Findings from the Bureau of Emo Affairs

There is a dark and dreary sect of our society that we are all loathe to acknowledge with any semblance of seriousness. It is a terrible subculture, comprised of beings that almost seem subhuman. It feeds on pain and sorrow, and is the source of a disgusting toll of suicide attempts and fraudulent bisexual relationships. It’s horrifying reach extends into our malls, into our airwaves, our schools, and every major street corner. This is the emo culture. And it is no longer something we can ignore. It has grown from a fashion based on a musical style into a terrifying mindset that threatens the intellectual future of our society.
It all began in the late 1980s, as “indie” bands began to form new sounds and styles of music, and develop their own wacky outfits. By the late 1990s, the indie style had attached itself to a certain kind of music. This music was filled with regret, anger, bitterness, grief, and broken hearts. It didn’t really have a name at first, although everyone agreed it was very emotional. The terms emotional metal, emotional rock, and hardcore emotional all became concatenated into things like “emorock” and “emocore.” Finally, it was just emo.
Being emo means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. There is, however, a universal base that all emo people can relate to: The use of depression and sensitivity as a fashion. Due to the popularity of the music, fans believed it was “in” to actually feel depressed and be overly sensitive all the time. Adolescents that had perfectly happy lives began forcing themselves to become pessimists, to develop antisocial tendencies, to scribble poems about death and darkness on their arms with ballpoint pens. Go ask an emo kid why they chose to be emo, and the universal reply is “Because I wanted to stand out and be an individual.” It is a tragically ironic statement that illustrates the fact that they all conform to the standards of nonconformity set in the indie period of the ‘80s.
They truly believe they are as worthless as their favorite artists sing about being, and so begins the really scary facet of emo culture: The suicide attempts. When the average person is bored, he or she will generally go find something fun to do. When the average emo kid is bored, he or she will generally try, and fail, to kill themselves. First they write an elaborate suicide note, explaining about everything that is wrong in their lives. Common items on the lists are breakups with girlfriends and boyfriends, the fact that parents don’t understand them, the fact that society doesn’t accept them for being whiny crybabies in thick black eyeliner, the fact that they got grounded, broken nails, had a bad dream, and hosts of other events that will occur quite frequently in everyone’s day-to-day life.
But the emo culture dictates that instead of getting over it or solving the problem, the only way to be happy is to either feel pain, or feel nothing at all. And so begin the suicide attempts. And yes, they are only attempts because the emo kid knows that he will only be able to kill him- or herself once, and so he/she wants to save their most popular move for something important. The average attempt is only half-hearted. This all results as a combination of peer pressure, the confusing emotions of puberty, and depressing song lyrics.
But what about the emo kid being overly sensitive? They overreact emotionally in any given situation (see the section where they attempt to end their life due to a broken nail.) But just because emo kids believe they have dark souls and bleed black doesn’t mean they are heartless. The Great Emo Mandate, the set of guidelines that govern emo behavior, dictate that because all emos have no love in their lives, an emo kid is required to give another emo kid acceptance and love for a period of time before breaking their hearts by giving it to someone else. Hence, it becomes “cool” to become bisexual. Some may be bisexual, but there are many cases where straight emo kids will simply act bisexual in order to conform to the emo standard of “standing out.”
But that is the outside of your typical emo. What makes them tick? What sort of creamy, nougat center are they hiding from the world beneath a crunchy peanut-covered chocolate exterior? As it turns out, it’s just your everyday teen angst and other assorted confusing emotions. Being emo is just one way of handling adolescence. Reading from “Hidden Scars” by Irving S., it’s clear to see that he just collects dark images and emotions together and displays them to the world, keeping any joy in his life to himself; emo kids vehemently oppose revealing the fact that they actually possess the ability to feel happiness. Irving S. points out “lost lives, grief and pain” (“Hidden Scars” line 2.) He claims he had “nothing to feed on but the misery [he] lived through” (Lines 14-15.) Some peoples’ lives really are this bad.
Irving S. just wishes his was this terrible, because bands such as My Chemical Romance and Hawthorne Heights have drilled it into his confused little brain that melodrama will make him popular. And so, he sits, writing dark poetry about emotions he could get over if he would just look at his situation. For the audience’s convenience, his situation (along with every emo kid’s “situation”) has been displayed for an easy comparison. Note in the photograph of this real, live emo kid the clothes, first. You can see dark clothes, unnaturally dark hair, and a popular symbol of death on his wristband. You may notice that the jeans were designed for females, and that he can’t possibly walk around safely with that hairstyle.
But as upsetting as those items are, they distract your typical “normal” person from the real issues at hand. You see, this emo kid shies away from the camera. He has to be reclusive, mysterious, giving outsiders the impression of depression and sensitivity. And then we notice the room, in it’s raging purple glory. Such a sharp contrast from the gloomy zombie in the center, the brilliant, stereotypically happy hue just goes to show that this kid’s life is actually doing just dandy.
But now that we see the problem, how do we fix it? How do we prove to emo kids like Irving S. that their lives are actually happy when they feel that any joy will make them unpopular? How do we explain to them that by standing out in the same exact way, they are all nonconformist clones and therefore defeating the purpose? How do we explain that eyeliner doesn’t really make them look cool at all? And how do we break it to them that nobody actually feels sorry for them? For the life of me, I can’t understand how the world’s most brilliant minds have sat down one by one and racked their noggins for the solution to all these critical questions, and came up empty. Because there is only one, logical, efficient solution:
Throw buckets of icy water on the emo kids. It will wash the makeup away, it will make their clothes tighten so painfully they will realize the fatal flaw in their choice of apparel, and above all, they will actually wake up and look at the world for the first time to see it for what it really is. And what it really is is a place that has as much humor and joy as pain and sorrow. I, for one, love this world. But I also know it’s a package deal. I can’t write reports on emo culture for the United Nation’s Bureau of Emo Affairs, something that makes me happy, without also needing something sad to balance it out, such as soft rock still being played on the radio.
And I, for one, am scared senseless when I think of a world in which the emo culture is allowed to persist. Nothing would get done. We’d just be stuck in a quagmire of crying, falsely bisexual, poorly dressed people with a disappointing taste in music. But by uniting and fighting back, we can bring logic and happiness back into our malls and schools. Don’t do it for yourself, don’t do it for the sake of the malls or the schools, don’t do it for the sake of the rest of humanity, don’t even do it for the sake of the emos. Do it, because you know you’ve always wanted to dump a bucket of freezing water on them.

Works Cited

“Emo Kid” by Anonymous. Picture courtesy Google Image Search.

“Hidden Scars” Irving S.
Log Cabin Ranch





No emos were harmed in the making of this essay. Except for the ones who were offended by it and consequently cut themselves, incorrectly believing it would make a statement about their predicament.