When we think of heavy metal, images of macho lyrics, aggressive artwork, long hair, headbanging, dark clothes, and electric guitars often come to mind. For a long time, women were a rare presence in the metal scene, a genre historically dominated by bands like Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. But times are changing, with artists like Evanescence introducing a Gothic heroine to the metal stage. Yet, even today, the bias against “women in metal” persists. In December 2020, when Zaria Zoyner—known as @zariasmusic on TikTok—posted videos wearing a Metallica shirt, trolls bombarded her with mocking comments. Her response video hit back perfectly.
The video has since garnered 730,000 views and 164,000 likes. Zaria, a North Carolina-based musician and singer, responded to a comment by @paytonnsmith, who questioned her Metallica fandom after she posted videos wearing a “Ride the Lightning” T-shirt. The commenter demanded she “Name 3 Metallica songs,” while others accused her of just showing off without knowing the band.
According to Bored Panda, her initial reaction to the comments was frustration. However, she soon realized that she had a really funny response to silence those critics. She posted a response video saying, “So my response to you guys is, like really? Only three? Only three songs? How ’bout I play ’em on guitar for you?” She then rocked three Metallica songs on her guitar – “Master of Puppets,” “Enter Sandman,” and the guitar lead in “One.”
Following the video, she told the Daily Dot, “I decided to respond to that comment because I’ve been a Metallica fan for such a long time but I’d never shown that side of me on TikTok,” and added, “I’ve been a self-taught guitarist since 15 and Metallica was the band that influenced me to pick it up and inspired my journey with music.”
Zaria listened to a lot of Metallica throughout her life, she told Bored Panda. “The first time I heard Metallica, I was sitting in my 5th-grade classroom when my teacher played Enter Sandman. I was like ‘This is the best song I’ve ever heard’ and I asked her who the band was. She told me it was Metallica and a few years later when I got my first guitar, the first riff I learned was Enter Sandman.”
The account of this trolling person was observed to be deleted after this video, but Zaria didn’t stop. Later on, she posted yet another TikTok of herself practicing Metallica’s “Unforgiven,” and continued with more. In one of the clips she posted on her Instagram page, Metallica commented from their official account. Others chimed in to support her. “Great response,I can bet most of these misogynists can’t play one Metallica song.Keep on playing and rock on!” wrote one person. “Haters trying hate and look how what happened, Metallica now knows who Zaria is, and thanks to social media and my metalhead senses, I discovered the page. Happy for you, this is what happens when you stereotype a girl who actually knows her sh*t,” another added.
Zaria was ecstatic. She posted the screenshots of comments in another post, writing, “It was simply one of the most special moments of my life. It meant the world to me and I didn’t care if anyone else realized the magnitude of what had happened,” and further added, “Not only did they leave a very nice comment on my last post, but they followed me back on Instagram, which was surreal and incredibly overwhelming in the best way possible.” The moral is, “Don’t take criticism from someone who is not in the arena.”
You can follow Zaria Joyner on TikTok and Instagram to watch her perform R&B and soul songs on guitar.
This article originally appeared last year.
