Music

Burzum's Varg Vikernes fined $10,000 for his anti-Semitic blogs

by Tyler Munro

Metal’s black sheep is at it again. Varg Vikernes, infamous as much for his music as his racist, violent and generally unstable ways, has just been fined $10,000 by the French courts for inciting racial hatred on the Internet.

Anti-Semitism and xenophobia are effectively illegal in France, making it a curious place for a noted neo-nazi to take up shop. But Vikernes had been blogging from his farm in rural south-central France when he and his wife were arrested on suspicions of planning a terrorist attack. Those charges never went anywhere, but he was put on trial a few months later for his usual ranting and raving on the Internet.

In court, Vikernes blamed the incident on impostors, claiming that “at any given moment [there are] 350 people pretending to be Varg Vikernes on Facebook,” which an obvious last ditch excuse that very definitely did not work.

Vikernes wasn’t in court when the sentence, which includes a suspended six month prison sentence, was delivered, but the verdict does raise some interesting questions.

Varg Vikernes has been surviving off the sudden, inexplicable stroke of genius that came across him in more than twenty years ago. In an eleven month period between April 1992 and September 1993, Vikernes, recording as Burzum, put to tape four of the best albums black metal has ever seen. Then reality set in: In 1994, right after the release of the now-classic Hvis lyset tar oss, Vikernes was arrested for murdering Mayhem guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth. He’s also been linked to numerous church burnings, hijacked a car while on probation and was caught with knives, gas masks, guns, and a GPS machine, and since his release in 2008 he’s also been seen, like LARPing.

But this? This feels different. Can you really fine someone $10,000 for being an asshole? He’s regularly and ignorantly blogged about the “European Zionists” he feels are destroying his country. He blames “the Jews” for “importing Islam to Europe” and regularly gets lost in and confused by his own hate-filled religious diatribes. Still, he’s essentially harmless at this point, cooped away at his farm releasing terrible albums, yelling at clouds and making weird, 45 minute documentaries about magical, mythological bears.

He’s a convicted murder, a neo-nazi and a total fucking tool. He regularly spreads his ignorance online to thousands of impressionable kids desperate to fit in with the Stormfront crowd. But is that worthy of a fine? Let us know what you think in the comments. [h/t MetalSucks]