I'll start with a little background.
One of my good friends, Jason, became an emo some time last year. I'd have to say I was a bit upset at first. But then I warmed up to it. I'm all for expression and hey...if he wants to be emo...what reason would I have to be upset?
That's all good.
But then an issue came up when I mentioned that I liked a couple of My Chemical Romance songs...like The Black Parade and even I'm Not Okay. Along with the fact that I think some emo clothing is quite nift, it almost sounded like I wanted to be one. Never. My friend in question got a bit touchy...calling me a poser. That's when I got hulky. Wasn't his emo conversion an poser thing to do in the first place? Well the situation sorted itself out and I ended up fine if not a little sceptic about the emo thingy.
And then he goes ahead and posts in his blog with this:
"Isnt it funny that when you go to the shops with your friends you look down at the girl with black jeans and studs but smile at the girl wearing a mini with a tshirt that barely cover anything?
Isnt it funny you can change your music taste to impress a guy but when it comes to a girl who likes her own music and her own style, you give her a mouthful?
Isnt it funny that a guy can get away with being a gangsta but the emo gets a mouthful from everyone
- Are you laughing?
Isnt it funny an emo can be quiet all through the week but gets more shit from everyone than the girl who sleeps around and sells her virginity?
Isnt it funny that you dont mind your friends drinking, smoking but the minute someone mentions emo music you can give them a lecture on melodramatic teenage outcasts?
- Im not laughing
Its so funny that you and your friends can make a girls life hell and not know anything about the silent battle she might be fighting.
Isnt it funny that you can call emos, punks, goths the retards but still manage to get through your day without an inch of guilt in your heart.
How can you call a girl a poser, how can you say "you're emo" or "attention seeker" without spending a second trying to figure out why there are cuts on her wrists and why she spends her lunchtimes crying instead of laughing with her friends
- Keep on laughing
Isnt it funny you can say and do all this without any idea of what is going on in this persons life
without knowing her situation with her friends
or her family
or her Life
Brave isnt going up on stage and stripping
Brave is not saying a speech
Or dumping your boyfriend
Brave is
Going to school on mufti day and not for a second caring what the whores around you are saying about your clothes
Its listening to your own music and being proud of it
Its going through every day with the things people say to your face and behind your back and you still keep quiet
Its knowing what your "friends" are saying about you and still calling them your friends
Brave is knowing that tomorrow isnt a bright and happy future
Its another day of bitching and dodging rumours
- Laugh if you must, but it is NOT funny.
"
It's by an emo girl he knows and he certainly makes an effort to post it wherever he can. To be honest, this post made me laugh. Pretty hard. I made a reply blogpost to it...just ridiculing it. Basically. It goes something like (ignore the other bitching if you must):
I have a friend who recently converted to the emo-culture.
I don't know why but I seem to have taken it a bit personally. It upsets me.
What is this emo culture? No-one can define it. My friend himself told me that there is no set rule, just a set state of being.
A significant amount of people have never even heard of emo. I myself shamefully based my judgements on youtube's Lars the Emo Kid. But how can an educational piss-take be representative of a culture? hmmm???
I listen to Dashboard Confessionals. I listen to Deathcab for Cutie. They're apparently classified as emo. Because they're emotional i presume.
But heck...isn't Coldplay 98% emotional? Why aren't they emo? (because they're brits? racists!! mehh)
Then shouldn't Pink be emo? 94% of her songs have emotional themes. (because she's a giiirl! sexists! mehhh)
Then what's this I hear about 'scene'? Fashionised glamourised emos? eh?
The major contradiction I see in the emo culture is the attitude. Sure you have the right to dress individualistic, you have the right. But when you complain about being mocked for it? That's concept that I can't grasp. No one understands you you say? Another day of dodging rumours you say? You chose to be teased you insane person. You choose to wear mascara. You choose to wear tight jeans. If I decided to wear an all pink suit to school, I'd get worse rumours.
Why am I being such a bitch? One simple, infallable reason. Hapiness is a choice. You choose the depression, you get the depression. Essentially, to me, emo is a loop. No one understands you because you don't want them to understand you. Don't talk to me I'm deep and different. Sounds like you're just a teenager. What teenager is understood these days?
I get mocked you see. For being asian. By white supremist turdfucks. See me complaining? I should be complaining. But I don't. Did I chose to be asian? No. Did I pick the culture I surround myself in? No.
It's more valid to complain about being mocked for something that is out of your hands than something you inflicted upon youself.
Don't tell me you didn't want it. Don't tell me you didn't expect it. Don't tell me it's unfair. And especially don't tell me that no one on this fucken earth fucken understands you. Cos there's 6 billion fucken people to choose from. fuck.
And now apparently it's politically incorrect to call someone an emo but emos label themselves as emo. "I'm emo but don't call me emo". Treating the word emo as the "N" word. Grow the fuck up. And when it comes down to which gets more shit these days, emos or gangstas...I'd say it's about even hmmm?
"melodramatic teenage outcasts" is harsh but wouldn't that be summing it all up? Pick your poison or however the phrase goes.
I went to a youth meeting thingy and the facilitators asked us to draw a body map of the typical Hutt Youth. Me and mikey couldn't. Instead we drew several things signifying each different clique group. You got the jocks and cheerleaders (strictly symbolic of course), emos and or goths, punks, metalheads, satanists etc., Gangstas, Islanders, The Nerds or geeks or whatever, the asians etc.
It felt weird walking out of vibe that day. Real weird.
There's a label for everyone.
Actually there's one thing I left out. We drew a spaghetti-like line in between all the various groups. And that's where we stuck ourselves. In the category of not belonging to a specific group.
It's only now that I've just realised the impact of that line.
What is with all the labels hmmm? Finding a way to discriminate efficiently. You can't specifically discriminate someone for being different anymore can you? EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. Why categorise? Sense of belonging? Need for acceptance? Desire for meaning in life? I can't answer that.
I can just say that it's stupid. Muslims versus Jews. Christians versus protestants. Blacks versus whites. Whites versus asians. Nazis versus the Jews. Freedom (eg. americans) versus Terrorists (eg. muslims).
Ever seen a war where the majority of each side is consisting of a random assortment of individuals and that there is no general label for each side that's involved? Where a computer randomly generates who goes on what team in that way people won't base the war on hate. Blue team versus the red team? But then that just defeats the purpose doesn't it. And God forbid we can't have war!
Wait I forgot about bloods versus crips. How useful that battle has been to modern day society. Seeing as even people here are picking sides. How relevant. The gang known as the crips was formed by a 15 year old. When the gang became too powerful, other gangs formed an alliance to rival the crips which is now known as bloods. Meanwhile we watch in fascination as people die in the name of a colour. Red is the bloodshed. Blue is what you turn. How relevant
What's the internal conflict that emo's suffer today? "a girl who likes her own music and her own style gets a mouthful". Can umm...you be more specific..."you dont mind your friends drinking, smoking but the minute someone mentions emo music you can give them a lecture on melodramatic teenage outcasts"...You're not answering my question..."you and your friends can make a girls life hell and not know anything about the silent battle she might be fighting"...yeh I get it but what is the silent battle?..."how can you say "you're emo" or "attention seeker" without spending a second trying to figure out why there are cuts on her wrists and why she spends her lunchtimes crying instead of laughing with her friends" BUT WHY??? "Isnt it funny you can say and do all this without any idea of what is going on in this persons life without knowing her situation with her friends or her family or her Life"...Excuse me...
Did I just hear you say that no-one understands what is going through your life? Family and friend situation? You've just described teenagers as a whole in general you dumbass!
I know I'm repeating myself but you can't isolate yourself for the simple fact that you're feeling what everyone else feels at one point in their teenage lives. You get through that shit by talking to people who have themselves experienced it. And even guidance councelors who, believe it or not, know their shit. What you don't do is cut yourself. What you don't do is bottle it up and just tell people "it's fucken okay" when they ask you what's wrong. That's why you get shit. Coz you feel the need to outcast others. That's right, you are not the outcasts, it is everyone else that you outcast. This essentially filters through the actual emos with actual emotions from the wannabe emos who just like their styles.
2 Years ago if you called someone an emo they would say "what the fuck you on about?". Which goes to show how something like this can just pop up out of nowhere. Think 2 years from now...I guarantee this movement will die in place of a new fad that piques interest. But then I won't be a teen anymore. And i'll no longer understand.
So in conclusion, if given the chance to tell the world what emo is I'd tell them straight. Emo is being a teenager. With black hair and makeup.
This post, is a little wonky. Firstly, absolutely no research was done. Just my observations. And that's never a good thing. And accordingly, the said post was barrated by a few emos saying "DICK! You have no idea about anything!". Hah.
So yeah, I gave up on the subject for awhile. I felt like there was no point. Sure, it would be better if I actually brushed up on the subject so my opinions weren't so...trash-talky. But what were my sources? Thousand of people complaining about their lives? And plus, the word "gay" (eg...that's so gay) has been replaced by the word "emo". So really, I was at a loss.
Enter Macy.
Macy is, put simply, brilliant. Though she has been labelled emo, I'm 100% sure she's not even trying to be. And plus, she knows her shit.
Observe blogpost bellow (one good post out of many):
Just another stupid teenager. 41 days ago
A note to all:
I'm not trying to prove my un-emoness to anyone.
I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm simply defining a word.
Emo is not short for "Emotional."
Emo does not mean Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional, despite what MTV has lead you to believe in the last few years.
Emo is not sidebangs, tight pants, and male vocalists who sing like little girls about their failed relationships.
Emo is not the use of diluted, meaningless metaphors and similes such as "My arms are like pinecones," and most definitely is not the rampant use of words such as "autumn," "heart," "knife," "bleeding," "leaves," and "razorblade."
I just thought I'd clear that up after all of these "definitions" in which I have encountered an unbelievable amount of people who try to pass off their blatantly false pretenses as fact, and are slowly infecting others with their high-horse, holier-than-thou bullshit. Because honestly, with your ridiculous definitions, Beethoven, George Gershwin, and Britney Spears are/was "emo bands."
Now, onto the real definition.
In the early 90s there was a movement in the hardcore genre that came to be known as "Emotive Hardcore," spearheaded by Rites Of Spring. Harder-core-than-thou kids, who swore by Dischord Records a la Minor Threat, actually coined the term "Emo" as something of a put-down for the kids who really liked Rites Of Spring, Indian Summer and this new wave of "Emotive" Hardcore bands. That's right, "Emo" was once not something kids called themselves. The field exploded outwards from there - Level-Plane Records has always been the most famous Emo label. Acts like Yaphet Kotto, I Hate Myself, Saetia, Hot Cross, A Day In Black And White, Funeral Diner, I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, You And I, and hosts of others came in the next decade. Most emo bands have since broken up, but there's still the occasional hold-out (again, the majority of Level-Plane Records' roster has been a procession of emo acts). Like most DIY hardcore/punk of the time, a majority found its way onto vinyl and not much else. Some people consider bands like Fugazi, and later Sunny Day Real Estate, a progression of emo, but personally, I don't quite follow that philosophy.
Often, more recently, this gets intertwined with post-hardcore, and understandably so - that's nothing to make an issue of, since well shit, at least it's close.
Since the late 90s, though, bands have been emerging in the vein of Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, and the thousands of their clones. As far as I can tell, some lazy journalist somewhere, writing an article about them, decided "Well, fuck, no one knows what emo is anyways, so I'll call these bands "emo" - sounds more appealing than bubblegum pop rock..." and the spiral continued downwards into the current amalgomation of bands MTV has told everyone is "emo."
Somehow, people decided that "emo" meant "emotional," which is obviously bullshit, as 99% of bands make music to illicit emotion, which would make "emotional" a completely all-encompassing genre from classical to opera to pop to rap.
Please, for the love of God, try and grasp the meaning of the word you're using. It's stupid and pisses the hell outta me.
Emo is not slitting your wrists and whining for attention.
Emo is not wearing your pain as if it were some stupid fashion accessory.
Emo does not even mean emotional.
It's a freakin' genre of music.
Genre. Of. Music.
Thank you and God bless us all, because we freakin' need the blessing."
Now don't all stand and clap at once. Stand first then clap.
But put simply...doesn't that post just sum it all up?
Well no. It's a brilliant post. I give her that. You can't answer back to that really.
What I have an issue with though is the fact that...emo is different now. All cultures evolve. What was once a music genre...has become a culture. And I think that a culture is defined by the people within it. I also think that my thoughts need to be organised. But I think I put off atleast an inch of a gist.
So...any thoughts? I'm sort of blank as of now...I'll start fresh on something else in a few minutes...need...water.
