As I often said a year ago, 2017 was gonna be the year of Marches. And I'll be the first to admit I was mostly (but not completely) wrong.  One March that stood out to me more than anything was the Juggalo March. Let me give some context to explain why this may or may not be interesting. 

In the late 80s or early 90s a rap duo (Violent Jay & Shagg 2 Dope) from Detroit (the white rapper's capital of the world) had their unique sound break through the barriers of main stream music. the group was originally called Inner city Posse, but overtime decided to re-brand and move towards a more twisted identity and became known as The Insane Clown Posse or ICP for short.  ICP would have themes ranging from a local Detroit drink called Faygo, carnvials, hatchets, to just about anything strange or superstitious that is not religious. 

As I've mentioned a few times on the show, I grew up in the midwest. Which is kind of a cultural void of the US, unless your count everything country music related.  I didn't really start listening to music until like 8th grade and even then, the music I was listening to was kind of shitty.  But somehow I got introduced to ICP. And it's one of those bands that like you listen to not because you're into them and fully support what they rap about, but out of irony and humor.

Growing up I listened to them a lot.  Usually way playing Doom.  But as I grew up my taste evolved into other music that was also not culturally acceptable, like KoRn, System of a Down, and of course Nickelback. I'm not saying their music influenced me a ton, but it was something I listened to and I wasn't the only one. ICP were also wresters for a while (tapping into the WWF market) and gathered many other loyal fans who identify as "Juggalos"

Juggalos have a lot of interesting dynamics about them. First of all Juggalos are above Urban Dictionary descriptions, they have a wikipedia page. That's how high it goes people, all the way to the top.  Here are the characteristics of Juggalos according to Wikipedia:

According to Shaggy 2 Dope, "[Juggalos come] from all walks of life – from poverty, from rich, from all religions, all colors. [...] It doesn't matter if you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or a crack rock in your mouth."[6] Juggalos have compared themselves to a family.[7][8]

Common characteristics of identifying a member of the Juggalo subculture are as follows:

• Drinking and spraying the inexpensive soft drink Faygo.[9][10]
• Listening to horrorcore and other types of underground rap music.
• Wearing face paint, generally those either like an evil clown or perhaps similar to corpse paint.
• Wearing HatchetGear.
• Having the Hatchet man logo applied on personal effects and, die cast, worn as jewelry.
• Doing hair in the spider legs style, i.e. like the Twiztid members[7]
• Displaying the gesture of wicked clown, the westside sign with the left hand and the C sign in ASL with the right, with arms crossed over.
• Making and responding to "whoop, whoop" calls.
• Expressing a (generally) tongue-in-cheek obsession with murder, committed with a blade weapon.

I'd like to point out that a female Juggalo is called a Juggalete. And a huge group of Juggalos and Juggaletes refer to themselves as "family".  Also from wikiepdia I found a few various charities and benefits by Juggalos. You can look through that on your own time. I'm still building up to the Juggalo March.  It's also worth mentioning that every year there is a music festivel called the gathering of juggalos.  It's basically a concert of ICP-like artists that takes place in the middle of no where. The location is always trashed by the time people leave.

Before I get into the march though I wanna address something really interesting, where once I was a Juggalo... Well sort of... Also doesn't "Once I was a Juggalo" sound like a great name for some shitty MTV type of documentary  You know those kinds that have terrible music in from modern artists always playing in the background that is somehow set so loud you have to turn on the close captioning to figure out what the hell people are saying (or whats going on). 

One year for Halloween, Shayne Barker, a friend of his, and I dressed up as Juggalos. This was done purely out of irony, but never the less funny. A girl even came along with us for our Halloween fiasco (and no she did not dress up as a juggalete, or dress up at all for that matter). She mentioned how scary I looked because of my drawn on eyebrows. For this brief moment I felt what it was like to be a Juggalo. To be totally down with the clown. I mean I felt it in an ironic sort of sense, but still felt it.  

We posted a few pictures of us to social media and those pictures haunt Shayne to this day. His family and friends thought he was heavily into ICP, but in reality he was just dressing up as a joke. ICP came to Salt Lake to play a show. I begged Shayne to go, but for obvious reasons he declined. But that didn't stop me from being the troll that I am.  I totally did a facebook check in that I was at the concert and uploaded some of our Halloween photos to facebook. Luckily for me Shayne didn't have his timeline review on and the pictures were out for the world to see. Also luckily for me, Shayne was a good sport about it.  If you want to see one of the pictures of us, it's actually this episodes thumbnail.  The more you know!

Anyways, now that we've covered the social dynamics of Juggalos, we can get onto the good stuff, the great Juggalo march of 2017.  Because Juggalos were becoming so large in number (i mean they have their own wikipedia page). They decided to protest this new social sigma by marching.  The day finally came when when masses of Juggalos took the the streets and marched on Washington. I just would like to point out they had some killer signs as well. Saying things like:

• I'm a juggelete not a gang mamber
• Clown lives matter
• Music is not a crime.
• Juggalo Rights matter
• Juggalo family forever
• If my family is a gang, so are the police.
• Grab america by the Posse.
• FAygo and hugs not war and drugs.
• Judge me not by the color of my face paint.
• Jesus is a Juggalo

At the end of the evening a make shift concert was held at the Lincholn Memorial.  Overall I view this protest as something that could've gone violent and crazy, but didn't. I applaud and dare I say respect the Juggalos for and the way they conducted themselves. I'd like to conclude with exactly how the march went from the website.

"Juggalos, we have made history. Literally. On Saturday, September 16, 2017, more than 3,000 Juggalos and non-Juggalos alike made a permanent notch in the chronicles of American history at the Juggalo March

There we were, a family united in rock-solid unity, making our voices heard as we shouted to the world what we know as gospel truth: We are a family united by music, love, fellowship, and camaraderie … and not a gang or any other criminally minded organization.

And the world listened.                                                         

As a direct result of the Juggalo Family coming together as one unstoppable force, the media erupted into a frenzy, telling why we were marching on Washington, the pathetic history of the 2011 FBI Gang Task Force report labeling Juggalos as a “loosely organized hybrid gang,” and almost unanimously agreed with us that the labeling is ridiculous, damaging, and un-American. We are hopeful that this will turn the tide of public opinion about the Juggalo Family and positively affect our ongoing litigation against the U.S. Department of Justice as we seek to have our good name restored by having the FBI issue an official retraction against their 2011 report, which continues to have a devastating effect on Juggalo lives across the nation, ranging from denial of military service to loss of child custody to –the most common consequence—being added to a local and/or state gang list for wearing Juggalo-related merchandise or tattoos.

Psychopathic Records and its legal team, which includes the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, is due back in court for oral arguments in Sixth District Court on October 11, 2017. The fight—and the Dark Carnival—will carry on!

For now, we want to say two very important words to the Juggalo Family: Thank you.

Thank you to each and every person who attended the Juggalo March or who supported its mission even if they couldn’t personally be in Washington, D.C.

Thank you to all of the marshalls who volunteered their time and effort in picking up trash, ensuring the march route was followed to a T, and all the other miscellaneous effort they made towards ensuring the Juggalo March was such an outstanding success.".

- MCS1