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The Emo In All Of Us.

A teenage kid stands at the train station on a saturday night. He just standsthere; ipod blaring in his ears, pale skin and dyed black hair, with tight blackskinny jeans and a black jacket as his attire. The use of black eyeliner evident

on his green eyes and piercings in his left ear and lip reflects from the stationlight. All of a sudden the kid is struck by a fist on his cheek and falls to theground. Clutching the side of his face, he looks up, only to see a group ofteenagers laughing and jeering at him. Unlike this kid these teenagers aretotally different, wearing football shorts and designer brand t-shirts clinging totheir big muscular upper bodies. The kid stands up, only to be spat upon byone of the other kids. "Stupid emo kid," he says with his sneering and tauntingvoice, "Why don't you go slit your wrists or something." The "emo" kid looks athim. He is not stupid enough to fight him, because there is too many of them.Instead of hitting the abusive kid and setting him in his place, he just standsthere, with spit on his black jacket and a big red mark on his face, stinging himwhile he stands in front of a large group of teenagers. The spitter just stares at

him and laughs. Walking away, the "emo" boards the next train and sits in thenearest seat he sees. He holds his cheek in pain, yet is relieved to be headinghome where no more trouble could possibly be caused. The other teenagers,after having their entertainment for the day, laugh some more and talkbetween each other, before sitting on the train seats and pulling out their mp3players. The spitter, who is an obvious leader of the group, puts hisheadphones in his ears to listen to his favourite songs, ironically of whichcomes from emo bands like "Hawthorne Heights", "AFI", "My ChemicalRomance" and "Panic! At the Disco". He goes to his house to go to sleep in abedroom filled with posters of emo bands like "The Used" and "Taking BackSunday". His favourite t-shirt is a jet black t-shirt with the words "EVERYTHINGSUCKS" in big bold capital letters. Obliviously to this 17 year old football

playing jock, he lives and breathes the emo subculture.

The urban definition of the word "emo" : a fashion or subculture which isusually defined to have its roots in punk fashion and subculture, as well assome attributes of Gothic fashion and subculture. To contemporary society, it isa well known social group which constantly expands in numbers due to itsalarmingly growing popularity. However, to the majority of society, it is anunaccepted social group, outcasts amongst a normally functioning society. Thefunny thing is, how much "emo" is there in an individual of any social group,like a jock or a cheerleader? Think about it. As a teenager, you are notexpected to like much going in life. The only difference between a "normal"teenager and an "emo" teenager is the way of going about things, for example

where a normal teenager will just whine to a friend or workout in order to copewith a break up in a relationship, an emo will stereotypically become depressedto the possible point of suicide. The point of the matter is, there is a little bit of"emo" in all of us. It can be hypocritical to criticize and completely ostracize asocial group when as supposedly "normal" people, we ourselves behave orengage in activities that are emo-like.

Think about popular culture. Songs we listen to, movies or tv shows we watch.Anything in contemporary society that we engage in. Most of these things if not

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all are influenced in some way by the "emo" subculture. Yet it is one of themain social groups that is not as privileged as the others. People like the"jocks" or the "cheerleaders" of modern day schools are raised on pedestals,yet the emo's and nerds as such are often the victims of teasing and otherthings that detriment them as a social group. And everybody does it. We lookupon the emo, nerd and geek subcultures as nothing but pathetic. As

aforementioned, they are the outcasts of society yet ironically, emo hasinfluence over popular culture unlike any other. The top 40 songs in mostcountries consist of "emo" like bands, such as the aforementioned "Panic! At

The Disco", "Fall Out Boy", "My Chemical Romance", "30 Seconds To Mars" andeven "Blink 182", the latter of which has been seen one of the greatest punkbands in the world. Although these bands can be labeled "punk" or "alternativerock", it was a part of the punk culture that the emo subculture and alternativerock music started from. In saying this, the mentioned rock bands themselvesengage in "emo" subculture in concerns to things like fashion and even thepopular culture they engage with themselves.

There is also a question of societies' majority beginning to change. The emo

culture continues to grow, and could one day become the strongest out of allteenage subcultures. Societies majority could possibly consist of the emo socialgroup, and us as "normal" people could be dethroned so to speak. There couldone day be an era where the emo subculture could soon become acceptable.Whatever was "cool" or the latest trend in the future, could possibly beconsidered as emo in the society of this present day.

Yet if this happens, "emo" will be the new "jock". People all over school willstart to wear black clothes, start to white eyeliner and have piercings in theirlips or nose. Dyed Black Hair with long fringes over a single eye will becomepopular, and everyone around the world will sport one someday. However, thisis a way of conforming is it not? By conforming, isn't that hypocritical towards

the emo subculture?

We can swear that the emo culture will never affect us, or that there is no waythat as an individual we will never conform if emo subculture becomes thelatest fashion or trend. The trouble is, we already have engaged in it. Whetherit is songs, movies or fashion, we all at one stage or another have either worn,watched or listened to something "totally emo". However this can be seenabout any stereotypical social group. If a jock studies to do good in a test, theybecome like a "nerd". If a cheerleader takes an interest in joining the schoolband, then they have the characteristics of a "band geek". These are the sortof groups that have that conflict, or have that sworn enemy depictions witheach other. Yet if they were to partake in activities like that, they would still be

accepted individuals in their respective subcultures.

So the questions that need to be asked is this: Why criticize a stereotype thatwe have indirect interests in? Why use the word "emo" as a bad word, whenthere is a huge possibility that this word represents a huge part of what youvalue, or what you believe in? Why do we reject this word and its meaningwhen it has a huge influence over the popular culture that contemporarysociety engages in? Whether we like it or not, we are all indirectly apart of the

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emo subculture. We as individuals, are criticizing a subculture that we engagein. We assert the fact that we hate anything "emo" when it is clearly evidentthrough music billboards, the fashion of teenagers and television that "emo" isin. As much as we deny it, the teenage society of today is a big fan of the emosubculture.