OK, so here begins the new blog. I’ve had several others, but those were mostly my borderline emo kid rants. This I want to have some intellectual if not full-on journalistic value. I also need to bone up on my writing skills.
So let’s start things off by discussing EMO KIDS!
First off, here’s a little background on what emo apparently means.
I think technically I might have been considered emo in high school. Everyone thought I was a Goth of course, and come to find out I could have also been considered Straight Edge. In all honesty, I just thought I was a nerd. I listened to all kinds of music, but most exclusively alternative rock and heavy metal. There was that totally embarrassing Nu Metal phase I went through, but that’s for another time. I was of course the saddest little high schooler ever, but to quoth the always amazing Davey Havok, ‘There’s no such thing as a happy teenager.’
Now look at kids these days. Being a depressed teenager has suddenly become en vogue. There were few current bands making music to satisfy our teenage ennui — especially after the Smashing Pumpkins broke up — so we mostly had to kick it old school. The Cure, Morrissey, Joy Division, etc. were in heavy rotation, and for the more aggressively depressed among us there was Marilyn Manson, Disturbed, etc. But now there are a ton of bands that cater specifically to high school malaise. Dashboard Confessional, Death Cab for Cutie, Hawthorne Heights, Avenged Sevenfold, the list goes on.
You’ll notice two big absences from that list. Even though My Chemical Romance and A.F.I. have indeed become huge idols amongst the hormonal and depressed, I feel that it’s quite by accident. Where as the aforementioned bands court the teens exclusively and have done so since their inceptions, MCR and A.F.I. simply followed their musical path which eventually led them to the misspent youth. It would be like calling the Smashing Pumpkins or the Cure teen-oriented bands. They’re not; some of their themes just happen to appeal to a certain subset of the younger crowd.
The Web has also played a huge role in bringing emo kids into mainstream culture. Now with MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, not only do kids have the means to take the minutia of their daily life to the masses, the masses also have the means to look, listen and respond. I see this as both a blessing and a curse.
It’s great that kids today know they’re not alone in what they’re going through. Let’s face it, when you’re different, your teen years can get really lonely. The fact that they’re able to form communities of like-minded souls is a wonderful thing. Also, it provides an outlet for some truly creative endeavors. Take Deviant Art for example. There are some beautiful graphic pieces on that site. While most livejournal poetry is crap, there is some genuinely good stuff to be found if you dig deep enough.
However, at the same time, there’s a general feeling that teens today are narcissistic. And before I go off sounding like a hypocrite (I have a blog, a MySpace page and a Facebook account), I want to say that I think there’s a difference between simply providing some details of your life as a catalyst for further communication (’You like This Property is Condemned? So do I!’) or practicing your otherwise thoroughly rusty writing skills and providing a detailed account of every little second between homeroom and lunch period. I also think things like MySpace have been taken too far. Take the Megan Meier case for example. It’s cases like hers that make me eternally grateful MySpace didn’t exist when I was teen.
All in all, I’m not sure how I feel about this newest batch of outsiders. The cutting thing freaks my shit right out, but then I also see kids forming supportive, loving communities. Then those communities sometimes become armies in the same clique-centric guerrilla warfare that’s been going for generations.
These kids aren’t doing anything all that different from what we did in high school. They’re just more visible.
1 Comment
February 10, 2008 at 5:44 pm
love.
adore.
brilliant post my dear!
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