FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

The Obssesions Issue

You're Dead

We're always receiving threats from angry readers. Sometimes they just challenge us to a fight.

Jewdriver photo by Seth Olenick

We're always receiving threats from angry readers. Sometimes they just challenge us to a fight. Sometimes the threats are more ambiguous and simply state that we will "be receiving some remedial ‘medication' in the coming months" (um, why'd you warn me?). They come from fags, WASPs, niggers, spics, whores, Jews, and, of course, neo-Nazis. The only thing they have in common is that they are all from irrelevant fucking pussies. Stupid, weak people who feel powerless and are desperate to replace that feeling of emptiness with some temporary rush of anonymous empowerment. When Amy Kellner wrote in VICE that DJing isn't the most difficult thing in the world, she received dozens of threatening emails. They ranged from "you're a disgusting fat pig" to warning that she would be raped in front of her whole family who would then be killed en masse. "I don't have thick skin like you guys," she told us nervously. "When you see that stuff appear in your inbox, it's really disturbing." We told her to call the police because these threats are a class-B misdemeanor, but she just rolled her eyes (thereby acknowledging the secret truth—these people are irrelevant pussies). But it's not just us. The NYPD alone deals with so many allegations of death threats, sent to so many different departments, that it is "impossible to quantify it." When you keep in mind that only 3% get reported, that's, I don't know, a kajillion! Our favorite example happened shortly after Yale law professor Amy Chua was interviewed in Vice about her book World on Fire. She dared to say that Venezuela democratically elected Hugo Chavez. She wasn't condoning the guy, you assholes. She was pointing out the downsides of democracy. Of course, Venezuelans are dumb as shit and immediately assumed she was pro-Chavez. Within 24 hours her phone and computer where inundated with hundreds of threats. One guy kept sending, every three minutes for a whole day, a picture of the WTC being blown up, with the message "Venezuelans are going to get you." Things eventually culminated in Chua needing armed guards every time she went to do a talk. Nothing happened, of course. Most recently, our very close pals Jewdriver have been told that if they ever play a show again they will not leave the venue alive. For the record, Jewdriver is a Jewish skinhead band that takes the lyrics of Skrewdriver (a racist skinhead band) and changes them into funny ballads about bagels. Now they have to die? Who the fuck is making these threats? Whoever it is obviously doesn’t care about what their enemies are saying. For the record, DJing is easy, democracy isn't always fun, and Nazi jokes are funny. Not that it matters. All these “secret admirers” truly care about is shaking that nagging feeling in the back of their minds that keeps repeating, "You don't matter. You are being left behind." And that feeling is never going to go away. No matter how many people they pretend they're going to hurt. Ha ha.