Emo: 'Teen Phenomenon' Exposed

So this is one of the most unintentionally funny and borderline depressing things I've seen in a while: two local ABC newscasters in Utah trying to describe a "new teen phenomenon" called "Emo." Watch this video first, then read on.

This recent and "very important report that every parent should see" outlines the many warning signs that your child might, in fact, be "Emo" – an evidently very scary cultural epidemic among teens in Utah. They even warn that "advanced Emo kids” (my personal favorite sound bite) are prone to cutting themselves. To the soundtrack of My Chemical Romance and Death Cab for Cutie (neither band condones, encourages, or sings about self-mutilation, FYI), ABC4 exposes kids with slicked-down haircuts and black T-shirts blogging on Facebook about how dejected and alone and misunderstood they feel. Because, obviously, no American teenager until the earth-shattering advent of Emo ever felt this way before.

In spite of ABC4's claim that the movement has come "out of the internet," Emo was actually both a reaction to and an off-shoot of the 1980s punk/hardcore scene. Initially, many of the same players were involved – like Ian MacKaye (formerly of Minor Threat and Embrace), who founded one of the scene's earliest Emo influences, Fugazi. (As a former hardcore kid, I can’t justify labeling Fugazi Emo – but I could argue that they played a big part in the eventual making of the sound.) The genre’s first true iteration, emocore (short for "emotional hardcore"), was the thoughtful, poetic, intelligent, artistic – and yet still widely misunderstood and ignored – cousin to punk. It was also largely influenced by the masters of '80s sad-pop like Morrissey and the Cure – which eventually gave the scene its license to mope around and wear black. Soon the “core” was taken out, leaving Emo to fend for itself, and a more palatable sound was formed.

The many influences of Emo made it much more open to the public than its off-putting punk predecessors: when New Jersey's Lifetime hit the scene in the early 1990s (followed later by Jets to Brazil, the Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, et al), both hardcore kids in black T's and Top-40 listeners in striped polos congregated in suburban basements across the country to revel in the new sound. It was a new form of Free to Be You and Me, but this time with more break-up songs and forced tears. It was introverted, socially agreeable, and shoegazy. In the late 1990s, Emo became popular among teens for its easy-to-comprehend emotional elements, which were more digestible (and required less maintenance) than the anti-establishment mentality of punk.

  But eventually came the eye-liner. I didn’t see the jump – I was already way out of the punk/hardcore scene by then – but I definitely saw it coming…particularly when Hot Topic (the goth/punk/emo/hardcore Mecca for mall-going teens) started printing DK shirts and selling them to kids who were born long after Jello Biafra left the band. Emo was still, for all intents and purposes, in its nascent stages of popularity, so it was an easy target to be mangled, reshaped, and commoditized. Emo music became sonically ambiguous (thanks to SonyBMG, Warner Music, et al), the style mass-marketed (a nod to Hot Topic and mall culture here), and the message summarily lost on millions of teens (thanks, MySpace). It became easy for the black-clad Emo kids to mix in with the black-clad goth kids (who were more into self-loathing), giving birth to a new sound that was hardly a shadow of its early-‘90s forefathers. By then (circa 2002-03), Emo had formed a sound and scene all its own, and the name itself had taken on a negative connotation among purist hardcore and metal fans.

The current situation is sad for two reasons: first, to see that Emo – a once-positive and strikingly original musical genre – has become a pathetic byproduct of American mall culture. Secondly, it always pains me to see parents not understand – and worse, to not even try. Parents are in constant search of an easy answer to why their kids are acting a certain way – why they are running away, yelling at their siblings, listening to loud music, smoking cigarettes, and getting caught masturbating to the Victoria's Secret catalog in the laundry room that one time when I was fourteen (wait, what?). Emo is a clear and easy target here because the culture has become both watered down and pervasive. Without much of a clear definition anymore, it’s easier to blame behavior on a hair style than to understand the root of it.

I can't tell if ABC4 is deliberately fear-mongering (as their blatant homophobia would suggest) or if they simply just don't get it – or if, perhaps, it's a combination of the two. Either way, it's a terrible example of news "reporting" – since there’s no fact, and no news – and it breaks my blackened, despondent, Emo-loving heart to think of all the poor kids who will be interrogated tonight by Mother and Father about why they are wearing black.

Four required records for the new Emo listener:

- Lifetime – “Jersey’s Best Dancers” (1997:punk-influenced and angsty in an apolitical, Junior-year-in-high-school sort of way)

- Jets to Brazil – “Orange Rhyming Dictionary” (1998: thoughtful, poetic Emo from the former frontman of the classic emocore outfit Jawbreaker)

- the Get Up Kids – “Something to Write Home About” (1999: pure broken-hearted Emo, marked the new wave of bands to come with its new pop influence)

- My Chemical Romance – “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” (2004: the beginning of the end, the goth-pop-Emo band of the millennium – but they’re an amazingly tight rock band with strong, narrative lyrics and Queen-esque guitar action)