YMMV / deadmau5

• Awesome Music: Tons. Many of his songs could be pointed to as "awesome", but the ambient 10-minute-long epic "Strobe" is often cited as his best song by many fans. Other popular choices for "awesome music" include Ghosts 'n Stuff (both the original and the vocal mix), the sequel song Moar Ghosts n Stuff, I Remember, Raise Your Weapon, Professional Griefers, and Cthulhu Sleeps, but it's safe to say that nearly any song of his could be a viable contender for being awesome.
• Broken Base:
  • A minor example. While Flame Wars hardly ever break out, there is nevertheless a distinct rift between the old guard (usually Random Album Title and earlier) and the new fans (usually For Lack of a Better Name and later). This was brought about by his sudden swell in popularity following the release of "Ghosts 'n' Stuff" in 2008, new fans brought in by his newer albums such as 4x4=12 (which generally isn't well-liked among the old guard), and his changing style over time, as seen in "Early Album Weirdness" on the main page.
  • The sudden Tone Shift in "Raise Your Weapon" divides a lot of his fans. Some prefer the sad piano part and think that the dubstep part ruins an otherwise great song, and other view the first half as a long and boring intro to the actual good sounds.
• Epic Riff:
  • "Seeya" is based around an already sick, funky bass riff, and then the piano comes in...
  • Speaking of piano riffs, there's the one in "See Ya Next Tuesday", of which "Seeya" is a remake.
  • The synth riffs in "Ghosts N Stuff", "Some Chords", "I Remember", "The Veldt", and many many more.
  • The chiptune riff in "8bit".
• Fandom Rivalry: Dubstep fans who don't like Skrillex tend to embrace deadmau5 instead. Ironic in that deadmau5 isn't really a dubstep artist (what with only two dubstep songs actually released as opposed to the many house tracks) and that he was the one who signed on Skrillex's Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP onto mau5trap and kickstarted his career.
  • Doubly ironic in that Skrillex is credited (under his real name Sonny Moore) as one of the writers for "Raise Your Weapon".
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Deer Bus" for "Professional Griefers". Before the official title was revealed, the fandom gave the song that name after someone mentioned that the hard-hitting bassline sounded like "a deer getting hit by a bus".
  • "Professional Griefers" also has the nickname "Into the Nether" among Minecraft fans, thanks to the song's association with MineCon in that fandom.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • His fandom tends to overlap with that of Skrillex's. This is especially evident in how you can spot mau5head-wearing fans at Skrillex concerts. Unfortunately, the friendliness has died down a bit now that Joel and Sonny no longer seem to like each other.
  • A lesser example occurs with anyone who's released stuff on mau5trap - Feed Me, SOFI, Foreign Beggars, Noisia and Excision, for instance, have differing degrees of overlap with deadmau5's fandom. SOFI in particular shares many of her fans with deadmau5 because her vocals on "Sofi Needs a Ladder" and "One Trick Pony" started her professional career.
  • Thanks to the vocal version of "Ghosts 'n Stuff", deadmau5's fandom has quite overlapped with the one of Pendulum.
  • And in a rare example of crossing genres, his fandom is getting some overlap between his own and that of the Foo Fighters, due to recent collaborations and associations with each other.
  • And in another example of cross-genre friendliness, My Chemical Romance fans have been friendly with deadmau5 fans thanks to Gerard Way providing the vocals for “Professional Griefers.” Could also count as Just Here for Godzilla, as some MCR fans who otherwise don’t like deadmau5 or house music listen to the song solely for Gerard.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Any jokes about him loving his cat more than his girlfriend were quickly made this when they broke up.
  • Arguably all the fun between him and Skrillex is a bit sad after Joel and Sonny took some very nasty pint shots at each other.
  • Joel's online disses and overall flippant attitude towards Avicii and his music is much tougher to take in stride after the latter's death in April 2018, especially once it was discovered his death was the result of suicide.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • After while (1<2) lost its Grammy Award nomination to Aphex Twin's Syro, Joel took to Facebook to happily concede the award to him, as he was one of his biggest influences into starting his career. The post even ends with Joel saying "well deserved Richard :D".
  • After Joel put up "The Veldt" on SoundCloud as an instrumental, a house producer named Chris James tweeted Joel with him singing his own lyrics over the song. Joel decided to listen to it on stream, as he had streamed himself creating the song, and his reaction is absolutely amazing. With no information to go off of other than that the song was named after a short story by Ray Bradbury, James' lyrics fit the song perfectly, even incorporating the story's original title "The World the Children Made". Not only does Joel crack many giant smiles, but he has his girlfriend Lindsey come in to listen to it and starts trying to contact James immediately, with plans to do a vocal edit right then and there. And it happened.
  • Around late 2014, a fan sent Joel his to-be-autographed copy of while (1<2) and disposable camera, which he received about a month later. Soon afterwards, he sent them both back to the fan with autographs and several photos of his studio and selfies taken with the camera. All the pictures can be found here.
  • After finding out about Avicii's death, Joel took the time to give a genuinely heartfelt message to him and his family, stating that past all the banter between the two, he truly was proud of what Tim accomplished for the dance music industry, and respected him for all that he did.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In 2014, Joel criticized Win Butler's remark at Coachella about playing real instruments at the festival, stating "Some dudes devote their lives to instruments, others to electronic composition by CPU, dafuq's your problem?" A few years later, Arcade Fire would release the very pop-driven electronically produced album Everything Now, which was...divisive amongst their fanbase, to say the least.
• Ho Yay: Often has it with Skrillex and especially Tommy Lee, the latter of which was taken up to eleven when the two of them were blatantly flirting with each other on Twitter.
  • The above mention with Tommy Lee is summed up pretty well by this image◊.
  • The Ho Yay between him and Tommy Lee was also lampshaded by Tommy Lee's girlfriend, SOFI, after deadmau5 and Tommy Lee were discussing going to Fiji on Twitter:
    "@deadmau5 @mrtommyland now UR planning a romantic getaway? Don't flatter urself Joel - he asked me the same thing earlier today pffft"
    Tommy Lee: "@SOFIofficial @deadmau5 Busted!"
  • And after Tommy Lee tweeted him asking about what looks like a model head of him (used for making mau5heads) in his garage, the first sentence he tweets back is "you no like when i give you head?"
  • "Does Skrillex tell everyone he loves them or does he have to be drunk?" "No, I think he does it sober, too. Or maybe it's just me."
  • At the 2012 Grammys, Skrillex said that he loves him in one of his acceptance speeches. And earlier, deadmau5 said "hahaha love u!" in a Twitter post about how he's going to troll him at said Grammys.
  • He also has some with Notch.
    man, i love @notch this ones priceless
  • Aaaaand his friend Steve Duda. deadmau5 loves this trope.
    "Steve is so hot right now."
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Go to bed Joel" is an in-joke in the fandom after it was spammed incessantly on a Q&A session he was having on /mu/ and is usually used as a response against one of his trolling attempts.
  • "[X]mau5 - [Y] 'n' Stuff", such as "Breadmau5 - Toast 'n' Stuff", which is a parody of "deadmau5 - Ghosts N Stuff". Variations are often posted all over the place in the comments for mau5-related YouTube videos.
  • The mau5head itself. Even if you don't know who deadmau5 is, chances are you've seen some form of mau5head somewhere.
  • Go EDM somewhere else ^Explanation When mashup artist Triple-Q jokingly told Joel that he "sucked because he wouldn't do a remix of Snow Halation like Skrillex would, Joel proceed to assume Snow Halation one of the big room house songs he loves to hate and told Triple-Q to "go EDM somewhere else." After tons of Twitter users proceed to Tweet tons of Love Live tweets at him, he proceeded to go on an angry rant trashing the show and it's fanbase as a bunch of "creepy fucks" before deleting the entire conversation
  • "This is a cardinal sin of EDM right here." ^Explanation In an advertisement for his Masterclass session, Joel says this line before proceeding to press a button on his keyboard that plays a preset sound. This phrase shot up in popularity significantly amongst deadmau5 fans due to not only the delivery, but because that same ad has often interrupted Joel while he's trying to listen to music sent in by fans, coming across as an accidental self-rickroll.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The deliriously happy-sounding synths midway through "Some Chords".
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Skrillmau5 for Slash Fic involving him and Skrillex.
• Signature Song: Either "Ghosts 'n' Stuff" or "Moar Ghosts 'n' Stuff". The former is used in the vast, vast majority of his cameos and promotions, to the point that fans tend to complain in video comments now about how overused it is, while the latter is a sequel/prequel song that he often mixes with the former at his live shows.
  • "Professional Griefers" is also starting to get this treatment. deadmau5 refers to himself as a "professional griefer", and the song is easily one of his most anticipated upcoming releases and set performances.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: "The Veldt", at least less so if you don't know the story it's based on.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Any of his songs made as tributes to people who have died, sheerly by their Reality Subtext.
    • "Arguru", made in memory of Juan Antonio Arguelles Rius^note a Spanish music software developer and music producer who died at 28 in a car crash.
    • "Bleed", made in memory of Bobby Clifford^note a diehard fan of Joel's who was going to college at the time but died at 25, also in a car crash, with the honor of being one of the saddest mau5 songs ever. While "Arguru" is still a straightforward dance song, "Bleed" doesn't even muster that much energy, airing its grievance through somber ambient drones, with the small sidechaining kick towards the end being the only danceable trait.
  • Monday.
    Nobody's wrong, nobody's right. Everyone cheats, everyone lies. Nobody cares, nobody minds. Night turns to day, and then the sun shines.
• Ugly Cute: The mau5heads, when not Nightmare Fuel.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: His live shows have to be seen to be believed. Daft Punk may have practically invented the "epic lights and effects electronic show" idea, but deadmau5 popularized it, leading to similar show setups such as Skrillex's "cell" and Excision's "Executioner".

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