Look, I know some of you might be getting a little fed up about political posts, but I'll keep personal politics out of this one, because it's just so ridiculous I had to bring it to your attention. Feel free to skip past this post, here's a link to only posts containing music and video.
Anyway, Tom Araya posted a poorly Photoshopped photo of Slayer "hanging out" with Donald Trump (which you can see above) to Slayer's official Instagram. Then, according to Tom, the photo mysteriously disappeared and he wants answers. Yesterday, he reposted the photo with the following caption:
Believe it or not this picture was posted by me Tom Araya on 1/20 cause I thought it was funny … I was amazed at the comments about the picture some positive some negative more amazing was in 2 hours there was 10,000 likes … But i never would have guessed that there where so many snowflakes commenting their distaste for the new president. Like him or not he is the president … woke up the next morning and found someone had deleted the post … can some one please explain why…?
Tom really likes ellipses, when a simple period would do just fine. But grammar aside, Tom later jumped into the comments after some distaste was expressed for the photo stating “Tom here… some of you get it and obviously some of you don’t . As I stated in the post I thought the picture was funny.”
What is there to get? What is the joke?
Also, did Tom take a moment to consider that instead of some overarching conspiracy, the person who deleted the photo could've been somebody from the Slayer camp themselves? I'm guessing Tom isn't the only one with access to the Instagram account. It was only last summer when Slayer guitarist Kerry King called Trump "a sideshow," adding "He's the biggest liar I've ever seen in politics," he says with a laugh. "I mean, most of them are liars, but he just outright in-your-face lies." I can imagine Kerry, or perhaps somebody from the band's management thinking it would be best not to have a post that could be seen as divisive up on their page to alienate a portion of the fan base..
To be fair, the two Slayer icons have disagreed in the past, with Araya even questioning his future in Slayer. Or maybe we're just reading too much into this.
Unfortunately, things got even grosser in the comments. Pitchfork points out Araya made a terribly insensitive gay joke about Vice President Mike Pence's history of supporting gay conversion therapy, a method that has proven to be inhumane and ineffective:
Like, not even getting into the "snowflakes" and "fruits" shit, which is indefensibly gross. pic.twitter.com/s2cyYGtHPu
— Michael Nelson (@nelsonicboom) January 25, 2017
Pitchfork notes the user Tom is replying to, @zogar77 replied: “I happen to be gay @slayerbandofficial so fuck you and your fruits to vegetables comment. Go crawl up Pence's arse.”
Don't worry though, Araya didn't mean any of it. He was just doing all of this to piss you off. Araya later commented: “thanks […] to everybody that has commented thanks for insight… this is how fake news gets started, not once did I say that I supported trump… and assuming I speak for the band you are mistaking .. the picture did exactly what I thought it would do… piss some of you off.”
Oh, I see.
Update: Slayer have released a statement distancing themselves from Tom Araya's actions.
[via ThePRP]
