In defense of Juggalos

The fans of the Insane Clown Posse, known as Juggalos, are an interesting group.  I find few groups that gather as much scorn from "the web" as Juggalos.  They are fairly easy targets.  For one, they stand out so.



And of course, there is ICP itself, which was such a target rich environment that SNL made into several funny skits.

But let's take a deeper look. Who are ICP and Juggalos?



I'm medicated.  I have a lot of medicine that I take. For depression. Panic attacks are really a serious part of my life.

ICP are from the inner ring suburbs of Detroit.  The region is predominantly white, and largely blue collar.  They claim to have grown up poor, which I don't doubt.  They seem to reflect their fans as a demographic.  White, blue collar, low educational attainment.



Just look at any picture of large groups of Juggalos.  They are largely young white men with low educational attainment and job skills.  For them, the middle class comfort their parents or grandparents experienced is gone forever.



You can see for yourself, the middle class jobs that a Juggalo would look forward to - low skills manufacturing - are largely gone.  Those that are left, as a result, pay very little.  It reminds me quite a lot of how David Simon views the inner city.

These really are the excess people in America. Our economy doesn’t need them—we don’t need 10 or 15 percent of our population. And certainly the ones who are undereducated, who have been ill-served by the inner-city school system, who have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy, we pretend to need them. We pretend to educate the kids. We pretend that we’re actually including them in the American ideal, but we’re not. And they’re not foolish. They get it. They understand that the only viable economic base in their neighborhoods is this multibillion-dollar drug trade.

And so conversely Juggalos are largely a group of white people that grew up in the suburbs that America could do without.  They are similarly without job skills or education.  America does not want Juggalos whether they paint their faces and listen to rap or not; for the Juggalo never really had a future.



The sad clown.