Slipknot and Ultra-Violence

The Religion of Slipknot

Slipknot, unlike any of its nu metal contemporaries, transcended simply being a band to become what Louis Althusser defines an ideological state apparatus from the release of their first commercial album. Over the course of their first three albums, released in quick succession (Slipknot in 1999, Iowa in 2001, and Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses in 2004 after a very brief hiatus), “the Iowa collective has simply been able to generate a cultish aura; that sense of kinship that nü-metal [sic] couldn’t sustain”[1] all before decisively exploding into the mainstream – and erasing the sense of exclusivity and privacy in their subculture – with their first (and only) Grammy win in 2006 for “Before I Forget.” Just as followers of the Bible call themselves Christians, disciples of the ideology of Slipknot became “maggots,” united by their collective (perceived) maltreatment by society. Despite an abundance of misanthropy within Slipknot’s fan base, they formed a collective characterized by resentment toward dominant American culture and behaved according to the principles of this ideology. According to Althusser, a follower of any ideology “participates in certain regular practices which are those of the ideological apparatus on which ‘depend’ the ideas he has in all consciousness freely chosen as a subject;”[2] in other words, the individual, having chosen his belief system or ideology, engages in certain activities as a way to actualize his alignment with an ideology. For the maggot, these practices are especially apparent when analyzing the behavior at Slipknot’s concerts, where maggots routinely release pent up aggression through (often self-directed) physical violence as part of the concert-going ritual. Founding member and percussionist Shawn Crahan, otherwise known as “The Clown” or number six, highlights the almost sacramental nature of the performance of violence from both the band, as the leaders of the ceremony, and the crowds at live shows: “‘Every show, I’ve got a kid out there who’s hitting himself just like me. His knuckles are bloody, his eyes are black. I’ll look in his eyes and see that he’s in some other place. It’s a heavy-duty responsibility.’”[3]


However, because of the inaccessibility of live shows for many Slipknot fans, concertgoing is just one way to actualize this ideology, one example of a practice “within the material existence of an ideological apparatus.”[4] Attending shows as a main way to engage in a subculture is not unique to Slipknot and is actually a very foundational component of the heavy metal community at large; because of lack of airplay on the radio, many metal bands have historically relied upon touring to attract fans.[5] However, in the digital age, bands also turn to connection via the Internet to build and connect with their fanbases. As such, consuming music videos has become a main material practice (aside from listening to the music itself) through which the band’s ideology interpellates, or recruits, maggots; in this way, music videos are a much more powerful tool for transmitting ideology rather than to simply “spark a listener’s interest in the song, to teach her enough about it that she is moved first to remember the song and second to purchase it.”[6] Watching Slipknot music videos is the maggot equivalent to reading the Bible; in both cases, the pastimes reflect the individual’s ideas or personal philosophy revolving around a “sacred” text that communicates the ideas of an ideology.[7] Although many claim the band “earned their rapidly growing fan base without marketing, radio or MTV play”[8] in order to cement their anti-commercial/ independent mythology, this position severely discounts the role that the band’s music videos played in both accumulating new fans and communicating their ideology. In actuality, nu metal topped the rock charts around the turn of the new millennium,[9] though Slipknot did not achieve high-charting airplay until their third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses),[10] by far the most radio-friendly of their early releases. Additionally, MTV did air Slipknot music videos, especially on the network’s long-running program Headbanger’s Ball, but even outside of official network channels, music videos circulating as poor images – during a time characterized by the rise of peer-to-peer applications like Napster – popularized Slipknot’s message. The ability to share video online in the early 2000s – even as “Blurred AVI files … exchanged on semi-secret P2P platforms”[11] (the group’s song “Surfacing” off Slipknot “went viral” on these platforms pre-YouTube while championing ultra-violent emotionality with a chorus that screams “Fuck it all! Fuck this world! /Fuck everything that you stand for! /Don't belong! Don't exist! /Don't give a shit! /Don't ever judge me!”)[12] – enabled the spread of the gospel of Slipknot via streamed music videos to populations that did not have access to their live shows.


Some of these early music videos by the band – specifically "The Nameless" and the first video for "Wait and Bleed" – are nothing more than stylized concert videos, bringing a virtual concert experience to fans, but the majority of them relied upon more symbolic approaches to spread the creeds of the scene. The dissemination of ideology through music videos is, or should be, unsurprising; according to Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, “every film [including the music video] is political, inasmuch as it is determined by the ideology which produces it,”[13] and Slipknot’s videos very strongly represent their ideology. Surprisingly (given the antics and atmosphere at the band’s live shows), Slipknot does not heavily rely upon the artistic representations of graphic physical violence to communicate their philosophy; instead, they turn to collectivism and the aesthetics of horror to disseminate their anti-status quo ideology and redirect ultra-violence.

[1] Mehling, “Nookie.”
[2] Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” 696.
[3] Bozza, “Rage.”
[4] Althusser, “Ideology,” 696
[5] Walser, Running with the Devil, 17.
[6] Carol Vernallis, Experiencing Music Videos: Aesthetics and Cultural Context (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 28.
[7] Althusser, “Ideology,” 696
[8] Bozza, “Highway.”
[9] Sumera, “War’s Audiovision,” 315.
[10] “Slipknot: Chart History,” Billboard, accessed May 2, 2020, https://www.billboard.com/music/slipknot/chart-history/hot-mainstream-rock-tracks
[11] Hito Steyerl, “In Defense of the Poor Image.”
[12] Graham Hartmann, “Every Slipknot Song Ranked,” Loudwire, April 8, 2019, https://loudwire.com/every-slipknot-song-ranked/.
[13] Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” 60.

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