My Ode to Emo

Since I can remember, I have always been a bit odd in comparison to all of my friends. I am the quiet one, usually dressed in black, who loves music, writing, movies, painting….Basically anything artsy. The types of artwork, authors, bands and general style I love has gotten a lot of notice in the past few years. What I once thought was just being myself has now become this monster conglomerate called “Emo”. So, I sat and pondered what this monster “emo” really is and here is the conclusion I have come to.

When I was 11, I started to notice that my friends were more into make-up and playing princess than I was. I also noticed that my style and taste in music, movies, and interests greatly differed from theirs and as the years passed, the gap between the princesses and I got a little wider. I was intelligent and loved to study. I liked rock music. I loved the color black because it looked good on my fair skin and it matched EVERYTHING. I liked horror movies because they created a fantasy word that I was a slight bit frightened by and interested in all at the same time. I was quiet and expressed my innermost thoughts through my poetry, which coincidentally was a bit sad and dark.  I didn’t play sports really.  I loved to read, but it had to be sci-fi (God bless Anne Rice). And, simply because I was a young teen, I was filled with angst because of the world I lived in and wanted desperately to break free from it. I was labeled everything from a freak, manic depressive, crazy, and finally a poser. All of those things were incorrect. I was myself, as I have always been. The status quo was something I never really wanted to be. I knew that being like everyone else was what my peers expected from me, but I could not conform to their world of prom queens, pink flowers and frilly clothes. Some how, I managed to create my own style and rank in the high school brigade that I was content with.

Fast-forward ten years and I am basically the same person, just a little less naive and angry. I still love to read, write, wear black and listen to my music. Because of this, I am now labeled “emo”. What is an “Emo”? I was not really sure the first time I heard the term. I thought it was a style of old punk rock music, that I happened to like. So, I embraced the term. Then, let’s say over the past three to five years, the whole “emo” tag has completely gone wild and become a negative word. Now, if you are “emo” to most it means you are whiney and spoiled and hate the world for no good reason. It also means you dress in black and hate yourself and listen to crappy music. Well, that’s not really me at all. I decided to look up this term “emo’. By definition it means emotional hardcore, referring to the old hardcore punk scene of the late 80’s early 90’s. To me, that didn’t sound so bad. So why is it that kids in the “emo scene” receive such a hard time from everyone else? Maybe it’s because people can’t accept change and different view points. I have been emotional, into punk, and dark clothes for a lot longer that I am comfortable admitting, close to 15 years. So what if this monster emo manifests in young kids listening to Fall Out Boy, my Chemical Romance, or HIM (bands I dearly love), writing angst ridden poetry, wearing dark clothes, styling their hair similar to New Wave 80’s punk bands and painting their nails black? All that says to me is that teenagers and young adults like to have a style of their own. It doesn’t make them any less of a person. If that is truly what it is, then I have been “emo” long before it was cool or trendy. I never once tried to label myself and change who I was to fit in. So, if being an individual that is comfortable with myself and what I like is emo, so be it.