What is Emo?

So many people ask me this. I get asked this a lot, mostly because I make jokes like, "I wish my yard was Emo, so it would cut itself." So dear readers, here is a short history and definition of Emo.

Emo is short for emotional. It was, at first, the name of a type of punk music. It was considered very hardcore and the full name was EMOTIONAL HARDCORE PUNK. Now for those of you who know what Emo is and are going "WTF!? NO! BULLSH*TT!!!" This is no longer the case. What happened around 1990 is that Emo started getting mixed with the Indy scene. This bunch was a mostly unsuccessful movement also, with very few listeners outside of the UK, with the exception of a few bands such as London Suede and um ... I forget and don't care enough to look it up. In any case, Washington DC and Phoenix were major centers or early Emotional Indy music.

At the same time as this (1980-1992) , Punk and Metal gave birth to a somewhat hybrid form of music that was known as Gothic Metal, Gothic Punk, and later, Gothic Industrial or just Gothic. Ironically, this was a hardcore music movement, that was death metalish, but without all the overtones of evil. Doom metal, such as Candlemass was an early form. On the punk side you had The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy (showing signs of the industrial future).

In any case, the late 80's/early 90's Gothic types, while dressing in black, with chains, trench coats, electrical tape, fish net stalkings, large Doc Martin work boots and funny spiky colored (mine was blue) hair, were hard core. They also lifted weights, read literature, and generally considered being stupid, whiny, crying, and being afraid of things to be totally unacceptable. Unlike the death metal counterparts, they were more likely to keep to their own reading of Nietzsche and not socialize. However, if they were messed with for their being different, they would slam you across the parking lot, even if that meant the rest of the football team would later pummel you to the ground, you were sure you would get at least a good groin bite in.

Emotional on the other hand went another way. Most are vegetarians or vegans in order to be 'non-conformist.' (Any vegetarian reading this: this is nothing against you, it is just information) The dress is as androgynous as possible and most identify themselves as bisexual. Lots of pissing and moaning about how hard life is, how meaningless life is, how pain is the only thing that is real. How the only way that they can feel is to cut themselves and cry in the dark and stuff like that.

Other Emo pastimes include reading lame poetry late at night to a group of other Emo gathered at Dennys. Sitting in groups around the outside of schools and lamenting how life is pain and everyone is a conformist but you.

In about 2000 emo did something strange. It took over the former Gothic look and terminology. It added its own flavor to it ... such as eye makup that looks like you have been crying and it ran all over everything. (Emos spend a lot of time crying). Crusty hair brushed to one side, horn-rimmed glasses, and eyeliner (or "guyliner" as the case may be). Basically, anything that suggests an air of vulnerability.

EMO DATING: girl finds emo guy and tells him he is sweet and sensitive. Guy reads bad poetry and cries a lot. He is moody and sad. She is moody and sad. They dye their hair and put on makeup together. One day girl gets sick of being with a wimp that is more of a girl than she is. She goes and hooks up with a preppy guy. Emo guy is now even more sad, cries more and writes even more bad poetry about how life is pain. Girl sees this sad, emotional, vegan poet and tells him he is sweet and sensitive. They put on makeup go to Dennys together .... and so on.

Gothic punk metal types, (now mostly in their 30's and 40's) give a collective shrug and wonder how the hell the movement was lost to the wimps, then realise that they never gave a damn when they were young and now that they have 10-15yr old kids of their own, shopping at Hot Topic, they really don't give a damn and mostly attempt to keep their own kid form being a crying vegan wimp. Some have even considered teaching them how to execute a proper groin bite, but mostly these 30 somethings "goth it up" on their blogs or by purchasing a black PT Cruiser and putting a skull shifter knob on it.

Though they are sorely tempted to make a grim Gothic gesture by running over an Emo kid with said PT Cruiser, those things are to expensive for that kind of behavior.

For another Emo Picture go: here