Tom Araya Thinks There was a Conspiracy to Delete a Photo of Slayer with Donald Trump
A few days ago, Slayer’s Tom Araya — or “Tim” Araya, as Rachel Maddow would say — posted an old photo of Slayer with Donald Trump Photoshopped in. It was mildly amusing, if silly.
But then the photo got deleted while Araya slept overnight. While it’s likely that several other people have access to Slayer’s Instagram account — other members of the band, people at their label (Nuclear Blast), their manager, etc. — Araya posted another message the next day that seemed to imply something more sinister was afoot. And that’s where things get a bit disturbing. Take a look:
“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…?”
What’s most alarming here is not that Araya thinks there’s some kind of conspiracy — that’s ridiculous, but ultimately harmless — but his use of the word “snowflake,” a term that’s been adopted by the alt-right to pejoratively refer to liberals who are offended by all the very offensive things our new president does and says. While I can’t recall Araya coming out in support of Trump, this isn’t the first time he’s let his conservative-leaning ideals show; last year he spoke about his support for private gun ownership in the U.S., stating:
Where you are in the world, you need to protect yourselves. Not from each other, but from invaders. And you know what I’m talking about, right? You should be aware of your invaders — people that come here to do you harm. It’s not right. You should be able to protect and defend your country. That’s the way it should be everywhere. ‘Cause when you don’t have anything to protect yourself or your fellow countrymen, what happens? People fucking die. They do! Don’t they? Yeah. Did you see it going on?”
Which is upsetting on a lot of levels. How sad that the frontman of Slayer — fucking SLAYER!, the most rebellious and angry metal band ever — has gotten to such a place of comfort and detachment that he’s as out of touch with reality as he’s making himself appear with both of the above quotes.
But it gets worse: in the comments of the re-posted photo, someone writing under the band’s official account (presumably Araya) refers to gay people as “fruits” and how Vice President Mike Pence feels about them, presumably a reference to his advocacy for “conversion therapy” as governor of Indiana:
Araya comes off as a tired, old man trying to protect his wealthy interests and his rights to use his dick-extension toys, and worse, homophobic. Which is probably why someone else in the Slayer camp decided to delete his initial post: they knew it’d cause a shitstorm, and they thought better of it.
Anyway, here’s the re-posted photo of Slayer and Trump in question:
[via The PRP]
