SOAD: a billion views later, I finally get it

Whatcha eating there, Serj? - Suicide. - Is it vegan?

MOM (🤡Big Merla): Chop sui(cide) is a song about a lovely vegan Chinese food, mixed vegetables in a wok with a little soy sauce and lots of steaming white rice, right?

WQ: Are you f'n crazy? Of course that's what it's about, but I think now, at least in California and the groovier places like Tennessee and Oregon, we go with brown rice.

Chop suey recipe (Keeping the Peas)

MOM: C'mon, I know the song must be about suicide somewhere. He [Serj Tankian] says it right in the song!

WQ: I think he's complaining about people trying to use teriyaki sauce in a stir-fry with tofu sticks.

MOM: Ha, ha, help me. I want to understand. I have my own new mom version of the song that's more suitable for young ears. I find myself singing a lot of System [of a Down] songs as I clean up kid toys.

Who remembers the Armenian genocide, Maus?

WQ: You can catch the band live in San Francisco this summer. They're playing on August 11, 2024. You know, for a song that came out in 2009, it has the distinction of racking up 1.3+ billion views. And that's just the official video on YouTube. Add all the streaming services, the lyric videos, knock offs, and excerpts, and that's pretty darn good for Armenian alt-metal. The Turks never had a chance to take the other side of the argument.

MOM: Which argument?

WQ: The "genocide."

MOM: Oh, I think Israel is totally guilty.

What is he saying? Why doesn't he slow down?

WQ: True but this is a previous genocide the Ottoman Empire Turks are accused of, which was said to be laughed off as a genocide no one cares about by Hitler when he wanted to genocide all the Jews in Europe or at least the few in Germany because he said they were ruining his Reich's economy. And his previous best friend had been Jewish. Nobody talks too much about that.

MOM: How sad.

Maybe Baby likes Drowning Pool. Let the bodies hit the floor

WQ: People say he wasn't even mad at Jews themselves, just scapegoating them and sending them to work camps because they had in his view unfairly hoarded too much of the wealth in Germany. But Jews swear he hated them and wanted to exterminate them all because of his hate and nothing else, which is odd because a lot of Ashkenazi Jews in Germany looked exactly like Christian Germans, so exactly that a lot of Nazis couldn't tell the difference except for some cultural markers like gesticulation (moving hands and arms) gestures when talking or speaking Yiddish (which is gibberish German making fun of Christianity).

MOM: But aren't Jews the ultimate victims who say everyone hates them.

Vegan chop suey stir-fry (Keeping the Peas)

WQ: We have heard them say that. It seems like only Rich Forer and Prof. Norm Finkelstein, both of whom are Jewish, call them out for this victim mentality that aids their campaign to label everyone who disagrees "antisemites" and everyone who opposes their genocide in Palestine "Jew haters."

MOM: Is that what this song is about, genocide, first the Armenians then the Jews?

WQ: It seems to be about suicide.

MOM: Not chop suey?

WQ: Same thing.

System of a Down - "Chop Suey!" (official HD)

(System Of A Down) Uploaded Oct. 2, 2009, with 1,374,887,863 views as of June 17, 2024. #ChopSuey #SystemOfADown #Remastered. Official HD music video for "Chop Suey!” by System of a Down Listen to System of a Down: SystemOfADown.lnk.to/listenYD

• Jewish Voice for Peace (jvp.org)
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Not In Our Name (ifnotnowmovement.org)
• Big Merla; System of a Down; Seth Auberon, Sheldon S., Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly