Last weekend at the Gathering Of The Juggalos, ICP made what they called the biggest announcement of their career at one of the festival’s daily seminars. No, they didn’t finally figure out how magnets work. The announcement was a bit more severe than what you might expect from Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope.

So what’s the big news? According to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, the FBI considers Juggalos an official gang, meaning that the FBI thinks that ICP’s fan-base poses a concern to law enforcement.

How does that make ICP feel? It makes them feel lawsuit-y, apparently.

Before we go any further with this, let’s evaluate how valid the claims of the FBI are. For our purposes, we’ll use the always-reliable Wikipedia to define a “gang” as a “group of recurrently associating individuals with identifiable leadership and internal organization, identifying with or claiming control over territory in the community, and engaging either individually or collectively in violent or other forms of illegal behavior.”

In the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, the FBI specifically singles out Juggalos as “a loosely-organized hybrid gang,” committing crimes of a “sporadic, disorganized, individualistic” nature, “often involving simple assault, personal drug use and possession, petty theft, and vandalism.” The report also notes that “a small number of Juggalos are forming more organized subsets and engaging in more gang-like criminal activity, such as felony assaults, thefts, robberies, and drug sales.”

There are six questions we can ask to ascertain just how valid the FBI’s classification is:

1. Is it a group Of 3 or more?

As the lyrics of “Miracles” point out, every year in Cave In Rock, IL, the Gathering Of The Juggalos boasts at least “15,000 Juggalos together.”

2. Do they have identifiable leadership?

Clearly. Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope run the show.

3. Is there some level of internal organization?

This is a bit of a stretch, but if we’re going by biker gang hierarchy, it might look something like this:

President: Violent J & Shaggy 2 Dope

Vice-President: Twiztid

Secretary: Sugar Slam

Treasurer: ABK (Anybody Killa)

Enforcer (Sgt. At Arms): Blaze Ya Dead Homie

Patched Members: The roster of Psychopathic Records.

Prospects: Anyone who identifies as a Juggalo.

4. Does the group have gang colors, gang identifiers, and a gang name?

Do they ever. Next question.

5. Does the group hold a claim to territory?

Creepy, abandoned amusement parks? Maybe the darkest corners of the internet? If we’re talking about the physical realm, it’s gotta be the festival grounds for The Gathering Of The Juggalos, but only for one weekend a year.

6. Does the group behave in illegal behaviour?

THEY MUST. I mean, we all heard about that weird “Drug Bridge” at the Gathering, where you can buy literally any kind of drugs you want without fear of prosecution. It’s like Hamsterdam, with clown makeup.

GANG PROBABILITY FACTOR: 100% (6/6)

As you can probably see, it’s pretty easy make any group of people seem like a gang, if your facts are malleable enough. We feel that if the FBI wants to single out Juggalos as being a gang, they shouldn’t stop there. Here are a few more musical fan-bases that we think should probably be investigated for the 2012 National Gang Threat Assessment report.

Kiss Army

1. Is it a group Of 3 or more? At its peak, the Kiss Army had over 100,000 members.

2. Do they have identifiable leadership? The Demon, The Starchild, The Catman, and The Spaceman.

3. Is there some level of internal organization? Isn’t there organization in any Army?

4. Does the group have gang colors, gang identifiers, and a gang name? Bondage gear, face paint, and a long-ass tongue.

5. Does the group hold a claim to territory? Detroit Rock City.

6. Does the group behave in illegal behaviour? Only if ROCKING ALL NIGHT is a crime.

GANG PROBABILITY FACTOR: 83.33% (5/6)

Beliebers

1. Is it a group Of 3 or more? Justin Bieber has over 26 million Twitter followers. That’s a lotta Beliebin’!

2. Do they have identifiable leadership? Just the myserious anthropomorphic sentient being known as “The Biebs.”

3. Is there some level of internal organization? How organized can a screaming mob of pre-teen girls be?

4. Does the group have gang colors, gang identifiers, and a gang name? They’re called Beliebers, and they seem to really like the colour purple.

5. Does the group hold a claim to territory? Mainstream Radio.

6. Does the group behave in illegal behaviour? Even if they did, they’re all protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

GANG PROBABILITY FACTOR: 66.66% (4/6)

P.U.H.N. (The People Unified In Hatred Of Nickelback)

1. Is it a group Of 3 or more? Nickelback have sold roughly 27 million albums worldwide, so (hopefully) P.U.H.N. is made up of about 6.9 billion people.

2. Do they have identifiable leadership? AUX’s Sam Sutherland, creator of the Nickelblock plugin.

3. Is there some level of internal organization? 6.9 billion co-presidents.

4. Does the group have gang colors, gang identifiers, and a gang name? It would be more accurate to define the group based on an absence of pro-Nickelback identifiers, like tribal tattoos, printed tee-shirts, and goatees.

5. Does the group hold a claim to territory? Everywhere except Alberta, and the southern United States.

6. Does the group behave in illegal behaviour? No. They fight the good fight.

GANG PROBABILITY FACTOR: 50% (3/6)

Maybach Music

1. Is it a group Of 3 or more? Easily. It seems like Rick Ross signs a new artist every day.

2. Do they have identifiable leadership? The Bawse. Ungh.

3. Is there some level of internal organization? “This the mob so you gotta get initiated / If you a mark, then you gotta make initial payment” – Rick Ross, “So Sophisticated”

4. Does the group have gang colors, gang identifiers, and a gang name? M-M-M-M-M-Maybach Music. As far as gang identifiers go, do big fat tattooed bellies count?

5. Does the group hold a claim to territory? The Streets.

6. Does the group behave in illegal behaviour? Rick Ross would have us believe so. He talks about the drug trade only slightly less than he talks about luxury items.

GANG PROBABILITY FACTOR: 100% (6/6)

Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters

1. Is it a group Of 3 or more? She’s got the most-followed Twitter account, with over 28 million Little Monsters getting spoon-fed her micro-blogs daily.

2. Do they have identifiable leadership? Mother Monster, of course.

3. Is there some level of internal organization? Enough organization to warrant an entire social media website.

4. Does the group have gang colors, gang identifiers, and a gang name? Considering Lady Gaga is constantly re-inventing her style, it’s hard for the Little Monsters to land on a gang colour, or an identifier. At least they’re not all wearing meat-dresses.

5. Does the group hold a claim to territory? Dancefloors everywhere.

6. Does the group behave in illegal behaviour? Only while in Indonesia.

GANG PROBABILITY FACTOR: 66.66% (4/6)