"The Olsen Twins of the White Nationalist Movement"

Maybe it's just the jaded former teen magazine editor in me, but I find ABC News' recent article about the "Prussian Blue," a neo-Nazi teen singing duo whose repertoire features ditties about Rudolph Hess and "Aryan Man Awake," something short of disturbing. Or even newsworthy for that matter. From the ABC News account:

They may remind you another famous pair of singers, the Olsen Twins, and the girls say they like that. But unlike the Olsens, who built a media empire on their fun-loving, squeaky-clean image, Lamb and Lynx [Gaede] are cultivating a much darker personna. They are white nationalists and use their talents to preach a message of hate.

This isn't to say that the 13-year-old twins aren't spectacularly retarded and offensive as a concept--and they've yet to record the inevitable album of David "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fascist" Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, and Sid Vicious covers. But the whole story seems so fake, a clear and cynical attempt to titillate the press regarding the supposed lure of dangerous ideas on the rise somewhere in red America. Like the "meth epidemic," neo-Nazis--double losers who inevitably pledge allegiance to the utterly defeated Confederate States of America and the Third Reich--are a topic mainstream media turn to on slow news days.

But as in many of these sorts of stories, ABC News fails to deliver the goods on these Ilsas She Wolves of the SS in training bras. According to the story, they've got "one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans." But the story never drops even the vaguest hint of what "lots of fans" means or how much merchandise they've moved. The same utter vagueness goes for other bands signed to Resistance Records, which is apparently the label of choice for musicians channeling Henry Gibson's character in The Blues Brothers. Indeed, the story points out that the girls' attempt to send clothes and supplies to the "white victims" only of Hurricane Katrina was so unpopular that "the supplies ended…[[being] dumped at a local shop that sells Confederate memorabilia."

Until Prussian Blue gets an audience that extends beyond their mother, their record label's owner, and ABC News--or form a band with Prince Harry (hmm, Tony Orlando and the New Dawn?)--I don't think the Olsen twins or Americans have too much to worry about.