On Saturday February 28th, Pantera’s official Facebook page posted a screen grab of what was allegedly the vandilization of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott’s gravestone. The screen grab was of a photo posted to the Instagram account of a user named Crustyplague. The caption in the photo claimed that Crustyplague and other unknown bandmates spit on Abbott’s grave stole a pair of boots that had been left there, and wrote “fag” on the grave marker. Just by looking at the picture, it’s obvious that “fag” was simply written on a piece of paper and laid on the grave. In fact, the only visible vandalism seems to be from Pantera fans. The response from whoever runs the Pantera Facebook page was to condemn the actions and state that they’d notified the authorities. That was a reasonable response to the situation. It’s a shame that the band’s fan base didn’t act in as responsible a manner.

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Almost immediately, Pantera fans took to the Internet and discovered the person who posted the picture on Instagram was affiliated with a band from Indiana called Nuclear Hellfrost. Once this information leaked out, Nuclear Hellfrost’s Facebook page got flooded with threats of physical violence including the murder and rape of the band members as well as the band members’ families. The home addresses of some individuals were posted, too. The band issued a statement via Facebook claiming that the person responsible was no longer in the band, but that didn’t stop the tirade of threats aimed at them. At some point, Hod, a band from Pantera’s home state of Texas, was dragged into this shit show when people began circulating a picture of them pretending to pee on a mural of Dimebag. Initially, the picture was said to be of Nuclear Hellfrost; a falsity that was given even more traction when prominent blogs (including Metal Injection) reported it without checking the veracity of the claim first. Hod posted their own response chastising the blogs that circulated the misattributed picture, and, at that point, Pantera fans began targeting them for harassment as well. In a statement posted Monday March 2nd, the band claims that they continue to receive threats of violence, murder, and rape directed at themselves, their family members, and female fans that’ve defended Hod online.

The whole situation is disgusting. The person who posted the picture originally was acting like a dick, but that’s the extent of it. It’s clear that there was no actual harm done to the grave site. The reaction from Pantera’s fan base has far outstripped the severity of the Instagram post. Was the kid being disrespectful to a dead rock star who was loved by thousands and thousands of people? Yep. Are some Pantera fans disrespecting Dimebag’s memory even more by threatening and harassing people who weren't even involved in the incident? Abso-fucking-lutely. You’re allowed to be angry at some dumb-ass trying to play a stupid joke, but when you start terrorizing people you've crossed a line.

By all accounts, Dimebag Darrel was a friendly, warm hearted person, and it’s impossible to imagine that he’d be okay with rape and murder threats made in his name. Most of the threats being thrown around are likely hollow, but outrage spreads quickly on the Internet and you don’t know who’s going to take your empty threats to heart. Remember that Dimebag was himself killed by an unstable Pantera fan who may have blamed Abbott for the band’s break-up. All actions have consequences.

Pantera’s fans have never had a particularly good reputation, but it would be lazy (and wrong) to pretend this kind of insanity is endemic to a single band’s fan base. The truth is, despite our reputation as burly hell-raisers, metalheads can be astoundingly touchy. Combine that with the insular tribalism, hypermasculinity, and aggression of heavy metal culture and it’s not hard to see why so many fans respond with reactionary anger whenever a popular band or musician is criticized or made the butt of a joke. When Gaahl, the former front man of black metal titans Gorgoroth, came out as gay, his then-boyfriend reported getting death threats from fans. During the whole Tim Lambesis attempted murder disaster, Lambesis’s apologist fans flooded every article written about him with vitriolic comments about why his wife was a bitch who deserved to be murdered. Although it was nowhere near the intensity of these other examples, I’ve experienced reactionary backlash from the metal community on a number of occasions for daring to criticize a racist, Dave Mustaine, and metal fans’ reliance on homosexual slurs as insults. As someone who’s written words on the Internet for over a decade, insults and idle threats from anonymous 16-year-olds aren’t things that bother me anymore. That being said, the level of anger directed at me has always been inconsequential compared to the earlier examples.

Many of you are no doubt primed to launch a comment screed about how “Heavy metal is for tough guys!” and “Suck it up, sissy! Nobody insults Dime!” But take a moment to ask yourself how you’d feel if someone published your personal contact information as well as the identities of family members who immediately began getting rape and murder threats all because someone you know (or don’t have any affiliation with in Hod’s case) did something stupid and awful, but ultimately harmless. You like Pantera, or Megadeth, or AILD; we get it. If someone shits on a band you love, you’re free to call them a dumbass. No one’s stopping you. But think about the repercussions of your actions when you publicly wish death on someone and then post their address for the world to see. It only takes one unhinged fan with a gun to end a life. It’s an unlikely scenario, yes, but we’ve seen that it can happen. Even discounting that extremely unlikely scenario, you’re still terrorizing another human being. And for what? If you want to act like a dick, then, by all means, act like a dick. But try and retain some semblance of humanity. Fuck.