New Study Finds Metalheads Are Some of Music’s Most Positive Fans

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Something everyday people are always super surprised and tickled by is how positive your average metal fan is. There’s always this moment of shock and amusement when someone who would never wear a Slayer shirt sees a person in a Slayer shirt cuddling a puppy or taking their kid to the park. Now, a scientific(-ish) study has made this phenomenon official, naming metalheads as some of the happiest music fans around.

The study, performed by online marketplace OnBuy.com and reported by Louder, performed an analysis of over two million Reddit comments from the subreddits of 27 music subcultures. The amount of positive words used within the subreddits was calculated to determine which fanbases generally responded to their favorite music with the greatest amount of positivity.

The findings: jazz listeners are the most positive about their favorite music, with heavy metal fans coming in second. The most negative, meanwhile, were drill, grime, and drum and bass fans (leaving many metalheads to ponder that important question, Yo, what the fuck is ‘drill?’). Statistically, metal’s community clocked 1,388,473 members, and averaged 62 positive words per 100 comments. 35,737 positive words were featured throughout the metal scene’s 57,837 total comments.

“It is no secret that music affects your mental health,” said psychologist Şirin Atçeken of the study, “but it may surprise you that it is claimed that most jazz and metal fans are the happiest amongst music lovers. And this is for several reasons.

“Jazz and metal are emotive and allow us to express our emotions whilst we listen to the music, but it’s two extremes. Metal affects us and is a natural anger management tool. It allows us to tap into our anger sensors, and actively address them, helping to manage these negative emotions.

“People feel that their anger is matched to the music when listening to metal, and therefore find it easier to process it. Metal formulates a safe, and healthy space for this to happen. In some cases, metal also combats loneliness and makes us feel less alone in these emotions, allowing the listener to accept them.”

Unfortunately, metal only came in #4 when it came to music genres whose fans used profanities, being beaten out by punk, hip hop, and rap.

Take a look at the finding numbers below:

You can find the whole study via OnBuy’s blog.

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Words by Chris Krovatin