WORST Fans of Rock and Metal Tier List 

Check out my podcast here: ru-vid.com/group/PLgmGgsTY8UOKc5QxC4UTHdh7oq-8vZF0s Anything said on these podcasts is infinitely more interesting and meaningful than judging some random-ass fanbases. Highly recommend.

"Generically American Metal" translated into its natural tongue is, "Gimme Fuel, Gimme Fire, Gimme That Which I Desire, Oooo."

Being a member of Dream Theater Fandom is essentially equal to being one of their biggest critics

Tool fans online: F tier Tool fans IRL: high B/low A tier

As a Pink Floyd fan, I begrudgingly agree with your description of the worst of us. Unjustifiably elitist indeed.

So as one of those Maiden fans that does love the later stuff as well, to put it simply I'm very self aware on how repetitive some of their post reunion stuff is. You can basically predict the entire song structure after hearing the first minute and they are very long comparatively. But I simply like the long instrumental sections as repetitive as they are. They just have a sound to them that fits my personal music taste near perfectly so I don't tend to get bored of them.

Tool fans deserve there own gigachad tier. They transcend all of us with there knowledge of the Fibonacci sequence. Every time the listen to lateralus they just go berserk and they cannot be stopped. Beware if you ever call there songs less than an experience. We mere mortals are nowhere near capable of handling the knowledge they possess. Can’t wait for the new podcast btw

thank you for doing us foo fighter fans justice

Megadeth fan in every Megadeth music video comment section - "Thank you James and Lars for kicking Dave out, nOW wE hAvE gREtEst mEtAl bAnD iN thIS uNivErSe 🤪"

Sorry Mike but as a Pink Floyd fan i'm just better than you.

It also helps Foo Fighters fans is that Dave Grohl is one of the coolest dudes to ever exist and it influences the coolness of the fanbase

As a Nirvana fan, I totally agree with you about the toxic fans. I never understood why they think Kurt was a musical genius. I like a lot of Nirvana's catalog, but the music is pretty basic and that's fine

Honestly as a 16 year old Nirvana fan, im sick and tired of the fandom making us look like shit and acting like Kurt did no wrong and was a fucking saint or some bs. Its so tiring. Especially when not all of us are like this. Ugh. Oh and the fact that kurt cobain literally hated elitists is so pathetically ironic its insane.

I'm a Nirvana fan and yes a lot of us are very toxic. I feel sorry for the people that go out with a Nirvana t shirt (because they just like how it looks ) and fans coming up to them and being "like what did Kurt like to eat for breakfast"

You didn't do kiss fans? Now that is a toxic fanbase. No questions.

And remember, Dave Mustaine wrote everything on the black album.

"This is not real metal" - Black Metal fan

Weezer fans are either the worst or best, no inbetween. Same with Ween or any fanbase that doesn’t take its band seriously

To address the love for Slipknot: as an Iowa boy, we cherish the VERY few of us that become famous because it is rare. Not an excuse obviously but most of the diehards are from Iowa and have a giant love for them becoming so famous

Me as a Pink Floyd fan trying not to be toxic about this toxic ranking lol

As an Iron Maiden fan (mostly of the first 7 albums), I can assure you that I would have put the Iron Maiden fandom in F tier. Here in Italy it's just filled with so many toxic and honestly musically ignorant boomers that when you go to see them live it makes you want to stop listening to them.

I was waiting for the DT Fandom tier position, and according to all the discussions I see all the time on a DT Facebook group, I would've immediately placed them in F tier.... they're INSUFFERABLE OMFG! I myself am a fan, but I can't stand the online DT community 🤦🏻‍♂️

Honestly bob dylan was really good at making songs that other people turned into masterpieces eg. All along the watchtower and knocking on heavens door.

I think an instrument hierarchy would be hilarious. Thanks for the fun content!

Sabbath fans are usually too stoned to talk trash.

My dad’s a hardcore eagles fan. I’d call him pretty cool, he actually came back with the milk.

I think most Manowar fans are very well aware how cringe the lyrics are. We just go with it lol.

Past Mike here (my name is also Mike): I am expecting Dream Theater and Slayer to be way down the list. Current Mike here: hey not too bad

I love Manowar lol it's so campy and cheesy it comes full circle to being cool again, kind of the same feeling with movies like Jason and the Argonauts

With the Foo Fighters, I feel like at least a sizeable portion, though I couldn't tell you exactly how much, of why their fans are generally so chill has to be that the most public-facing aspects of the band are Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. Like, when you have those two sweethearts who are just always super down to earth and real with absolutely everyone, I feel like it kind of just naturally tends to filter down to everyone else. Also, while they've certainly made great music, it's not like they completely revolutionized or created a whole genre the way some of the other bands on this list did (heck, like Nirvana), so it's probably a lot harder to hold that kind of elitism for their stuff. They just hit that perfect balance of being mainstream enough that you can't pat yourself on the back just for being into them but not so popular that you hear them everywhere you go, and good enough that you can wholeheartedly enjoy them but with enough "meh" in their discography that most people will probably have songs of theirs that they love, like, are indifferent to, and probably some they'd rather not bother with.

I got a bone to pick with aluminum fans. They’re loud, hard to clean, and they don’t provide enough air circulation

The Beatles were the very first band I got into when I was first learning guitar at about 9-10 years old (I’m 23 now) and I’ll admit that I was pretty obsessed with them for awhile but I’ve grown out of it, though they’re still one of my favourite bands and a big reason why I fell in love with music (and relating to what Mike said about John Lennon, I still love his and Paul McCartney’s songwriting but I was more a fan of George Harrison since he was the first guitarist that I heavily looked up to (alongside Eddie Van Halen) and I still credit him as helping me become the guitar player I am today)

I’m not a diehard maiden fan but after seeing legacy of the beast, everyone in the pit was extremely nice and as you said in the past, there was like a metal family vibe to it, like everyone is here for one purpose, which was to listen to some bad ass music and I had a great time, such a great fan base.

Mike, you seriously need the album Anthems to the welkin at dusk by Emperor in your life for some actually excellent black metal (I do share a lot of the same opinions as you about most other 2nd wave black metal bands like Mayhem or Darkthrone) but Emperor and this album specifically really are great.

As soon as I was GWAR being dragged up to S-Tier I was just laughing happily and nodding yes before you even really said anything. As a fan myself, my experience has consistently been that they are just as fucking massive of lovable big-time as the band itself. Best shows I have ever been to.

Great video only thing missing for me is that you didn't talk about one of the worst behaviours in fandoms (in my opinion): The Gatekeepers (all of the "You're not a real fan if..." Or without anyone asking them "I'm a fan since...")

I think I like slipknot cause of the energy they have live. Joey jordison was an amazing drummer and corey Taylor's vocals are top tier in my opinion. I also just relate to their lyrics especially with the first 2 albums. And for pantera I was a little sad cause I wanted to hear some of your thoughts on Phil Anselmo. Otherwise great tier list. Loved the video

The Doors were my first favorite band. They worked for me, but I can definitely understand why someone wouldn't like them. Music should always be a release and never a competition.

As a black metal fan who almost excusively listens to black metal when it comes to metal/rock i love to hear you talk about it

I agree with everything you said. Except, my experience with Tool fans would go in F tier. One person came into my place of work and berated me for listening to Undertow, implying it's hot garbage. Then proceeded to tell me about math equations making them great. My only reply was I only care about how the music makes me feel. But I do live in a snobby music scene that killed itself with undeserved self importance.

Thank you for standing up for instrumental focused music. People think only lyrics create music and never give credit to the instrumental

After going to a Maiden concert, everyone I've seen are incredibly nice and welcoming. And, they put on an awesome show. Agreed, after Matter of Life and Death it's kind of all been the same structure, save just a few songs. Most of the fans seem to be self aware with the repetitiveness

Never understood why some people are so obsessive about a group or artist. There are some bands (Dream Theater for a long time) I wouldn’t check out because the fans were so annoying. Definitely not helping the band in anyway by being completely obsessed like that.

For the Dream Theather fanbase I think if you had remember about the guys who are only Mike Portnoy's Dream Theather fans I think it would have landed in an F tier. Is just really annoying that 12 years later they still don't accept the change.

I love watching these fandom videos. I think it helps give me some humility as someone with a tendency to gatekeep and have an elitist mindset. Nice to get a reality check.

Only negative I have had with some Foo Fighter fans is the worshipping of Dave Grohl as this 2nd coming of Christ to music when in reality he is a talented musician who writes mediocre songs.

As a dead head, I can definitely confirm that the Grateful Dead scene is the absolute worst. They have some of the most annoying gatekeeping you'll ever come across. Wait until you meet. some poser hippie trying to explain to you how he's dead family. ick

As someone who's very active in the Queen fandom, even I wouldn't put us at A, mainly because of the new wave of Teen Girl fans that came after the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. They treat the band more like characters in their comics rather than musicians, and only ever care about the hits. I watched the change in the fandom from before and after the movie and we were so chill before that period and would actually dive into their older more obscure material and recognise the diverse styles into Progressive Rock, Heavy Metal, Folk, Avant-garde, et cetera. Now, you go to any Queen forum (especially Amino), and you're see a bunch of uwu fan art, unfunny comics, and very little music talk (usually about the hits) and whenever someone actually tries to do a deep dive and analyse what made their music so interesting, they seem very disinterested and dismissive of it. Now, the hype has thankfully died down in the years following the film, but it's still the majority of all active Queen forums.

I came across a hell of a lot of people in Doors t-shirts back when I worked at a theme park, and they all seemed cool (and most of them were actual fans too). However, I remember a lot of angry comments when some girl did a drum cover of Light My Fire and mocked the too-long keyboard solo in the description

I'd say Tool fans quote Maynard like a pastor quotes the Bible, but at least the pastor takes a day off sometimes.

The most toxic types of fandoms I've encountered haven't necessarily been where they're just obsessive over the bands themselves and celebrating them (such as nerding out over the band members of Iron Maiden or Dream Theater's playing ability... to me, that alone isn't bad since it comes off more as having a lot of passion for them), but more so in the ancillary extensions that erupt and bring a negative vibe from those obsessions (such as Iron Maiden fans putting down Judas Priest, and vice versa for Priest's fans on Maiden instead of appreciating each one's strengths and acknowledging various faults of both, despite having a preference for one over the other... or best/worst album elitism that's very common among Rush and Dream Theater fans within the fanbases themselves... God forbid you prefer one album that's villified over one that's far more celebrated).

12:20 Even when I was into Black Metal I still rolled my eyes when I saw Black Metal fans claim that BM required more skill than bands like A7X. And I still hated A7X.

Some Nightwish fans seem to be toxic but more within the fanbase, mainly STILL arguing about the lead vocalists.

As a Radiohead fan, I find it insulting that you put us in the D ranking when we could be a WHOLE lot lower.

outside of metal, in general the worst fandom ive ever seen has been Dimash's fandom. Every other artist's videos, forums and posts are somewhat civil at least, Dimash's things are just always either a complete dumpster fire or literal god worship, no in between. I've seen 10x more people get banned for Dimash arguments than for anyone else. Absolutely top #1 toxic fandom ever

Maybe it's just the Israeli fans of slipknot, but i said in comment on Facebook on an article about their latest album something like: "Slipknot are not at all my cup of tea, but I would definitely go see one of their shows" And all I got were confirmation about their live shows being a "Most Not Miss"

If NSBM fans were included in here, they'd be SS tier.

I wouldn’t socialize with those losers anyway.

12:00 funny thing, that’s actually Waking The Cadaver’s logo. They are a slam band. Looks kind of black metal-ish though.

In my experience, I’ve seen a lot of Queen fans who are SUPER toxic whenever there’s a video of Queen with Adam Lambert. But maybe that’s just me, love the vid 👍

I disagree on your take on black metal itself, but I couldn't agree more with your take on the fanbase. I interacted in a black metal space once. The thread was going okay (as okay as a black metal thread could be) when I made the grand mistake of revealing that I was female (I know, shocking). Almost instantly, horrible comments from dozens of incels, everything from fetishistic disgustingly inappropriate comments to guys calling me literal slurs and everything in between. I literally had to delete all the accounts under my previous username because people would search for me on other platforms and harass me there. It was such a bad experience that I basically left metal spaces entirely and now rarely interact, comment etc in any metal space on any platform. Black metal is still my favorite subgenre (with the exception of NSBM) but the experience has certainly soured it.

Slayer and megadeth fans deserve to be in D just because of HOW MUCH they shit on metallica

I can’t believe you didn’t mention the Brian Wilson of Beach Boys cult members. I am a big fan myself, but a large percentage of that fanbase is bat shit crazy.

Maybe as a black metal fan I've been pretty lucky with those I've interacted with, but I find that it's a lot of having a good time enjoying the classics, acknowledging some newer stuff might not be their thing, or complaining about the elitists. But that being said, the elitists and "politically active" members of the genre's fandom are so unbelievably awful that saying it all averages out to F tier is being generous.

I'm a simple man, I see Maynard in the thumbnail and I click

Totally agree with the GWAR fandom. Everyone I have taken to go see GWAR always says the crowd and fans were the friendliest people they have met at a concert.

Well bowie was pretty open on who he was and I think people loved and respected him for it

The only people I’ve met who are like “you like ____ name the singers blood type then” are Zeppelin and Beatles fans. Something about a band having both a mainstream connection and an underground connection maes for the worst kind of fanbase

Shame that Doors fans are like that. As a fan of the Doors myself, to hear fans of a group with music that is supposed to have chill vibes be that toxic is very disappointing. People have different opinions, and that’s OK. No reason to lose your cool over it.

You had Gwar on this, but not Motorhead? We just want people to actually remember that they exist sometimes.

If we're talking about terrible fanbases, Steven Wilson is definitely up there in my book. The amount of people i've met who worship him at the altar and have this mindset that he's the saviour of prog rock and music is too many to count. Same applies to the fans who think that him making "pop" music is selling out and the worst thing ever. Thankfully not all of his fans are like that but most of them are and it's a shame.

Metal band mascot tier list next?

As a massive Rush fan who is a millennial, i can agree with the statement that the hardcore elitists and boomers are the ones that sometimes (not all the times) ruin the fan base. From what I know of being to Rush concerts on the R40 tour, there definitely are the crazies, but they are a very small portion of the Rush fandom. I'd put us in bottom A tier.

As a Metallica fan, I highly agree. I even had a fan ask me about my opinions on the whole Napster thing like it happened yesterday.

Manowar is awesome. I lift weights and feel like a badass listening to them. It's not for everyone,. When it's bad its real bad, but when it's good, its oooooh so good!

Where are the Crusade fans at, though? You didn't even stroke my ego, psh.

As a black metal fan, I'm sorry

The most mysterious and bizarre are the VERY VERY INCREDIBLY vocal anti-Metallica fans that are seemingly everywhere. They are generally pretty hardcore Maiden or Megadeth fans that spend more time in the comments section complaining about Metallica than they do extolling the virtues of their own favorite bands. Most of them generally REALLY like most all 80s Metallica music, but (for some bizarre reason) just utterly despise them now because the "selling out" stuff and hating Lars, etc. It's a very popular phenomenon on here.

Saying bad thing's about Pantera could prove to be MOST unfortunate🤣

I love black metal but yeah a lot of the fanbase is just insufferable

9:41 "I chose the football team's logo because the band logo is hot trash. Terrible!" As an ΞΔGLF5 fan, I am extremely offended.

Dream Theater is my favorite band and I'm surprised you didn't put them in the F category. The DT elitists are the worst people I run into. Nothing comes close in their minds and they are more closed minded than a rock. The worst all the college music majors. Band has been around before you were born. You didn't "discover" anything. Yuck. Love the video.

Pink Floyd fandom has all the time this David Gilmour vs. Roger Waters debate. It's very similar to The Beatles John Lennon vs. Paul McCartney situation.

Ironically enough the football team has a lot of extreme fans😭

Hey Mike, i totally agree with you on that one about Metallica. Kill Em All and ride the lightning dont compare as well enough with death magnetic + (beyond magnetic) imo. their earlier stuff isn’t their best. load and reload have great songs. however, we must admit, their best stuff comes from Master, Justice, Black albums.

Bob Dylan is by no means a "technically proficient" singer, but I really love the timbre of his voice, it fits very well to the type of music he makes. As for prioritizing lyrics, I don't personally see the problem with that, it's just a different sort of thing entirely from instrumental focused music. Listening to his storytelling, his wordplay in his lyrics, is very captivating, just as listening to a very intricate instrumental is also captivating, just in a different way.

I’d say I probably fit in to the hardcore Metallica fandom lol. I worked with a guy who was an ELITIST Nirvana fan and, still to this day, gets physically angry when you mention Foo Fighters because he’s 100% convinced Dave Ghrol had Kurt Cobain killed because of an affair Dave had with Courtney Love. Yea. 😅

"Just because you like listening to it does not make you better than someone else" is ironic for Mike to say haha Nah, your opinions on music are fun and I like your content just poking fun

What's really annoying and harmful is holding people like Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and all the originators who helped develope the music you hear today, UP for a HUNDRED fucking years and not opening up opportunities for the THOUSANDS of people who have FAR exceeded them and you're missing out on them because we keep JIMI at number one for a hundred years instead of exploring and absorbing NEW artists. Some guy our there who put his life's work into mastering his craft and will never be recognized for being the GOAT. There isn't just ONE era for GOAT status. It could have happened millions of times over if we pulled our heads out.

I would love to see you and Finn collab on a podcast, if it were possible that would be awesome. Other than that, great content man, keep it up! 🤘

Mike, you gotta make a tier list for emo and alt-rock fans 😏

Dude I LOOVE Tool and would have put that at about a C at the highest honestly. You definitely gave the suck-segment of the fan base a bigger benefit of the doubt than I feel we deserve but you know. All good regardless. 😁

I came into Metallica with Justice for All (I must have been in middle school when I bought it, which means it was probably a full year after that came out). So I got into metal toward the tail end of the 80s, and was probably fully invested in metal by 1990 or so. The fandom was way more intense back then. I do wonder if that has something do with the difference between younger and older fans of the band. It was like belonging to a tribe, and there were rules people were expected to follow in terms of what they listened to (when grunge hit, listening to Nirvana was worse than being Judas in my group). It wasn't always so extremely rigid, but it could be (some people were more open minded than others). And I think part of that had to do with the fortress mentality of being into metal. Part of it was also things were just very, very cliquey at that time. When the Black Album came out, I remember liking it, but I know a lot of fans and have a lot of friends who completely rejected. I went to see them live for that tour and it was great. I've never heard anyone call Kill "Em All their favorite album, but maybe just no one around where I lived was that into that one (it was an album I listened to because I wanted to learn more about the band's earlier sound, but would only occasionally go back to it). For me, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and the Black Album are their greats. I like In Justice for All. Played it a lot when I was younger, but now it feels more like a chore to listen through (it also lacks some of the warmth of Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets with the bass so low: I always read that as they keeping the bass silent to honor Cliff Burton). I did have trouble getting into their post Black Album stuff. Just a little out of genre for me. But I get that the band needed to explore different sounds (plus the Metal landscape was so different when they did Load, most of the bands I liked from the 80s seemed to be having some kind of sound crisis and trying to find a new way forward).

I’m a prog metal fan for the most part. The entire scene is full of angry nerds. “You just don’t get it, man”

I once had a boss who’s two all time favorite bands were The Doors and The Grateful Dead. Red flags for fucking DAAAYYYYSSSSS

i'm a Weezer fan, where would we go

Great tier list and great video. Since you included black metal, you could have included deathcore and melodic death metal as well. Also, your take on Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, SOAD, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Cannibal Corpse would have been fun too.

ON THIS EPISODE OF WHAT DOES MIKE THINK?! 💀

I'm a slipknot fan and the reason I love them is cuz of the insane drumming by Jordison and Weinberg that compliment the riff and there's just a really cool sense of chaotic order that's pleasing to the ears. That's just me tho

The Manowar thing is funny, because in Brazil we have a classic meme. It's a reporter called Regis Tadeu (which is a famous music snob and critic hahaha) on a Manowar concert. He's interviewing a fan dressed like one of the band members. They start to argue and the fan keeps repeating "You don't know Manowar" several times. So, every time someone mentions Manowar, someone says "You don't know Manowar".