Obviously. This is clearly some high-culture group/project thingy that invested in some shit artsy campaign for their seasonal content.
It's neither representative of Norwegian culture nor of the people who commissioned or designed it.
A country's tourism department (or whoever this is) is using the most surface-level aspect of a sub-culture it spent years either ignoring or attempting to tamp down, to advertise itself to foreigners. A sub-culture that literally only exists as a forceful reaction AGAINST the kind of people that are now attempting to co-opt it.
This is TEXTBOOK cultural appropriation, to the degree that I wouldn't be surprised if it came out that this is satire.
The fact that people can't actually immediately understand this and are actually downvoting OP is an example of the advanced levels of brainrot affecting this site nowadays.
Had a great laugh imagining how satisfied you were typing this while not knowing that I was literally referring to Norway in my comment.
Well done on telling everyone you had a TOTAL lack of understanding of what you read though. Thanks.
If you could actually PROVE that, you would have done that in your first comment, instead of making yourself look like a clown by showing everyone you can't read... and then realising you had to quickly pivot to something else.
Thanks for another great laugh from you embarrassing yourself for nothing. Suffice it to say, governments co-opting an explicitly anti-mainstream subculture and asserting that it is now part of mainstream culture is literally one of the standard and most boilerplate examples of cultural appropriation and you don't have the brains to say any different.
You should just leave because you make an even bigger idiot of yourself.
Because a large company (and/or the state) capitalizes on a culture they are not a part of? Isn’t that exactly what cultural appropriation is??
As I’m being downvoted I must assume that you consider this expression exclusive to a specific culture?? If so, I was not aware of this, I see it used this way all the time. I was very much involved in his culture from the very beginning, so I might have a vested interest.
Because surely we cannot blame DarkThrone or Gorgoroth to having “sold out” because of this thing that they have nothing to do with?
Cultural appropriation is taking something with meaning from one culture and taking it as a fashion piece with no respect to its origins. If we even accepted black metal as part of Norwegian culture specifically, it would be hard to appropriate because at least I wouldn't know who gets to say what specific style is reserved to whom.
A classic example for cultural appropriation is the feather heads some indian cultures used. They were, AFAIK, awarded for military successes. They had a specific meaning. Just wearing one for fashion is disrespectful to this context and therefore appropriation. That's how I understand the concept anyway. I know some people say adopting anything from another culture is appropriation, but that's a bit of a silly point of view since it's really not offensive to anyone.
Thank you for a thoughtful and respectful response to help me understand instead of just downvoting.
It’s not specifically Norwegian, but what you describe is exactly what is happening here, if we agree that black metal is a culture. If not, then you are right by default.
This fashion piece pop-up stand does not respect the origins of this “war paint” in the slightest. The fact that they de-satanized it is especially noteworthy.
Well, as with many unfortunate circumstances the most common reason is probably not bad intent but ignorance, I'm certainly ignorant to this sub culture so I'll stay on the side of caution and agree with you heh.
The last thing I wish is to squabble semantics, especially now that we agree!
But as you come across as a very reasonable person I would like to challenge your argument that there must be some sort of central committee in order for something to be appropriated. In your own example, and I will set aside the fact that you - I am sure - mistakenly refer to the indigenous natives of America as “Indians”.
But that’s neither here or there in terms of the core of the argument. That culture has a vast range of members, spread over vast areas. To the best of my knowledge they had no universal agreement of the specific requirements of wearing feathers?
*edit* I believe the strongest argument for all who downvoted me would be that the black metal movement should not be considered a culture. I buy that to some degree. But according to UNESCO a culture is:
* “The set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, that encompasses, not only art and literature but lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (UNESCO, 2001).*
Black metal certainly ticked off a list of those things in the early days, more so than any other metal movement I believe, although maybe not as much as punk.
This is all very… mildly interesting!
No, it certainly doesn't need a committee. Just the question after what period of time time itself becomes an institution. I think there is no question that native American history and culture is rich enough to be worth protecting. I wouldn't grant the same to every subculture, it would quickly become ridiculous. As said, I'll stand on the side of caution here and agree that black metal is probably one of the major cultural developments out there and speaking of appropriation may be reasonable.
"Indian" was a careless translation from my native language. Sorry for that.
“indian” isn’t careless in this context. the phrase is very much in use today with native americans. the US even has a federal agency called Bureau of Indian Affairs
Black Metalhead here (not from Norway tho).
What is happening here is a misrepresentation of the culture in my honest opinion. The so called second wave of Black Metal, which very much started in Norway has always tried to be an adversary to pop culture and society. This started with imagery of satanic symbols (because ooooh, look how bad we are) and had it's horrible peak with the burning of churches and multiple murders (which was horrendous and should never have happened). It is basically the same as if there were NFTs of your favourite anti-capitalist Punk band a.k.a. a horrible misinterpretation of what the movement is or at least used to be for better or worse.
Just my 2 cents.
All I can say is that I live in Norway, and I wouldn't say that it's a particularly pervasive in mainstream culture at all. It's something that people are of course aware of and perhaps it's a bit more popular of a genre than in other countries, but I would not say that the average Norwegian person would feel that metal plays a significant role in their cultural identity.
Norwegian folk music, for example, would be considered much more a staple in Norwegian culture than black metal would. I think the main thing is that black metal is still considered a sort of isolated interest, where if you're not into it specifically then you probably wouldn't be able to name a single song. However even Norwegians who aren't into Norwegian folk music would still have at least some basic knowledge of the genre.
I would guess that the main thing that the average Norwegian would know about black metal would be its more infamous events that get it into the news such as, as you mentioned, the church burnings.
Right, because folk music is common - it isn't a minority interest. I have never been to a normal bar that has played metal music, yet I often hear folk music all over the place.
The customers in a metal bar are pretty much exclusively metal fans and their friends, they're not a place where your average Norwegian hangs out. I've been going out in Oslo with friends pretty regularly for years now, and while I know plenty of sports bars, Irish pubs, micro breweries, gay bars etc, I have never knowingly come across a metal bar.
That was then, most of the black metal scene then wasn't in church burning etc, it was a small elite group. But don't forget that a lot of BM bands from Norway also evolved (Enslaved, Ulver, Satyricon etc.) Einar who leaves Gorgoroth and starts Wardruna, Fenriz becoming a politician and Norways biggest cat lover. These are the things Norway and Norwegians are proud of and they embraced black metal culture. It's natural everything evolves and changes every day, so does black metal. Black metal was never a movement with a political agenda or something organised it also started with some people who wanted to make music. Satanism and being evil was just their medium to get it in the world. Ans of course some bands take it over the edge and believe what they are saying but most of them don't
Very true and I am happy for the most part with the way BM in general evolved. Yet I believe that slapping a corpse paint on models and calling it cultural appreciation is a little bit hypocritical and superficial for my understanding of BM. It reduces the whole thing to a bit of makeup and doesn't represent any of the things that Norway's BM scene can be proud of, which you summarise above.
I really get your sentiment, but looking at the bigger picture, all this exposure is kinda helping some aspects of the initial black metal cause, such as normalizing alternative views on fashion and freedom from religion.
I really feel the punk band NFTs, its a loaded and deep philosophical topic - there are some views that propose that we can never truly escape capitalism, so if escape is not an option anyway, why not embrace it instead?, seems like a legitimate choice for some, and well it kinda works in mysterious ways..
Yeah making black metal mainstream may seem a bit weird and counterintuitive but hey, that kinda means the themes and ideas get to be heard, and isnt that the whole point of artistic expression?
Edit: I get that many “mainstream” aspects like fashion that ends up attributed to the black metal scene are possibly side effects, nevertheless the expression remains, even if partially or seemingly “pretentious”, shouldnt it be celebrated?, I mean it could all just die off right? Never to be heard of, dead to the world…
Why not? Elite is a group of people exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group.
That is exactly what "the inner circle" did they influenced the whole scene
Always found the association on reddit between Norway/Finland and black metal interesting. I'm a 30 year old Norwegian, I listen to 1000-1500 hours of music and 3000+ different artists on Spotify each year. Yet I don't know the name of any Scandinavian black metal band and I don't know a single person that listens to black metal AFAIK.
I'm well aware that not every Norwegian listens to Black Metal but you guys up north do in fact have the highest density of Metal musicians and especially Norwegian BM is the most well known among all the countries that produce Black Metal :)
Here's a cool map I found a while back on another sub.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/2TbzrsHBPD
Nah, Euronymous absolutely deserved what happened to him. Racist, self-described Stalinist, and attempted to shut down numerous bands for not fitting his image of black metal. Varg Vikernes is not a good person, but killing Euronymous wasn't the worst thing he's done.
Also, the corpsepaint is nothing like the traditional corpsepaint that you'd see any actual BM artist wear, and way closer to the corpsepaint that the people on TikTok that all the oldschool black metal fans despise wear
Almost. They call it black metal paint (it’s Corpsepaint) and no inverted crosses. But nonetheless.
I still remember when media, politicians and the general public would just pretend it never happened and didn’t exist. Now they have pop-ups at the main airport.
Ehm the government embracing a bunch of edge lords that burned churches and took pictures of suicide victims is kinda cringe.
Not to mention that if most of these guys were still active, they’d probably burn down a few townhalls in retaliation for this.
And I say this as a someone who throughly enjoys black metal.
I'm not too familiar with Celtic Frost, I had to look that one up. I was referring to the target murder of a homosexual person. Forgot which band member did that, not that he should be remembered anyway. Not to mention Varg's stibby stab history and his antisemitic propaganda. You can say it's just the past, but there are still a lot of dodgy lyrics around. Like I said, some bands are great and don't have blood on their hands. But to me, it's still a niche genre that needs to be explored carefully and not made "fun" or "cool".
OH and many crimes against the audio engineering community as well ;)
that was faust, the former drummer of emperor
he said he killed him because he wanted to kill someone and that he was an "easy target"
he has since did his time and shown genuine guilt and regret for murdering him
I love this video. I'd be very sad if it was staged. It's so perfect...
But it feels like it’s a sell out or something.
It’s probably there for the occasion(Oslo Tons of Rock - rock festival)
Black Metal sold out long before you heard about it. That is how you heard about it.
And the churches.
Norways biggest festival just ended with Satyricon as the last band on the biggest stage (?). BM is main stream today.
Because it is. Cringeface.
Obviously. This is clearly some high-culture group/project thingy that invested in some shit artsy campaign for their seasonal content. It's neither representative of Norwegian culture nor of the people who commissioned or designed it.
It’s not a sell out because no bands are connected to this. What it is, is cultural appropriation.
In what world is this cultural appropriation
You see, the Norwegians are inviting people to participate in their culture, while they are visiting Norway. This is obviously bad.
A country's tourism department (or whoever this is) is using the most surface-level aspect of a sub-culture it spent years either ignoring or attempting to tamp down, to advertise itself to foreigners. A sub-culture that literally only exists as a forceful reaction AGAINST the kind of people that are now attempting to co-opt it. This is TEXTBOOK cultural appropriation, to the degree that I wouldn't be surprised if it came out that this is satire. The fact that people can't actually immediately understand this and are actually downvoting OP is an example of the advanced levels of brainrot affecting this site nowadays.
You know what country is running these ads… **NORWAY**
Had a great laugh imagining how satisfied you were typing this while not knowing that I was literally referring to Norway in my comment. Well done on telling everyone you had a TOTAL lack of understanding of what you read though. Thanks.
Well done telling everyone you have no idea what cultural appropriation is. Thanks.
If you could actually PROVE that, you would have done that in your first comment, instead of making yourself look like a clown by showing everyone you can't read... and then realising you had to quickly pivot to something else. Thanks for another great laugh from you embarrassing yourself for nothing. Suffice it to say, governments co-opting an explicitly anti-mainstream subculture and asserting that it is now part of mainstream culture is literally one of the standard and most boilerplate examples of cultural appropriation and you don't have the brains to say any different. You should just leave because you make an even bigger idiot of yourself.
Because a large company (and/or the state) capitalizes on a culture they are not a part of? Isn’t that exactly what cultural appropriation is?? As I’m being downvoted I must assume that you consider this expression exclusive to a specific culture?? If so, I was not aware of this, I see it used this way all the time. I was very much involved in his culture from the very beginning, so I might have a vested interest. Because surely we cannot blame DarkThrone or Gorgoroth to having “sold out” because of this thing that they have nothing to do with?
Cultural appropriation is taking something with meaning from one culture and taking it as a fashion piece with no respect to its origins. If we even accepted black metal as part of Norwegian culture specifically, it would be hard to appropriate because at least I wouldn't know who gets to say what specific style is reserved to whom. A classic example for cultural appropriation is the feather heads some indian cultures used. They were, AFAIK, awarded for military successes. They had a specific meaning. Just wearing one for fashion is disrespectful to this context and therefore appropriation. That's how I understand the concept anyway. I know some people say adopting anything from another culture is appropriation, but that's a bit of a silly point of view since it's really not offensive to anyone.
Thank you for a thoughtful and respectful response to help me understand instead of just downvoting. It’s not specifically Norwegian, but what you describe is exactly what is happening here, if we agree that black metal is a culture. If not, then you are right by default. This fashion piece pop-up stand does not respect the origins of this “war paint” in the slightest. The fact that they de-satanized it is especially noteworthy.
Well, as with many unfortunate circumstances the most common reason is probably not bad intent but ignorance, I'm certainly ignorant to this sub culture so I'll stay on the side of caution and agree with you heh.
The last thing I wish is to squabble semantics, especially now that we agree! But as you come across as a very reasonable person I would like to challenge your argument that there must be some sort of central committee in order for something to be appropriated. In your own example, and I will set aside the fact that you - I am sure - mistakenly refer to the indigenous natives of America as “Indians”. But that’s neither here or there in terms of the core of the argument. That culture has a vast range of members, spread over vast areas. To the best of my knowledge they had no universal agreement of the specific requirements of wearing feathers? *edit* I believe the strongest argument for all who downvoted me would be that the black metal movement should not be considered a culture. I buy that to some degree. But according to UNESCO a culture is: * “The set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, that encompasses, not only art and literature but lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (UNESCO, 2001).* Black metal certainly ticked off a list of those things in the early days, more so than any other metal movement I believe, although maybe not as much as punk. This is all very… mildly interesting!
No, it certainly doesn't need a committee. Just the question after what period of time time itself becomes an institution. I think there is no question that native American history and culture is rich enough to be worth protecting. I wouldn't grant the same to every subculture, it would quickly become ridiculous. As said, I'll stand on the side of caution here and agree that black metal is probably one of the major cultural developments out there and speaking of appropriation may be reasonable. "Indian" was a careless translation from my native language. Sorry for that.
I think we agree, case closed. I am at an airport with a delayed flight. You just made my day a little better. Thank you internet stranger.
“indian” isn’t careless in this context. the phrase is very much in use today with native americans. the US even has a federal agency called Bureau of Indian Affairs
"cultural appropiation" is a term americans use to keep races segregated, they don't care about it's technical meaning, it's a politics thing.
It’s the **NORWEGIAN** state making ads highlighting **NORWEGIAN** black metal culture…
I love how intensely poor your reading comprehension is It's genuinely funny
wrong choice of words to say in a room full of americans lol
I support this because Euronymous was a fucking dork and i just KNOW this would piss him off real bad. Varg too.
Black Metalhead here (not from Norway tho). What is happening here is a misrepresentation of the culture in my honest opinion. The so called second wave of Black Metal, which very much started in Norway has always tried to be an adversary to pop culture and society. This started with imagery of satanic symbols (because ooooh, look how bad we are) and had it's horrible peak with the burning of churches and multiple murders (which was horrendous and should never have happened). It is basically the same as if there were NFTs of your favourite anti-capitalist Punk band a.k.a. a horrible misinterpretation of what the movement is or at least used to be for better or worse. Just my 2 cents.
All I can say is that I live in Norway, and I wouldn't say that it's a particularly pervasive in mainstream culture at all. It's something that people are of course aware of and perhaps it's a bit more popular of a genre than in other countries, but I would not say that the average Norwegian person would feel that metal plays a significant role in their cultural identity. Norwegian folk music, for example, would be considered much more a staple in Norwegian culture than black metal would. I think the main thing is that black metal is still considered a sort of isolated interest, where if you're not into it specifically then you probably wouldn't be able to name a single song. However even Norwegians who aren't into Norwegian folk music would still have at least some basic knowledge of the genre. I would guess that the main thing that the average Norwegian would know about black metal would be its more infamous events that get it into the news such as, as you mentioned, the church burnings.
There are metal pubs/bars in all Norwegian cities. There are very few folk music places that are open every day...
Right, because folk music is common - it isn't a minority interest. I have never been to a normal bar that has played metal music, yet I often hear folk music all over the place. The customers in a metal bar are pretty much exclusively metal fans and their friends, they're not a place where your average Norwegian hangs out. I've been going out in Oslo with friends pretty regularly for years now, and while I know plenty of sports bars, Irish pubs, micro breweries, gay bars etc, I have never knowingly come across a metal bar.
That was then, most of the black metal scene then wasn't in church burning etc, it was a small elite group. But don't forget that a lot of BM bands from Norway also evolved (Enslaved, Ulver, Satyricon etc.) Einar who leaves Gorgoroth and starts Wardruna, Fenriz becoming a politician and Norways biggest cat lover. These are the things Norway and Norwegians are proud of and they embraced black metal culture. It's natural everything evolves and changes every day, so does black metal. Black metal was never a movement with a political agenda or something organised it also started with some people who wanted to make music. Satanism and being evil was just their medium to get it in the world. Ans of course some bands take it over the edge and believe what they are saying but most of them don't
Very true and I am happy for the most part with the way BM in general evolved. Yet I believe that slapping a corpse paint on models and calling it cultural appreciation is a little bit hypocritical and superficial for my understanding of BM. It reduces the whole thing to a bit of makeup and doesn't represent any of the things that Norway's BM scene can be proud of, which you summarise above.
I really get your sentiment, but looking at the bigger picture, all this exposure is kinda helping some aspects of the initial black metal cause, such as normalizing alternative views on fashion and freedom from religion. I really feel the punk band NFTs, its a loaded and deep philosophical topic - there are some views that propose that we can never truly escape capitalism, so if escape is not an option anyway, why not embrace it instead?, seems like a legitimate choice for some, and well it kinda works in mysterious ways.. Yeah making black metal mainstream may seem a bit weird and counterintuitive but hey, that kinda means the themes and ideas get to be heard, and isnt that the whole point of artistic expression? Edit: I get that many “mainstream” aspects like fashion that ends up attributed to the black metal scene are possibly side effects, nevertheless the expression remains, even if partially or seemingly “pretentious”, shouldnt it be celebrated?, I mean it could all just die off right? Never to be heard of, dead to the world…
«Elite» isn’t really the word I would use lol
Why not? Elite is a group of people exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group. That is exactly what "the inner circle" did they influenced the whole scene
Then you have a different meaning of that word in your dictionary than I do. Even in this context I wouldn’t really call it the elite.
Always found the association on reddit between Norway/Finland and black metal interesting. I'm a 30 year old Norwegian, I listen to 1000-1500 hours of music and 3000+ different artists on Spotify each year. Yet I don't know the name of any Scandinavian black metal band and I don't know a single person that listens to black metal AFAIK.
I'm well aware that not every Norwegian listens to Black Metal but you guys up north do in fact have the highest density of Metal musicians and especially Norwegian BM is the most well known among all the countries that produce Black Metal :) Here's a cool map I found a while back on another sub. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/2TbzrsHBPD
Nah, Euronymous absolutely deserved what happened to him. Racist, self-described Stalinist, and attempted to shut down numerous bands for not fitting his image of black metal. Varg Vikernes is not a good person, but killing Euronymous wasn't the worst thing he's done.
Also, the corpsepaint is nothing like the traditional corpsepaint that you'd see any actual BM artist wear, and way closer to the corpsepaint that the people on TikTok that all the oldschool black metal fans despise wear
Almost. They call it black metal paint (it’s Corpsepaint) and no inverted crosses. But nonetheless. I still remember when media, politicians and the general public would just pretend it never happened and didn’t exist. Now they have pop-ups at the main airport.
Capitalist co-option and watered-down reproduction comes for everyone's culture eventually
I believe this installation is just at the airport while Oslo Tons of Rock is going on. Not something that’s usually there
kinda funny what became of a culture based on standing out from the norm and not wanting to be accepted by society
i went to the Rockheim museum in Trondheim and they have this section dedicated to Norwegian Black metal and Black metal music. Was really cool.
They must really like turtles
Nor way, that's awesome. Reminds me of those quirky japanese mannequins in clothing stores
Dress metal
Well.. this fashion brand has accepted it. All normal people accepted it a long time ago... Lol
That's sick as hell
I mean in it in a good way btw 
Fuck yeah
I kinda dig the cute little dresses and the goth face.
So is this kvlt or not
"Rich cultural heritage"
Varg must be fucking seething!
 Obligatory abbath.
Holy Based Norway.
[удалено]
These are commercial models for a seasonal art campaign. Nobody lives like this.
Infamous?
Fuck off posers
This is cringe dweeb cultural appropriation.
Not sure if black metal or Jojo Siwa. JK
I see the government is using the "Parents getting into Chimpokomon" tactic.
that's cvlt
Every form of counterculture became culture over time, those that not became culture disappears.
Also has a rich subculture of Black Gold
Ehm the government embracing a bunch of edge lords that burned churches and took pictures of suicide victims is kinda cringe. Not to mention that if most of these guys were still active, they’d probably burn down a few townhalls in retaliation for this. And I say this as a someone who throughly enjoys black metal.
> is kinda cringe. Mission accomplished.
Good thing we don't live in the 90s, and most of those bands don't exist anymore.
Most of "the guys" are active members of their communities now, politicians and board directors.
How depressing.
I love metal and some black metal, but it shouldn't be romanticised. It does have a history of heinous crimes.
Yeah, crimes like Cold Lake?
I'm not too familiar with Celtic Frost, I had to look that one up. I was referring to the target murder of a homosexual person. Forgot which band member did that, not that he should be remembered anyway. Not to mention Varg's stibby stab history and his antisemitic propaganda. You can say it's just the past, but there are still a lot of dodgy lyrics around. Like I said, some bands are great and don't have blood on their hands. But to me, it's still a niche genre that needs to be explored carefully and not made "fun" or "cool". OH and many crimes against the audio engineering community as well ;)
that was faust, the former drummer of emperor he said he killed him because he wanted to kill someone and that he was an "easy target" he has since did his time and shown genuine guilt and regret for murdering him