The Juggalo identity and the internet emerged in tandem as secularism gave way to pop cultural spirituality.
By Ross Benes
The following is an excerpt from 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times by Ross Benes and released by the University Press of Kansas.
Insane Clown Posse’s brilliance is best exemplified during an August 1999 Howard Stern segment. Live on air, the clowns and Sharon Osbourne argue about ICP dismissing the Osbourne-managed band Coal Chamber from its tour. Osbourne and Coal Chamber were suing ICP for breaching their contract. “You guys ought to tour with this lawsuit,” Stern told ICP. “It’s fantastic.”
What began as a business dispute immediately devolved into a crude spectacle, which was the point of Stern’s show. Much of the episode is made up of ICP and Osbourne screaming obscenities at each other and talking over one another. Osbourne, who would later spearhead her own low-culture product by assembling her family to star in a MTV reality show, called ICP “two retards who have no musical credibility, whose career is really over.” ICP hurled numerous crass comments at Osbourne. At one point, ICP member Violent J told Osbourne that she could “buff my pickle.” Stern, playing the role of friendly antagonizer, politely asked, “Sharon, do you have any interest in buffing their pickle?”
Osbourne continually mocked ICP for playing small shows, taunting that they’d never sell out arenas like her husband Ozzy. She said their days of selling millions of records were done, therefore their careers were extinguished. Violent J agreed with most of her claims. The clowns would never sell out stadium tours, issue chart-topping singles, or become A-listers. But Osbourne missed the point. ICP’s career was just getting started.
Having helped her husband and her family achieve mega stardom, first in music, then on television, Osbourne viewed mass success as the only success. ICP did not have mass appeal. They had niche, religious devotion. In the words of firebrand Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput, “Losing people who are members of the church in name only is an imaginary loss.” For ICP, alienating millions of potential fans is an imaginary loss. ICP didn’t have to shy away from being an acquired taste. Their small number of fans were dedicated enough that they could sustain a viable, decades-long career for the clowns. Violent J laid it out:
Listen, we don’t have any radio play. We don’t have any video play. So our albums…like our last record The Great Milenko, is the third-longest running hip-hop record in Billboard history. What that means…is that when you don’t have radio play, you don’t have video play, you’re not hot for a summer then you’re dead. You don’t sell 500,000 records a week then you’re dead. You just stretches [sic] it all out. So, my record right now is like number 100 something on Soundscan, just like my other record was. But it will stay there. Forever. The benefit to that is that we don’t just have one summer of hot touring. We can always hot tour. We can always sell merchandise, come out with movies, because we don’t have just a hot summer, we’re here forever. People don’t even know when we got a new album out opposed to an old one.
At the time the Stern show aired, ICP was at the height of its popularity. They had two platinum records, played at Woodstock ’99, and wrestled for millions of viewers on WCW. But like a prophet, Violent J recognized that ICP’s hot 1999 summer would not keep them afloat indefinitely. He foresaw that having a top five record was a product of fluke circumstance. Being blackballed by MTV and radio stations would eventually limit their big label appeal, forcing them back to the independent scene where they’d have more control but would have to work harder to obtain modest distribution. Appearing on WCW was fun while it lasted, but the Turner wrestling company was beginning to tank, so like their music products, their wrestling talents would move to the indie circuit.
As major rock stars, the Osbournes appealed to hundreds of millions of people. The Osbournes only needed a small fraction of those people to buy an album, concert ticket, or watch their TV show to generate substantial revenues. Under the rock-star business model the Osbournes operated within, ICP did not have enough fans to create lasting careers, which was Sharon Osbourne’s criticism. But ICP operated like a monastery. It knew most people wouldn’t have interest in such an intense lifestyle. But if it hooked a small group of people, it could get them not only to buy albums and concert tickets, but to stuff their closets with ICP-themed board games and hockey jerseys, devote themselves to their communal gathering, and brand themselves with their iconography. The clowns didn’t need hundreds of millions of Ozzy fans; a few thousand Juggalos would do. ICP used one hot summer to set themselves up to succeed through innumerable mild-weathered seasons.
For the uninitiated, ICP refers to the Detroit high school dropout duo Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope who paint their faces and rap about murder and magic. The group blew up in the late 1990s following a religious boycott. The group transformed from a Great Lakes regional act to a national curiosity after they were kicked off their Disney-owned record label. Disney recalled ICP’s album after Southern Baptists boycotted Disney for being gay friendly and publishing indecent material. ICP’s legal issues with Disney created an image of lowly artists fighting against corporate evil, which organically sent press coverage the group’s way and helped its 1997 album The Great Milenko go platinum even though it peaked at number 63 in the Billboard charts.
Like ancient martyrs, the clowns appealed to persecution to rally others to join their cause. Cultivating an outsider status separates the faithful from the faithless. ICP utilizes this dynamic when it sells its subculture to devoted fans. A religious boycott got ICP booted off a major label, but the group would turn religiosity against itself and use it as a marketing vehicle.
ICP played on the confluence of religion and Armageddon, which was common among 90s entertainers. Bestseller lists were littered with Left Behind apocalyptic adventures. On the very first day of 1999, the religious equivalent of the Associated Press ran the headline “Networks Get Religion during TV’s ‘Sweeps” about broadcast network miniseries based on Noah’s ark, Joan of Arc, and Cleopatra. Later, they aired Jesus and Mary, Mother of Jesus. That same year, Stigmata, The Boondock Saints, The Omega Code, End of Days, and Dogma filled theaters with an ominous religious ambience. In Dogma Salma Hayek states: “No denomination has nailed it yet, because they’re all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn’t matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith.” Hayek’s response exalts ICP’s true followers, who certainly are not self-righteous and who understand that believing in a principle is more important than having the mainstream respect your in-group.
ICP glorifies a lower-class lifestyle by implying that being a social outcast is a badge of honor. They express bewilderment over how magnets work. They use discount soda to perform ceremonial rituals. They built religious iconography from circus gimmicks and black magic. A declassified FBI report states ICP’s “cult-like following” embraces the group “in an almost religious manner.” Its faithful do not abandon the group when it gets mocked by press members or targeted by law enforcement. “Can a church really be a witness to the gospel if it is making no enemies?,” a prominent Christian commentator recently wrote. “How can a church speak truth on issues of injustice in its neighborhood without offending people?” ICP made no bones about making enemies and offending people as Juggalos witnessed the clown gospel.
Much of ICP’s music is about the Dark Carnival. These album covers feature a cartoony character, such as The Ringmaster or Great Milenko, set against a black backdrop. Each album has a loose concept with songs about the cover character, interspersed with references to voodoo, horror movies, murder, and sex. Each album’s mascot “would be holding up a mirror to people, to show them something wicked about themselves, so they could change,” Violent J wrote. These albums were dubbed Joker Cards, and their consistent branding allowed the band to build an evolving mythology into their music. “The Dark Carnival is our religion,” according to Violent J. Beyond hating pedophiles and racists, it isn’t totally clear what the religion is about. “If the Dark Carnival and the Juggalos could be explained that easy,” Violent J said, “it wouldn’t be half as magical as it is.” In another interview, Violent J explained that living without religious faith is similar to “living with sunglasses on with a shade of depression. No matter what the weather is like, it’s always gloomy and shitty.”
There is a mystical feel to the way Violent J describes the Joker Cards origin in his autobiography. One night while he was hanging out in his apartment, a dark shadow figure with a jester hat came across his view. J lost consciousness. The next thing he recalled was seeing roller-coaster tracks that disappeared into clouds and a twenty-story-tall house of mirrors. “It was twisted and strange as fuck,” he wrote. Less than ten feet away from him stood a clown with white-and-black makeup, wearing oversized shoes and white gloves. His hand held a deck of cards. Each card was a Joker. “Because of my vision…I began to realize that either I was chosen for a grand purpose in this world, or I had gone completely insane. Even now, I am not sure which one it is …. I hold such a sincere belief in that vision that I would never be the same again …. I believe in God, and I feel that the vision I had was His will.”
In J’s vision of a spirit-driven Dark Carnival, each Joker Card represented a character with a unique approach to warning humanity about the perils of living dangerously. Originally, the Dark Carnival was to include six Joker Card albums, the final being The Wraith. In the final track on The Wraith: Shangri-La, the group asks, “When we speak of Shangri-La, what you think we mean?” They respond: “Truth is we follow GOD, we’ve always been behind him, The Carnival is God and may all Juggalos find him! May the Juggalos Find Him!” A few verses later, the group sings, “We’re not sorry if we tricked you” repeatedly.
Following Shangri-La’s release, some press outlets called the group Christian. A few labeled them evangelicals, but that’s not correct. “Is this true? Have you really seen the holy ghost?” ICP asks in one lyric, replying with, “Nah bitch, not even close!” The group hasn’t held any ecumenical councils, but there is a Juggalo Creed. It states: “I am a Juggalo…I am part of a family…I, too, shall not hurt or seek to destroy. With love in my heart, love for my family, and love for the Carnival.” There’s a Fellowship of the Juggalos, whose mission is “to give back what greed has taken and to unite the family once more.” Pop culture writer Meg Hanson suggested, “When fandoms replace religion, fan communities develop their own ethos, codes of behavior, and a network of peer-mentoring that turns art appreciation into worship.” The Joker Cards receive veneration worthy of sacraments.
The fervor of the group’s fans is seen best during the annual Gathering of the Juggalos. The Gathering happens over the course of several days, usually in the rural Midwest, and involves open drug use, circus rides, helicopter tours, has-been stand-up comics, rap and rock groups that peaked during the 1990s, independent pro wrestling, assorted kitschy contests, side-show stunts, and performances by Psychopathic Records artists. Watch enough Gathering of the Juggalos infomercials and you get the sense that there is a Catholic-like hierarchy within Psychopathic Records based on how much promotion each artist gets. ICP is the pope. Twiztid is a cardinal. Anybody Killa and Blaze Ya Dead Homie are bishops. Lyte is a parish priest. Violent J said that Juggalos attending the Gathering is “what I imagine it’s like for the Muslims to visit the Holy Land of Mecca.”
The various carnival deities ICP created for its album covers have a stronger resemblance to polytheistic Hinduism than to Christianity. But ICP had a good read on the Christian doomsday pervading pop culture. Like Christianity’s desert monastics, the clowns focused on the eschatological. This came naturally for a group that held one of its largest annual shows during Devil’s Night, a Detroit Halloween tradition where people burned buildings and cars. Writing about the Dark Carnival albums, which prophesized an apocalypse following the arrival of all the Joker Card mascots, Violent J stated: “Other rap groups were putting out singles. We were releasing the end of the world on an installment fuckin’ plan.” During these days, Juggalos sang “take me to the echo side and never bring me back.”
Fandom is a way of life for Juggalos, who brand themselves with tattoos and merchandise that promote ICP’s label. In 2010, around the time when law enforcement agencies labeled Juggalos as a gang after some ICP fans committed heinous crimes, a detective wrote: “A Juggalo is one who lives their life by the hatchet. In other words, they believe in the true meaning of ICP’s songs [and] try to live by J and Shaggy’s preachings. Juggalos are down with the clown for life.” Another law enforcement officer stated: “The message of ICP is, for the true die-hard Juggalos, not what they hear, but what they ARE.”
The Juggalos’ rise coincides with institutional religion becoming less important to Americans. ICP’s first studio album, Carnival of Carnage, came out in 1992, when just one in twenty Americans had no religious affiliation. Now, nearly one in three Americans claim no religion. As Americans spent less time at church, they spent more time online interacting with other fans in community forums and messaging their beloved stars directly on social media. The Juggalo identity and the internet emerged in tandem as secularism gave way to pop cultural spirituality.
ICP leads a fringe pop culture spiritual movement. It doesn’t have as many lay members as the Swifties or the BeyHive that hold masses at landmark churches. Juggalos aren’t as influential as One Direction fangirls, who memorialized Harry Styles’s roadside vomit and invented new ways to enshrine celebrities online. The clowns don’t proselytize as aggressively as adult Disney superfans or CrossFit cultists. Where Juggalos lead is in how devoted they are to a pair of men who make them feel better about their life circumstances. Violent J and Shaggy are relatable because they weren’t born lucky themselves.
Like Christianity, ICP appeals to the downtrodden. One Harvard Divinity School alumnus stated that Juggalos are “a demographic ripe not just for populism but for a spiritual version of it, like that of Dorothy Day’s Catholic Workers.” They just took a different approach with “blessed are the poor.”
ICP leans into notoriety in a religious way. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” ICP presented the Gathering as “the most controversial music festival in the world” and sold “World’s Most Hated Band” T-shirts. Their marketing aligns with theologians who espouse views like, “From now on the authentic church will be a persecuted church.” Martyrdom scholar Candida Moss wrote that a religious focus on persecution “forces a rupture between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and perpetuates and legitimizes an aggressive posture toward ‘the other’ and ‘our enemies,’ so that we can ‘defend the faith.’” ICP defends the faith with tracks like “Fuck the World.”
Like pro wrestling villains, many Christians define their faith by the hatred they receive. ICP understands the value of creating an identity group around mistreatment. “If it wasn’t so cold on the inside,” Violent J said, “it wouldn’t be so warm on the inside with all the Juggalos. If there wasn’t so much hate on the outside, people not understanding and people dissing us, it wouldn’t be as special as it is with fans of the band.” But unlike zealous Christians or online victimhood pageants, ICP doesn’t take itself too seriously. “We ain’t no kind of magical fuckin’ chosen prophets; we know that,” Violent J said.
Becoming a Juggalo when the rest of the world is crumbling around you could be viewed as redemption suffering. Fan forums are full of stories where down-on-their-luck Juggalos find purpose and unity together. “When I fell in love with the duo, I was as broken as I’d ever felt as an adult,” wrote Nathan Rabin about his conversion to accepting ICP in his heart. “I had a broken brain and a broken literary career and my finances were hopelessly fucked up. There was something about the sense of community offered by ICP fandom felt like a life saver thrown to a man dying of loneliness.”
Branding yourself as an outsider is a time-honored tradition in the United States. The wicked clowns capitalized on people’s proclivity for religious belonging by creating a theology around carnival characters and selling the hell outta it. “Save your scientific facts,” Violent J said, “print them out, roll ’em up and stick them in your ass because I don’t want no one taking my faith away, you know what I’m saying.”
ICP remains consistently newsworthy despite few relatively people listening to their music. That’s because ICP is a band that isn’t really a band at all. Similar to a church, they’re a social conduit that brings together self-perceived outsiders who find comfort in congregating around others who are convinced society has it out for them. “I challenge anybody to show me a tighter family than Juggalos,” Violent J told the Detroit News. “It doesn’t have anything to do with ICP, except we kind of coordinate where the meetings are going to be. That’s it. It’s not about a family of people that worship ICP. It’s a family of people who worship each other, and the ICP is just the jukebox, the soundtrack.”
Mock them all you want, but ICP outlasted its critics. Blender magazine voted them as the worst band of all time. ICP is still making music while Blender magazine disappeared, imitating how Christ’s message lived long after rivals such as the Pharisees and Sadducees vanished.
Another way to view ICP is as a band that just happens to make music. No other band squeezes so much from so little. “Look how lame I am,” Violent J said. “Look how untalented we are, yet we have hundreds of thousands who follow the magic? Why? ’Cause it’s real. ’Cause it IS magic.” Like a certain carpenter with a humble background two thousand years ago, their low status feeds their otherworldliness.
Ross Benes is a journalist, market research analyst, and author. His writing has appeared in Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly. As an entertainment industry analyst, he’s regularly cited as an expert source by the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and Bloomberg. His previous books include Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold and Turned On: A Mind-Blowing Investigation into How Sex Has Shaped Our World. Raised in Nebraska, Ross shares Juggalo love with his family in New York’s Hudson Valley.
