Emo?

[sazzle]

Wat the hell is emo? I'v heard this thrown around so much but i really have no clue wat it is. I thought emo was like emotional (whiny) punk or rock, but I was reading through my sister's magazines and saw an article "how to be emo".

It basically said dress black, act depressed blah blah.

So is emo the new goth, or is it the new 'punk'? Do u have to dress in black to like emo music. WAT THE HELL?!

Thank god i'm anti non-conformitist, wait does that mean i'm conformist.
Bleh.

[schism-]

I too wouldn't mind hearing an answer... I'm as confused as sazzle is.

[Savage_Nature]

Uhhh.... sure I'll have a stab at it because I'm bored to shit. Well. Emo. How to explain it....

Emo people are usually people who are VERY emotional. Unable to find a way to express their emotions to other people Emo people often write songs, poems, draw dark or forboding drawings (Reaper stealing a heart and such) and dress in strange or odd ways to attract attention and display their emotions.

Emo people don't necessarily HAVE to listen to certain types of music. Rather they can listen to whatever most resembles their emotions at the time. From the whiney oh-my-life-sucks-because-my-girlfriend-dumped-me songs to the more metal I'M GONNA FUCKIN' KILL THE WORLD BECAUSE MY GIRLFRIEND DUMPED ME!! Making sense so far?

So far we have covered the basics of:
Basic Emo Personality
Emo Music
Now we will move onto something more indepth. Emo clothing and hairstyle. Are you ready?

Emo clothing is usually mistaken for Goth clothing. And the two personalities are commonly mixed up. While Goth tends to run along the line of I-want-to-suck-the-blood-from-your-body and Emo tends to run more along the lines of date-me-or-I'll-kill-myself. Using this analyssis we can understand that Goths will tend to wear more metal such as chains and such and heavy-metal band shirts and apparel. Also Goths will tend to wear dark and heavy makeup. This is noted mainly around the eye area. Emo people however will tend to wear shirts with sayings that express feelings and such. Many wear a chain or two-maybe even three-to try and distinguish themselves as an individual. Emo people can often be found wearing many many 'Sex Bracelets' and usually glasses. Emo people are very commonly well dressed in appearance (well dressed for a teenager anyway.) as opposed to Goths who will often be seen with torn jeans and or rips and stains in their clothing.

So from this we can gather that:
Emo~Goth
Few Chains, Many bracelets~Lots of chains
Sayings on shirts~Heavy-metal bands on shirts
Well dressed~Not so well dressed
Seeing a sort of pattern yet?

As for hairstyle, Goths will more likely either shave their head and leave it, or put a wig on it(alot easier than dying it no?) or do a mo-hawk or such. Also a common style is to let it grow out and not do anything to it. Emo people are VERY frequently found with their hair cut short on one side and left long on the other. Creating a sort of uneven mushroom cut. Also Emo people will shave their head and let just enough hair grow out to show they have it.

All in all I think I covered alot here. Now hopefully you will be able to tell wether to flee from your stalker or confront them and make them cry.





























....Seriously though that was pretty sweet^^^

[hawiianice]

Wow Jesse, that was pretty sweet! Can anyone say intelegent! <-- And we all know that I am not because I spelt that word wrong!
In my opinion you got it completly right!
No need to say more.

[sazzle]

wow, great in depth answer there! i sorta had a suspicion that that was it, but yes, now i know . Rep for you!

And here's me thinking i'll get a lot of half cocked answers a few fights and some usual flaming. I got my answer straight away! Now wat to do.....

Thanks for clearing that up for me jesse, very intellegent!.

edit- gah! I have to spread rep around first...pfft

[hai Jay]

when my boplar is getting the best of me i call it emo. beucas i cry over dropping stuf without any reason.
but if you want to know what emo is look in comedy secton in that video someoen posted. its neat and isaw part of it once.

but i just xall myself emo when im bein emotnia ald crying over stupid hsit.

i love you guys!

[Wobbie]

No one can teach a person to be emotional. That's just stupid. Emo, music wise, to me, is emotional rock, derived from hardcore, and originated, in the 80's with post punk/post hardcore band such as Fugazi, and Rites of Spring, and later on, in the early to mid 90's with bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, Mineral, Texas is the Reason, Lifetime, etc. It is very often mislabled, with pop/punk bands, and poppy indie-rock bands, and the like, being labeled "emo" just because of their emotional outpourings. I mean, honestly,that's what music is (or should be. You never know with all these bands/major labels writing what they think will be "popular"). An emotional outlet for what the songwriter is feeling.

Now, people have turned a term that derived from emotional melodic hardcore, into this decades popular buzzword for wearing black arm bands, and combing your hair across your face

Read this if you want to know more http://www.fourfa.com/styles/index.htm

[Guttermouth]

Emo is emotional rock. Dressing emo is looking emotional. Wear those thick frame black glasses b/c they were formerly known to be geek apparel & geeks are tortured souls...so emo kids where tortured soul glasses. You have to be pastey because emotional people cry in the dark...ALL THE TIME. Also, guys have those awesome short haircuts that points into one spike on there head. And girls take pictures of themselves from an above diagonal angle that only shows half there face. All in all, emo kids are pretty hot.

[Narnar]

I've been called emo, but it's more along the lines of what Jasmine calls emo..

I have a tendancy to be calm for a very long time, but then release just a slight bit of frustration or stress or anything that's inside of me VERY easily. One wrong word, one drop of something that I didn't want dropped, spilling something, ANYTHING any tiny little thing will cause me to go crazy-emotional. I'll either curse like a sailor at everything or just break down and cry. I hate crying though, it leaves me with a serious headache.

Seems to be random when it happens too.. Usually, it's triggered by something really upsetting to me..

Some would also call that being a "drama queen."

*emo voice* They really just don't understand it though..*emo voice*

[tynie]

emo makes us goth kids look good.

and btw, not a lot of goth kids listen to heavy metal, and if so, good heavy metal.

and we're well dressed.

[Savage_Nature]

Not the ones here. They all have like either Megadeth uber stained hoodies or completely black-half-fishnet-stalking-completely-covered-in-chains and dont cut their hair or they cut their hair off put on a limegreen afro style wig thing with curls (just picture it OK?)

It's not like I have anything against them, a small amount of them manage to make it look wicked kool.

[shortsyco]

Originally Said by Narnar

I have a tendancy to be calm for a very long time, but then release just a slight bit of frustration or stress or anything that's inside of me VERY easily. One wrong word, one drop of something that I didn't want dropped, spilling something, ANYTHING any tiny little thing will cause me to go crazy-emotional. I'll either curse like a sailor at everything or just break down and cry. I hate crying though, it leaves me with a serious headache.

Seems to be random when it happens too.. Usually, it's triggered by something really upsetting to me..

i do that...normally it ends with me cussing and throwing the nearest object across the room

[Jenn and tonic]

We had a lot of the 'I want to kill myself' emo kids when I was in high school. They had the dark framed glasses, and they had badly dyed black hair--by badly I mean the tips of their fingers and their necks and foreheads were all tinged slightly black, and their roots were never done-- they had the wrist bands over their wrists (for no apparent reason. They never matched, either).

They listened to such bands as dashboard confessional, the smiths, bright eyes, and any other assorted band that all had the same sounding lead singer and sang of their broken hearts.

I liked the goth kids better. They tended to groom a bit better and looked like they had some sort of purpose.

[ag0ny]

the music has nothing to do with this... but since im so fluent in music-speak... emotional music contains the emotion in the lyrics itself, thereby expressing the emotion with the emotion... whereas any music is probally created by an emotion for inspiration and such... thats where things get weird and confusing because it sounds whiney doesnt mean its whining... and just because its "hardcore" or heavy metal doesnt mean there isnt a significance to the music itself.

EDIT: just thinking about how people label the music by the way it sounds shows how people nowadays defficate on any hope of a true genre and not the whineyness or the screaming or shit involved in making the music... fuck this stuff makes me mad.

[Zanahoria_Picante]

I'm Emo-phobic.

[Penie]

Originally Said by Wobbie

No one can teach a person to be emotional. That's just stupid. Emo, music wise, to me, is emotional rock, derived from hardcore, and originated, in the 80's with post punk/post hardcore band such as Fugazi, and Rites of Spring, and later on, in the early to mid 90's with bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, Mineral, Texas is the Reason, Lifetime, etc.

i will retort to this quote in a moment, but first: the label 'emo' for a brand of music is RIDICULOUS - truley the worst genre title ever. emo short for emotional? almost all music, esp guitar music, is emotional, so branding something as being emotional is just dumb. emo music is basically soft post-hardcore, with angst ridden lyrics. seriosily, i hate it, and dont even bother with the 'emo is MORE emotive than most music': please show me the magical emotional sliding scale and then i might agree, but as for now, no no and no. no.

wobbie, you know your stuff, but im gonna disagree. not saying your wrong, but this is is how i see the emo music growth:
it was precursured by bands like fugazi et al, but like you say, all music is emotional, and as such those elements of emo were present as far back as you want to look, but the way i see it; the combination of angsty lyrics, 'heartfelt' and over wrought vocal stylings, and a heavyish guitar sound that typifies 'emo' was first heard, completely all together for an entire album, on weezers 'pinkerton'. whereas i find the 'emo' scene dull, barren and boring, pinkerton is a work of genius, its just a shame that weezers best work has been dully reproduced and drained of all originality, meaning, and - ironically - emotion, by this slew of bland and unitresting bands that seem to flow like a tsunami of piss out of the american midwest, re-doing pinkerton as mearly a tired watermark.




on a lighter note:
how many emo kids does it take to change a lightbulb?


none, they'd rather just sit and cry in the dark.

[kyle]

emo kids think they will like that music forever, when was the last time you saw a 45 year old metal head, basing a lifestyle on the music you listen to is just fucking stupid.

[Wobbie]

Fionn, you definitely know your stuff. too. Don't get me wrong, i too don't like the term "emo" to describe these varied styles of music, but, like it or not, what i said is how the term "emo" came about. i mean, people describe musical styles like indie rock, punk, pop, modern rock, even some electronica, as "emo". That's not right. I think it was labeled emo in the first place, because the music that it stems from wasn't as forwardly emotional, as it's eventual evolution came to be. That's also why a lot of punk/hardcore listeners hate the music so much. It took the same styles, and added more emotional themes into it's lyrics, softer singing/music, showed a more sensitive side, and countless other things. They saw/see it as a massacaring of the music they love. I disagree with your statement that "emo music is basically soft post-hardcore, with angst ridden lyrics" Some of what people call "emo" is that. i did see you put basically though, so if i take what you said the wrong way, forgive me. Generally (but by no means all) your modern pop/punk, or modern post punk/indie rock bands do have these tendencies, but to say that that's what emo music is, is narrowminded.

And sure, many bands who play what's been tagged "emo" or post punk/post hardcore indie, or whatever, have been majorly influenced by Weezer's Pinkerton album, but this is by far, not the first album to combine the elements you said, together, while still being described as modern day "emo" and in turn, influenced/spawned many a sound-alike. Sunny Day Real Estate's first two (fantastic) albums have greatly influenced what is known as the birth of the modern "emo" You can definitely hear SDRE's sound in mid 90's releases from The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, etc. And bands like The Descendents, who Weezer have pretty much copied their sound from, just quietly, and Lifetime, etc. I know you said that as YOU see it, Pinkerton was the first, so yeah, i'm not arguing that point, or trying to say that you should think otherwise or anything. I'm just saying that Pinkerton wasn't the first to combine those elements together, like they did.

Plus a lot of bands actually recreate that style, quite well. Sure, they aren't as well known as these bland and uninteresting bands, like you say. But they are definitely out there. Great bands like Motion City Soundtrack, The Weakerthans, Bad Astronaut, Nerf Herder, etc, etc, etc. Have that unmistakalbe Weezer-esque poppy/punk/rock with all those same heartfelt lyrics, overwrought vocals, open-ness about what they're feeling/going through (and on a side note, wow! how open was Rivers on Pinkerton, haha), yet add some form of originality, and freshness.

But yeah, i'm repping you for your post. Quite informative, smartly said, and you know what you're talking about. I wish all the people i had debates with were like you


Oh, and Kyle, i totally disagree. 45 year olds (in general) listen to the same music they did as a kid. For example, Elvis maybe, or whatever, and some still even dress like they did as a kid. Then, why wouldn't kids today do the same thing, and listen to what they do now, and dress the same, in 30 years time as well?

[blackheart]

Originally Said by MystikA

i like scene girls.

i like scene boys

[Penie]

Originally Said by Wobbie

words

wowsers,i stanmd corrected. to be honest i was flapping my gassket based on my not vast knowledge of the scene. i dont really like emo, pinkerton (and nerf herder, but ive never considerd them 100% emo, at times, yes, but mostly i consider them comedy) is my only real foray into it. you however, are clearly a scene master, and i shall back off and bow down to your knowledge.



thats also lies about the 45 year olds. the faddy ones stop when they pass 30, but the real music fans? they still wear lether jackets/ponchos and flares/slicked back quiffs. when im pushing 50, i'll still be wearing deftones t-shirts and arguing with wobbie.