yes, i'm so over emo. but anyway, while doing EoM, i came across this two articles, one the original, the latter the counter. anyway, i though the latter was a bit harsh on the orginal author, but otherwise made sense. the original, quite hate-filled, made a teeny weeny bit of sense, in the part where emo kids diss mainstream music,et al. anyway, haha, it's more so that i don't have to blog anything.haha.
Emo Kids and Their Useless Contributions to Society
Welcome to Wonderland
By Eugenia Wong
Staff Writer
In my LJ101A workshop, one of the coolest things that I learned about some of the greatest literary journalism pieces was the construction of the composite character.
So, I’m going to share with you my experience with a typical, bratty emo kid, whom I will fondly call, Josh Carrion the Emo Kid. Angsty Josh and Co. travel in hoards, infesting movie theatres, plaguing concert venues and contaminating the very air we breathe when we pass by them. However, before I move on any further, I will make the disclaimer that Josh Carrion is a composite character. Yet, a character we’re all too familiar with.
So, I’m sitting down at a general meeting for a community service club that I’ll just call Square K. Before the president arrives to give his spiel of upcoming service events, I’m checking up the latest update on PerezHilton.com. Yeah, I’ve been sucked into the world of celebrity trashings and thrashings (like you haven’t noticed from my other columns) but, hey, can you really say that you’ve never picked up a People Magazine before or at least been intrigued by a cover of US magazine? That’s what I thought.
Anyway, I happen to find something hilarious on the blog and share it with some friends in the club when I am so rudely interrupted by Josh the Emo Kid who retorts, “Why do you care about that stuff? It’s so… meaningless.”
Let me tell you something, Emo Kid, I think your face and your whole existence is meaningless. You swagger in with your ripped, skinny emo jeans, studded belt and greasy dyed hair that covers 2/3 of your face (a good thing it does too) being an unproductive member of society that just bitches, moans and butt into my conversation? Whatever, I clench my fist and refrain myself from snatching those trendy box-framed glasses from off his face and crushing them. I then proceed to turn on my iTunes to enjoy a few songs by OK Go. Oh, great, I have now unwillingly entered the battle arena of music as soon as the first few chords blast from my laptop because then emo kid comes along and says, “OK Go? Oh, they’re good but I liked their first album better.” In my mind I’m grateful that I didn’t have to listen to one of his idiotic rants about music that most emo kids like to go off on, so I politely reply, “Yeah, they’re good.” Ah, finally something that we can agree on but I spoke too soon because then Josh the emo kid goes off on how Capitol records had forced OK Go to wear their retro clothing, how he “discovered” the band long before their “A Million Ways” dance made them popular and how he “hates all mainstream stuff.” Oh my goodness. Emo kid really thinks that wearing “vintage” Salvation Army clothing, listening to weird ass music that no one has ever heard of or cares about, really makes him that unique. Get a life, emo kid... or better yet, take a shower. Before I could respond as to how I saw his exact sweater in a few pages of last year’s Teen Vogue magazine, the president arrives to the meeting thus signaling Josh the emo kid to shut his pie-hole and sulk in the corner.
A little over a week passes by but I happen to run into Josh the Emo Kid amongst all the other Josh the Emo Kids at a Chain Reaction concert on Friday night. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t hate everything emo, I’m still a fan of emo bands like Mae and such. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be at the Chain. We exchange quick glances of acknowledgement, but I’ve already had enough of Josh the Emo Kid so I dash into the record store nearby only to be surrounded by a group of 12-year-old Josh the Emo Kids. They’re about a head smaller than me but I couldn’t help but be amused by their fake lip studs and coerced downtrodden voices. However my tender feelings for these youngsters quickly evaporated as soon as they started to complain how life was such a drag due to what their parents force them to do, which were mostly chores and other things that most American kids do. Is life really that hard, lil’ emo kid? Maybe if your parents put you up for adoption, then you would be justified in being emo. Whatever, I left the record shop in disgust and headed over to the Chain Reaction to enjoy some music where I met up with Emo Kid and crew.
Letters to the Editor
By Readers
Hate Against Emo Kids Unjustified
Last week I read an article in the paper titled “Emo Kids and Their Useless Contributions to Society,” (Feb. 26). Even as someone who is not “emo” and doesn’t listen to emocore, I have never read a more infuriating article in the New University. Never did I expect to come across an article that attacks a group not based on their beliefs but on the way they dress, the music they listen to and the way they live their lives.
When I read “Get a life emo kid. … Better yet, take a shower,” or “I think your face and your whole existence is meaningless,” the comparison that stood out most readily in my mind was the attack on hippies during the 1960s.
In addressing the article, I’d just like to pick out my favorite little bits. First, the author angrily asserts that emo kids “travel in hoards, infesting movie theaters, plaguing concert venues and contaminating the very air we breathe when we pass by them.” Now that is a lot of hate, and it’s just the beginning. The author somehow comes up with the idea that emo kids are a useless contribution to society. How can anyone make such a broad and ignorant assumption about a group of people? How is it that these attacks can come from an educated person?
There is a clear and violent bias in the article which, in my opinion, stems from the fact that the author clearly knows nothing about emo or emocore and its origins. I wonder if the author could have gotten away with this “opinion column” (which is really more like a “two minutes hate” a la “1984”) if she had criticized the majority culture, which everyone and their cousin seems to embrace no matter the occasional stolen melody or rhythm.
Josh Carrion, the “composite character” in the article (the fact that it’s a composite character makes it more of an attack on a group), makes the claim that OK Go had a better first than second album. This seemed to me like a perfectly innocent way to begin a conversation. Sure, many may take the emo kid to be haughty or above it all, but the way the author seems to turn this point into a tirade on anything independent negates this point. “Emo kid really thinks that wearing ‘vintage’ Salvation Army clothing, listening to” – this part was laughable – “weird-ass music that no one has ever heard of or cares about, really makes him that unique.”
Anyone who knows anything about independent culture would understand that wearing Salvation Army clothing is a cultural statement and that most styles of clothing from major manufacturers like Abercrombie and Fitch or The Gap are imitations of this initial cultural movement, meaning that the clothing most people wear is an imitation of independent culture on which emo kids have had a very strong influence.
The earlier point that “Emo kids make no societal contribution” is negated by the fact that they make a strong cultural contribution and that what they achieve through academics or through the workforce cannot be assumed. The funniest part of the article was “Is life really that hard, lil’ emo kid? Maybe if your parents put you up for adoption, then you would be justified in being emo.”
First of all, nobody in our free society has to provide a cultural justification for the particular subculture in which they choose to participate. Second, just because many emo kids are born into prominent and affluent communities does not mean they have an obligation to get out on the dance floor, rave, listen to Britney Spears-type pop hell, grind their crotches against females while listening to hip hop or listen to bland and hook-laden corporate rock.
I personally think of emo as being a response to a lack of emotion in the modern world. Emo kids lament the death of romance, while screamo kids scream about it. I believe these kids are looking for a way to feel again in a society that seems to be leaving so many people disaffected. Sure, many may think that the music they choose to listen to is overly sensitive, but then I always assumed that attacking people for the way they present themselves to the world should have ended in high school. I guess I was wrong.
It is this writer’s opinion that bullying people through an article in a paper is juvenile. I say “bullying” because I think the article latched onto what I feel is an inclination in popular culture to hate on emo kids.
Our country is founded on free speech, but we as a society make an important distinction between free speech and hate speech. Attacking emo kids for self-expression seems to embody that point.
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