I'm generally pretty open minded about music, or at the very least I try to take a "to each their own" outlook when possible, but occasionally there's music so offensively bad that I can't understand how anybody in the world could possibly listen to it. Near the top of that list is Insane Clown Posse and all the many spin-off acts associated with this violent clown rap ensemble. It's hard to imagine anybody enjoying something so vile.
So who listens to this stuff, anyway? Chicago photographer Derek Erdman answers that question in an August photo essay taken at an annual Juggalo Gathering, something of a camp-ground fan conventions for the ICP faithful ("juggalos"). As you'd expect, the photos can be trashy and at times bitingly sad, but they're not inherently mean spirited, and ultimately they humanize these scrappy juggalos, suggesting they're not unlike a younger, perhaps less well off version of classic KISS fans. They just want to party.
