Gen Z Has Made the Gathering of the Juggalos Cool Again
Nearly 25 years after the first Gathering of the Juggalos, Gen Z juggalos have started showing up in force.
That much was clear at the 23rd annual Gathering, which returned to Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio, this past weekend. The four-day music festival—hosted by Insane Clown Posse and their record label, Psychopathic Records—is a mecca for ICP fans who show up by the thousands for one big family reunion. But thanks to the recent growing stream of leftist memes and TikTok trends, a new crop of Gen Z Juggalos—or Zuggalos, as I’ve decided to call them—have joined the party.
“I think it’s an evolution of technology and social media,” explains content creator and comedian Sean Barrett, who’s behind the popular TikTok character Uncle Juff, an overly earnest poser Juggalo who is eventually accepted into the fold because of his kind heart. “You saw a bunch of ICP songs go viral on TikTok recently and everybody is like, ‘What’s this all about?’ And they don’t have that old stigma. They just think, ‘This makeup is cool, this music is cool,’ and then they kinda find it from there.”