A question I have for fans of Black Metal.

I recall driving somewhere with my daughter when she was about 8 and listening to Forgotten Woods. Every time singing (screaming?) came on, she'd sing back with what she thought she'd heard, and I got to laughing pretty hard. "I WANT MY MUFFIN SPROUT!!!" So, yeah, kinda sometimes I guess.

how can anyone not have a sense of humor about black metal haha I enjoy many black metal bands and as a fan I understand the immense power it holds as an art form for expressing the darker side of life....but even as a fan I am able to step back and see it through the eyes of a person who may be unfamiliar with the style, and a lot of its eccentricities do indeed come off as pure silliness; i think most fans can see it this way as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvfQqJeNF08
this made me laugh

I mostly take bm seriously, especially when the band is addressing a serious theme, but there are some bands that are all about the image and those i can take lightly.

Music is amazing and the people who play it are often hillarious. What more to ask fore?

In the words of Lemmy: "You know the main thing in life? A sense of humor". I love black metal, but I'm also able to make fun of it when I want to. When it comes down to it, It's all about the music, so these things really shouldn't be taken TOO seriously. I'd never hang out with someone who was seriously just doomy and gloomy all the time. And I think a lot of those bands that claim to be all doomy and depressed are actually putting on acts most of the time. Behind the charade, they probably like to have fun just like anybody. It's all fantasy and fun to me

I fucking love Black Metal, But at times I do have a laugh, When someone fucks up and burns food I say it's burnt like a Norwegian Church.

No matter the genre / situation, You always need to have a good laugh each day.

I love black metal, but it is fucking hilarious. Especially the super serious fans who get pissed when i find it hilarious.

I was laughing my ass off when I first saw Immortal's The call of Wintermoon video and Abbath in his wig (he had short hair when they shot the video and ended up wearing a wig) ages ago.
Master's Hammer also looked pretty funny to me when I first saw them in a VHS tape although their music is fucking awesome.

Black metal is a very theatrical music and as a result some bands appear completely ridiculous and most of the good old bands had a good sense of humor as well or at least the ones I've talked to.

I do like black metal a lot and hell yeah I laugh at it all the time haha! There is so much of those little "WTF is going on here?!"-things and come on those poses for promopics etc. Beyond the music the genre in its self is kinda joke-ish.

Then again. I dont take too much stuff too seriously anyway haha!

I take the art of it seriously but of course certain elements are funny.
When looking at the ridiculous photos (early Immortal, Graveland etc) I try to keep in mind that a lot of this came about as a reaction against underground metal getting more exposure; i.e. they were deliberately trying to "scare away" blockheads of more mainstream sensibilities by dressing up as Vikings, Nazis, elves or whatever.

If you make great music, you can dress however the fuck you want.

I really hate when people make fun about black metal stereotypes all day long. I can't laugh about stuff like 'The Black Satans'. It's just the same shit over years and years. And for me it's just a disrespectful way to make fun about something I really like. I like the black metal movement with all the goofy stuff like corpsepaint, bad sound and so on. Without riding the trve-train or taking black metal too serious.
I can laugh about song names, weird stage performances, silly pictures and so on. Just stuff that are kinda funny, for everyone with that sense of humor. But I can't laugh when people make fun of the whole black metal scene.

No form of metal should ever be taken too serious. I mean seriously...

I dont laugh at the music very much, the bands I like usually fill me with lots of empowerment that almost starts up from my stomach and turns into shivers and spontaneous body movements and goosebumps. Its a wonderful thing! Of course the visual aspect, Ex. crabwalking in the woods can look quite funny!

But ill be the guy to take this thread in a new direction. I rarely laugh at the music, but THE SCENE. MY GOD. Actually, its very easy for me to tell which people are being sarcastic when it comes to the "Trve Metal!" stuff. I usually take sides with those people who are just trying to piss off and mess around with the pacifists who get super angry and usually defend themselves with some completely obvious stuff along the lines of "METAL IS FOR EVERYBODY U CANT SAY THAT" those are very funny and Very common circumstances for me to be in. BUT whenever one of these people comes along around black metal that is like "Music for White people!" and are actually, full on, 100% trying to pull off some macho shit. Ill just sit back and let the joke tell itself. now that is truly funny!

I have no problem just chillin with my cat, eating some real sugary sweet cereal, listening to some conqueror or Emperor. I don't feel the need to overcompensate so I find it very easy to laugh, and make jokes. Just smile at all the stupid over the top stuff you see. life tends to be a whole lot smoother and happier when your not out there trying so hard, and getting angry. trying to "eliminate the weak out of black metal" LOL

Dark humor.

Like eschaton said above, black metal has been deeply rooted in religious satire and parody from the beginning. Just look at bands like Grand Belial's Key, Profanatica, or even groups like Deathspell Omega or Funeral Mist that make their criticism a little less obvious. They take religious themes and highlight some of their most ridiculous aspects, desecrate their most respected icons, and twist the meaning of religious terms and phrases. How hypocritical is it to fully support this sort of disrespect towards another culture, and then turn around and get upset with the same thing when it's directed towards you? I think Vegan Black Metal Chef is pure shit, but this has nothing to do with the content being upsetting to me. If a parody offers a genuine criticism, it would be close-minded to disregard the message just because it hurts your feelings. That being said, the majority of black metal parody is just lowbrow humor and is unfunny regardless of whether it's offensive or not. It's easy to point out how ridiculous it is for a grown man to wear facepaint, but it doesn't contain any real insight. Occasionally you'll come across something like the Bestial Avenger comics or the Angry Black Metal Elitist blog that are both funny and insightful. Most of the time it's just stupid image macros about burning churches or some variation of black metal ist krieg.

Man I love my Black Metal genre and always do have a laugh about BM memes on facebook or any other stuff with my buddies who which none of them are really into the genre, I never understood the Ghaal followers and all the butthurt they carry around about it, me personally the key in life when it's time to sit back and relax is having a good laugh, like you know I don't want to be suffering from impotency at an early age :p

I just gotta post this one here. Taake has these funny as fuck-parts in their music. This one is nice song but it gets really weird at 3:18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbwHtKmu-fg
How can you not laught about that?
Or this one from Taake as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjkt7yCf0nU here we go after 3:00.

I gotta add a Taake LS to the herd, now having heard that! Gotta respect that.

I like Black metal but most of the scene and almost everything around it is a joke to me (most of the jokes i crack with the black metal bands under my label are about black metal)

also this :
http://i.imgur.com/kdsKKzz.jpg

I think yes there is something humorous about black metal. At the same time I dont want to play down the aura of intense aestheticism and strictness it radiates. The genres intense seriousness and rigid styles can be utterly absurd because spiritually black metal is not of this world, it aspires to be against this world. So therefore, it will never look right or make sense in your average everyday life.

That being said. There are moments where the tropes of black metal are humorous and or campy because they cannot possibly fit to daily life. They are clownish and even silly. But you knows sometimes, actually many times, I just want to adopt that absurd reactionist, and stoic black metal aura and escape or reject the banality and normalcy that can infect daily life. In a way its a kind of cleansing or a hermitage. It reminds me never to think that death isn't around the corner, to aspire for something otherworldly, to not fear the dark side of nature, and to never be happy with the distractions and systems of human society that snuff the rebellious spirit.

Yes, a person without any sense of self-irony is a pretty poor human being. It's important to take the music seriously, but it's equally important not to get militant about it. Personally, I'm sick and tired of Watain worshiping, chestbeating man-children puking their guts out on forums because Band X doesn't fit their standards of what black metal should be. I get the impression that the ideology, appearance and credentials of a band matters more than the actual music. Witch is just sad as fuck. If you can't enjoy a band on purely musical grounds, but feel that you need to check out if they are "legit" it's probably not the music you're interested in anyways. It's almost like a reversed sort of puritanism, "Yeah the band makes awesome music, but I better look into them a bit to se if they're "okay" for me to listen to".

I take black metal as an art form seriously, but the reactionary attitude of some bands and fans(witch in my opinion goes totally against the rebellious nature witch made the genre interesting in the first place) is impossible not to laugh at from time to time.

I have a sense of humor about it as long as I am not currently playing :P
On that note though, have a look at "The Black Satans" https://youtu.be/Nh8CfWEnSJ8