Maybe it's because I've just come from waiting 45 minutes at the USPS, but this article about "emo boys" made me want to shake the monitor violently before conking myself on the head with a frying pan to knock me unconscious and end the pain. I mean, nobody has used the word "emo" outside of the mall emo sense without being embarrassed by it since at least 1998. Remember cringing at that NME cover years ago, and getting stacks of offensively inoffensive "girl you broke my heart" CDs to review at Punk Planet, and still being a little embarrassed that you still like Mineral? Because really, Mineral was always more of a guilty pleasure than anything else.
The story made me alternately laugh and groan, mostly because it comes from an outside perspective. I mean, if you think that "emo" is descriptive of Metallica or a 42-year-old banker, then you might as well call John Ashcroft an emo boy because he sings about pretty eagles soaring in the sky. I know that times have changed, and that emo long ago ceased to be connected to the sound and scene I encountered in my youth. Now there are loads of emo kids running around listening to Coheed and Cambria or Thursday or whatever the hot topic happens to be. I mean, hell, I know a sweetheart of a kid whose band pulls generously from Saves The Day--and they're considered emo in today's parlance--but the rascal was so far removed from punk that he didn't know who the Clash were. Or what a zine is. (When I told my mom this, she joined in my major plotzing, adding, "Even I know what a zine is.")
Anyway, I feel like this article gets it wrong in two ways. First, I think the men profiled there were just clueless nimrods who don't understand that telling someone about your wee willy on the first date is like taking out insurance against a second one. Now, if they had found the would-be Conor Obersts or some cardiganed fox who lets the four-on-the-floor dance moves out when his band plays, that would be a different story. Oh, the books I could write about them.
Secondly, it's a semantic issue, but as I've said, "emo" in my brain isn't only short for emotional. There's too much attached to that term for me: quarter-page zines composed with clunky typewriters; tiny star tattoos inked at home; kids packed tight in an old office space, dancing until their hearts exploded; long-distance pen pals; vegan potlucks; a focus on meaning rather than aesthetic. All of these things are sewn to my memory, and to see the mass-marketed spawn of what was originally anti-commercial and intensely personal tugs at the seams too much.
The story made me alternately laugh and groan, mostly because it comes from an outside perspective. I mean, if you think that "emo" is descriptive of Metallica or a 42-year-old banker, then you might as well call John Ashcroft an emo boy because he sings about pretty eagles soaring in the sky. I know that times have changed, and that emo long ago ceased to be connected to the sound and scene I encountered in my youth. Now there are loads of emo kids running around listening to Coheed and Cambria or Thursday or whatever the hot topic happens to be. I mean, hell, I know a sweetheart of a kid whose band pulls generously from Saves The Day--and they're considered emo in today's parlance--but the rascal was so far removed from punk that he didn't know who the Clash were. Or what a zine is. (When I told my mom this, she joined in my major plotzing, adding, "Even I know what a zine is.")
Anyway, I feel like this article gets it wrong in two ways. First, I think the men profiled there were just clueless nimrods who don't understand that telling someone about your wee willy on the first date is like taking out insurance against a second one. Now, if they had found the would-be Conor Obersts or some cardiganed fox who lets the four-on-the-floor dance moves out when his band plays, that would be a different story. Oh, the books I could write about them.
Secondly, it's a semantic issue, but as I've said, "emo" in my brain isn't only short for emotional. There's too much attached to that term for me: quarter-page zines composed with clunky typewriters; tiny star tattoos inked at home; kids packed tight in an old office space, dancing until their hearts exploded; long-distance pen pals; vegan potlucks; a focus on meaning rather than aesthetic. All of these things are sewn to my memory, and to see the mass-marketed spawn of what was originally anti-commercial and intensely personal tugs at the seams too much.
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