juggalos can have myriad political leanings and put them aside to enjoy Gathering of the Juggalos or Hallowicked together, the mainstream instead lost interest as soon as there was no apparent spectacle on the table.

How the fuck are you gonna try and make Juggalos the army for your latest cause when you talk shit about antifascists actually doing that work?

There’s so much more to Juggalo subculture than clown paint and violent lyrics, but the more you try and force them into being greasepaint knights for your current cause, the less likely they’re going to engage. That’s true for the left and the right. They built their own society based on their values. If mainstream society has made a big shit on the floor, whether that shit is Nazis or incels… well, it’s your shit to clean up. Don’t ask a Juggalo to do it for you when you’ve never cared about them before.