you just described like every fanbase for every big rapper, my guy. half the complaints about the fanbase are just homophobia (the rainbow propeller hats) and the other half is the same s*** every artist that big goes through. they weren't really that special in this regard.

also this whole "operating at this level artistically" thing is pretentious. artists don't deserve respectful fanbases because they're more "artsy" to you. you should take artists seriously regardless. thats really why I'm laughing at your comment, you sound pompous.

not liking rainbow propeller hats is HOMOPHOBIA?????? f***ing LMAOOOOOOOO you are definitely one of the people I’m talking about, just being completely disingenuous for the sake of arguing

its a hat bro, who cares

honestly i think the audience and the band are responsible for how they're
perceived they kinda leaned into the meme s*** around Powers That B and definitely the whole DEATH GRIPS IS ONLINE thing.

also didn't help that in general, post-covid concerts for internet based acts have been intolerable...and maybe they realized that or just said f*** it on their own terms

they've always leaned into it, I assume the group is smart enough to understand their own fans. this is why it's weird when they snob subclique of this fanbase complains about all the memes and goofy s***.

it’s IRONIC you f***ing idiot, it’s done in ironic jest it has nothing to do with homophobia. clearly you’re forgetting the huge cartoon lollipop that comes with it. you’re not this dense, you’re just doing arguing in bad faith for attention like you do constantly on here

1) youre whining, its very annoying
2) again who cares, the hats are a silly frivolous thing. do you have nothing better to complain about

did you go to a single show? recently or otherwise?

I saw them multiple times live

now that i think about it yeah you're right they've always been tapped in like that. i dont mean this as an insult, but they were 4chan the band their covers were synonymous with Merriweather Post Pavilion and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea type s***...and there's nothing wrong with that! just a different time period. just think about how meme/internet culture has shifted since like No Love Deep Web.

no need to argue over a mysterious act honestly. the truth lies somewhere in the middle

Oath

they were moving different than other artists who tried to use the internet to interact with their fans, it always was a little deeper than regular social media interaction. they were extremely good at aura farming and building mystique and it probably won't ever be replicated by another artist.

that’s true. the mystique was part of the appeal. that in itself leads to endless speculation and potential for memes

that being said, i understand where @sfsorrow is coming from with their initial post

haven't spun a death grips record in forever, might be time to revisit

like idk how you can be a genuine longtime fan and not agree with me, I don’t care how pretentious or pompous it comes off. you need a little pretentiousness sometimes. I’d rather that a million times over rather than people making an ironic joke out of it all, I’m not sorry about that. they deserved way more respect and dignity than they got by most of their audience. imagine being Ride and penning s*** like On GP and Up My Sleeves and half the crowd looking back at you is wearing propeller hats with big lollipops holding up their phone playing family guy during your final shows. It’s f***ing absurd man

once again we back at these damn hats lol. bro these kids were just having fun, stop being so humorless. lowkey this sort of bellyaching is a lot more obnoxious. I doubt the group really cared that their fanbase had a bunch of autistic queer teenagers in it. it was totally harmless.

the propeller hat s*** is cringe af i’ll give you that. but honestly there’s more harmful things in the fanbase than that. like you mentioned, there’s subtle racism in the community and you could honestly take it back to their peak years with how they made him out to be the “screaming black man.”

the truth is this: there will always be a vocal minority in any fandom that makes it unbearable sometimes to be a fan and it’s up to us on how we handle it. yes it’s a shame the last days of the band had some immature ass interactions like the philly pisser and what not, but that doesn’t taint anything for me honestly.

you’re right, the hats are a microcosm of it all and just kinda represent the ironic detachment to me. i think what bothered me was how prevalent and regular it became as they got bigger to the point it felt like a big joke for most people, like the audience between 2015/2017 shows and the 2023 show to me was very different. the undercurrent of racism like you said was always there though and diminished Ride as a performer and writer, which is my main problem. the ironic bs feeds back into it

"like the audience between 2015/2017 shows and the 2023 show to me was very different"

that's facts! it relatively wasn't that long ago, but they've always catered towards the youth and i think that is where the disconnect is (plus the change in concert etiquette but i've legit talked about that wayyy too much lol). a teenager/young adult in 2015 is not the same as a teenager/young adult in 2025 generally speaking and partly that's because social media is a totally different beast now imo. how we interacted with the music back then is not reminiscent of today's standards.

Ex military came out when I was 13 and I heard it then, and listened to every DG album whenever they would drop. Had my fav’s on each album but never really put them on or really let their albums really soak over multiple listens.

But I’m spinning it all daily atm since they might’ve broken up and people have been eulogising.

These guys were onto some insane stuff huh super addictive and catchy once it clicks

sorry for replying almost a month later but the lyrics to "BB Poison" off Bottomless Pit pretty clearly show a dissatisfaction with the fanbase; there's a difference between having a lighthearted attitude towards the band/buying into the mystique, and essentially "skim reading" their art (i.e. the perception of a mysterious band with "homeless black man" shouting, all songs are weird for novelty's sake, every twitter post is a hidden message, etc). using the concerts as a platform to make memes or pull antics is closer to the 2nd way of engaging with the band

Dismiss this life, worship death