AxFacts: The History Behind MetalSucks’ Most Cherished Meme, Part 1
“Axl cranks Limp Bizkit’s ‘Break Stuff’ every time his mom sends him to his room. -AxFacts-“
Axl Rosenberg. The name is both revered and detested across much of the internet-based metal world we know and love. People seem to have a mixed reaction to anything he writes, and our fertile comments section has no problem making that very clear.
Many of our readers have been engaging with us for years, and as a result, we’ve faced a barrage of inventive comments and strong opinions about our writing, both in terms of style and content. But one type of comment has towered over all others in terms of longevity: the AxFact. Sure, we’ve seen a variety of hilarious and biting bits of prose presented by our readers through the years, but none have been quite as viral as this. As a result, I’ve set out to shed light on the elaborate history of one of our most cherished memes.
AxFacts first appeared approximately two years ago in the comments section as readers tried to figure out a way to “rustle his jimmies” in an effort to get the site to change its format. Readers claimed they wanted the facts without the spin, but time has proven again and again that readers don’t know what they want (why else would you all keep falling for the click bait we keep posting?). Though there had been plenty of quips about Axl’s imagined day-to-day lifestyle, the first comment appropriately tagged as an AxFact was made by one of our most colorful Disqus users, Deputy Dipshit. It appeared as follows:
“Axl pees in his mouth in the middle of moshpits. -AxFacts-“
That comment was made in an article we published in June of 2014, and it immediately sparked a flurry of copycats. Though the community seemed to immediately latch onto it as a whole, it was championed most ardently by a small-yet-elite group of our most active commenters. Disqus users like Paris Hilton, Jimmy McNulty, and TrickleDownTacoRiff all took to their keyboards to paint an elaborate new meme landscape that would’ve made Bob Ross cry due to its overwhelming beauty.
AxFacts may have spawned in our comments section, but it was only a matter of time before it began to gravitate towards our other social media hubs. User Guitarzan2112 quickly took to Facebook to spread the word of the terms birth:
“I’ve started #AxFacts on facebook. Let’s blast a bunch on his wall and get it trending, fellas!”
The attachment of the hashtag made it simple for people on other social media platforms to quickly adopt it as one of their own, causing it to jump leaps and bounds ahead of what anyone could’ve ever dreamed possible. It was only a matter of time before MetalSucks was bombarded by AxFacts from all angles including Twitter, Instagram, and even Snapchat. Though the meme has died out as of late — it’s been approximately five months since it last made an appearance in our comments section — it lives on in all our hearts.
What does the future hold for AxFacts? What does Axl and the rest of the team think about them? What ever happened to the people that pioneered the term in the first place? We’ll have these answers for you in future installments of our series, “AxFacts: The History Behind MetalSucks’ Most Cherished Meme.”
In the meantime, or should I say meme-time, keep ’em coming. They might get featured in a future installment.
