Emo: The Emotional Stereotype

Growing up I was always into country music until I transcended to college and discovered the different genres that are out there and began to incorporate metal and rock music into my life. Then a few months back I started dating someone who had made a comment saying he thought the Emo genre was very stupid. I never heard of Emo, and had no idea what he was referring too, but then on our rounds to clubs and bars I quickly found out what they were and felt as though it was a useless and self absorbed stereotype 'click'. For those of you out there who are not sure what exactly Emo is, let me simplify it for you.

According to wikipedia, Emo is a slang term used to describe a range of fashion styles and attitudes affiliated with emo music. Emo music is a subgenre of hardcore punk music that concentrates on a general state of unhappiness or melancholy. Those who participate in this stereo type usually dress in vintage or thrift store clothing and carry backpacks covered in pins and patches of different bands.

Their appearance continues with the most common sight of straight dark colored hair that is brushed over to cover one eye or even the entire face. Males tend to wear pants made for females and use dark make up. Another common emo association is the lyrics of their music that speak of self destruction which causes emo stereotypes to most notably who feel emotionally tortured to cut themselves.

Emos are constantly in the pursuit of the complete self-obliteration of any sort of perspective. Evident from the idolized paragons of emo culture dwell incessantly upon their emotions, usually of love, regret, heartbreak, and/or internal torment. It seems that they simply cannot concentrate on anything other than themselves, while failing to realize that their dilemmas are not, in fact, very unique, and that everyone else in the world learns to deal with life...without forcing themselves to conform to some sickening subculture that only breeds self-imposed misery.

For more than a decade, the term emo was used almost exclusively to describe the genre of music that spawned from the 1980s Washington, DC scene and the bands inspired by it; however, during the late 1990s, as emo music began to emerge into popular consciousness, the term began to be used as a broader reference than its prior music denotation. In a 1985 interview by Rites of Spring in Flipside, members of the band noted that some of their fans in DC were starting to call them "emo," arguably because of the state of emotion that the band displayed during their shows.

In later years, the word emo was viewed as a contraction of "emotional hardcore" or "emocore," which was the popular designation of the music genre. A younger contingent argues that emo is a contraction for "emotive hardcore;" however, no primary source demonstrates the use of that term prior to the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, numerous sources cite the use of "emotional hardcore," dating back to the mid-to-late 1980s. In recent years, as its use has come to define more than just the music, the word emo has often been viewed as short for "emotional."

Now, I realize that there is a type of music for everyone, and every music has its theme. Country speaks of love and lost relationships, metal has themes of darkness and evil, but emo is just in my opinion, pointless and is driving a world of teenagers and young adults into an early grave by their own hand because they have to follow the crowd who just happens to believe that cutting themselves and will offer them solace. If your life is so tormented and are so depressed that you feel this stereotype will help you, you are sadly mistaken. Surrounding yourself with more torment and depression will only sink you deeper.

This is not a situation that can be taken lightly and try to resolve through more depressing music and surroundings; you need to actually pursuit psychological assistance. Now if you are following the crowd because you think it's you and you think it's the thing to do, you really need to take a look around and find your individuality. We all have followed a 'click', however once you reach adulthood, a 'click' such as emo will not survive in a world where your emotional status has to be controlled. Depression and negative and emotional downward spirals can cause you to loose your job and every dime you have, if you can not control it and live in reality.

I understand that sometimes when you are depressed and feel so tortured that you have no where to go and the first person or thing that seems to understand what you are going through you cling onto that for dear life. However, like I had said, holding onto more torment will make it worse.

Those of you Emos out there are probably yelling at me and saying that you don't know how I feel, but I do. I never followed the Emo crowd, but I have suffered from severe depression where suicide and torment was encircling my mind daily, and it is a process of recovery to realize the positives in your life and not constantly revolve your life around the negative things.

You're probably going to say that other genres of music have their groups and their dependencies. Well, yes of course. You got the metal heads and the head bangers and so on and so forth, and yes sometimes that era can get out of hand and consist of more then just people with long hair throwing it around to a beat. But in my opinion, destruction of property is better then destroying you. Both concepts won't get you anywhere, but at least if you are mad and going to break a window, that can be fixed, killing yourself can't be fixed.

I realize that there are a lot of you out there that are going to criticize this to a fault, but please realize that I'm just trying to help and its not a bad thing to try to stop people who are out there who are emotionally disturbed.