Yeah I mean "taking it seriously" to be lacking some sort of self awareness that the whole point of the genre is enjoying excess, and if you're determining that something isn't metal because it's not black and dark enough you're really killing the vibe of metal itself which is definitely about enjoying excess. Standing in a thunderstorm and giving the finger to a thunderbolt is ridiculous, it's also very metal. Determining that this or that isn't metal enough because there's not enough skulls is fundamentally antithetical to metal to me, it misunderstands metal as silly.

Unless someone is doing it with self-awareness, then I guess it becomes metal again?