Guy Lochhead, 11/09/10
Anton Gustafsson was a Swedish Iron Maiden fan who got famous on the Internet for his MIDI and MOD cover versions of Iron Maiden songs. One of the first internet stars, he released an album, ‘Anton Gustafsson Tolkar Iron Maiden’, in 1999. Hateful comments from fellow Iron Maiden fans and visitors to his website led to his decision to stop singing as Anton Maiden, saying “it feels silly to continue”. He travelled extensively for a while, but suffered from feelings of depression and committed suicide in 2003. Oh man, when I read that Gustafsson committed suicide I felt really sad.. The music is so good, so devoted and exciting… That’s really really sad. I hope his death wasn’t related to bullying from idiot Maiden fans and other faceless internet morons, but I fear it was… Fandom is the strangest thing. Fandom combined with the internet is even stranger. He is a fan. I’m a fan of his music! I want to include a tribute to him. He adopted popular culture and made it his own, just as I hope people will with my programmes. He is an example of the importance of cultural elements in adolescent identity-forming that I’m hoping to contribute to with this list and the programmes. I think he should be remembered, or the internet bullies will have won. I will include a computer with the Anton Maiden tribute desktop background, and will try to hunt down a copy of his CD.