MGUK: IS EMO COMING BACK?
This article was written for Music Geeks UK Issue 2. Read the full issue here.
Artwork by Bethany Stelling
Black skinny jeans. Eyeliner. My Chemical Romance. And a too-long fringe that you can never see through. These are the building blocks of what makes an Emo.
Admittedly, Emo is a mixed bag of a genre. It evolved from the mid-1980s Hardcore Punk movement and the mid-1990s Grunge movement, and has often been compared to other subcultures like Goth and Scene, much to each selective group’s resentment. Add on the fact that bands that were popular with Emos (such as Papa Roach and the Killers) refused to even consider themselves Emo, and what makes something “Truly Emo” suddenly becomes hard to pinpoint. For example, to me in 2008, Emo meant wearing my “edgy” black and charcoal-grey High School Musical hoodie while listening to Secondhand Serenade on repeat.
As I imagine is the case for many past Emos, looking back on that time in the 2000s evokes emotions ranging from bemused fondness to full-on regret. But if one peruses TikTok, they’d see that kids today hold a different opinion. TikTok-ers, particularly ones known as “E-Boys,” now post outfits that one would spot at a Linkin Park concert. We can see crazy coloured hair, chain chokers, extreme eyeliner, and pleas from teenagers set to a Three Days Grace song, asking desperately, “Can we please go back to that time?”
So that begs the titular question: Is Emo coming back?
There has been a debate on whether these newbies are “True Emos,” or if this is just another case of kids feeling nostalgic for a time before them. There’s also discourse within the TikTok Emo community itself, of whether or not E-Kids “count,” similarly to the Scene/Goth/Emo issue of years prior. But as previously stated, “True Emo” is hard to pinpoint. The question of whether or not current teenagers are adopting Emo fully doesn’t have a straightforward answer, nor should it.
Because in some ways Emo has always been a factor of youth culture. Disregarding Emo’s predecessors, emotionality, especially angst, can be seen in many popular subcultures over the past decade alone. We can see it in the Tumblr Sad Girls of 2013 who listened to Lana Del Rey and Lorde. We can see it in the minor key covers of songs that became extremely popular on YouTube a few years later. And now, we see it on TikTok in the Emo resurgence. Music has always evolved to capture a significant type of melancholy within the youth. Emo just seems to be the most visually striking of it all. And the fact that TikTok is such a powerful medium, in that it is able to showcase both visuals and music, makes it perfect for such a subculture.
And while we all seem to love making fun of teenagers for their music, their clothes, and their feelings, which Emo encompasses to an iconic degree, thankfully the majority of the adult internet is letting this happen. Yes, there’s the odd Tweet infused with horror at how something we found cringey in our childhood is now cool, but in the wake of the past few years, Emo is hardly something to be dismissive of. In fact, I say we should welcome it.
Being a teenager is hard. It always has been. You’re experiencing everything that’s emotionally difficult for the first time, you have very little control over your own life, and hormones are using all of their power to make you miserable. But things seem even harder for kids nowadays. In the wake of social media, bad news is shoved in your face at a constant rate, with little sign of things getting better. Kids have been stuck inside for the past year, unable to actually live like teenagers. So it makes sense that they would become interested in a culture that validates feelings of isolation and anguish. I too would be listening to “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence on repeat.
So I say that if this apparent resurgence is a way for kids to have fun and express their emotions in a healthy way, then let them have their piercings and chained belts. I’ll keep sweeping my still too-long fringe out of my eyes in honour of them all.