Emo: The Color of My Soul

This is the enemy

Emo people. They seem to be popping up more and more, but individual definitions vary. The true definition of Emo, or E.M.O., has something to do with an armadillo and a string, but because this is a school newspaper it can't be fully defined here. Emo is defined by Senior Lisa Kim as standing for "emotional" and is a "new movement among teens that is an expression of emotions through music, clothes, and other things." It is also a town in Canada, though students almost always define it as standing for emotional, but this is incorrect.

Emo actually stands for "emotive", coined by Ian McKay. It came from a movement in 1987 and 1988 called "emotive hardcore," and the term "Emo" actually came from other music fans mocking the people of the emotive hardcore movement. Emotive Hardcore was spearheaded by bands like Moss Icon, The Hated, Silver Bearings and Frail. It started in the DC areas and migrated to California. In early Emo, there is a lot of dynamics between soft, twinkly guitars and roaring Gibson. The vocal style ranges from normal singing to screaming and actual crying in the louder parts.

The lyrics in this type of Emo tend to lean toward abstract poetry, and are often hard to hear or decipher. While the record inserts did have lyrics they were very haphazardly placed and hard to read. This original variety of Emo bands tended to play with their backs toward the audience during quiet parts, and during the loud parts the musicians had a tendency to knock things over and jump uncontrollably. This variety of Emo has been dead since about 1995.

By 1999, Emo had changed completely. The new variety of Emo is the one most relevant today. Some examples are Sunny Day Real-Estate, Dashboard Confessional, The Get up Kids and Boys Life. It started out here in Seattle, and went east from there. Musically, this variety of Emo has a lot of loud and soft interaction, as well as being full of somewhat poppy guitar riffs. It has very emotional lyrics coupled with ironically light and happy singing. This generation of Emo has achieved a level of popularity not even comparable to any generation before it. Bands like Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional are in regular rotation on MTV.

The aforementioned variety of Emo is the one that students are most familiar with. Junior Morgan Berken says her favorite Emo band is "Hellogoodbye." Sophomore Eric Winterstein says his "favorite Emo band would probably be Faint" because "They're the kind of music" he listens too. Students have a variety of opinions on Emo music. When asked what his favorite Emo band was, Junior Cale Frye says "I despise Emo." Sophomore Bill Kilpatrick says "don't make me laugh" when asked that same question.

Students also view Emo people themselves in a certain way. Sophomore Kirsten Andrews says that there is no Emo, because "it's dumb to label people." Berken even goes so far as too say that emo people are looking for "a label" in which "to find people with common interests."

Students have varying opinions on how to define the Emo attitude, and prejudice seems to exist against them. Kilpatrick says that "its gotten to the point that [he] really doesn't know what Emo is anymore." He also says that Emo "is not a trend or a fad. It's a trap. Its and evil plague sweeping across the land engulfing everything living being it comes across. It will have full control of the minds of the youthful and the elderly, when only the superior intellects such as [him] will be left to mourn the former glorious, emoless society we once had." Frye says that emo is for "emotionally unstable [people] who cant handle real life." However, Sophomore, Eric Winterstein seems to notice the positive ends of Emo, saying that Emo people generally "appreciate the smaller things in life" but "have a more gloomy outlook."

It is generally frowned upon to be Emo. Many people, such as Winterstein, are called Emo by there peers, but he doesn't "think [he's] Emo…[he] walks the line between being Emo and being an individual. He says that Emo people "tend to display the darker emotions that they feel, or more extreme emotions", and he is most definitely not unhappy nor does he display many dark emotions.

Students views and stereotypes of Emo people also vary. Berken says that "a lot of people define it as the clothes you wear," but it's really "an attitude" rather than appearance. She would expect "depressed" or "quirky" behavior from an Emo Person. Emo: it's an attitude, a music genre, and a town in Canada. Students define it in many different ways, and there is a very fuzzy line as to what Emo is.

(This was originally written for a school newspaper)

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