EMO KIDS… I’d laugh, if you weren’t so goddam annoying! You live in he surbs, you come from middle class families with a roof over your head and food on the table each night, yet you walk around the city, head hung low, intent of feeling sorry for yourselves. ‘Nobody knows the real me,’ ‘Why is life so hard,’ “Dear Diary, you’re the only one who understands me.’ Get real! EMO KIDS, all you need is a good swift kick in the ass.
—Smile, be happy!
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2009.
I was a heavy metal kid back in the early ’80.
Go Twisted Sister!
Please don’t hate me.
Isn’t it disconcerting the first time you open your mouth and your father’s voice comes out?
I have a couple of photo albums from my youth, Smile. And whenever I catch myself thinking along these lines, I pull out those photo albums and look at my mohawked self, sneering in contempt of everyone and everything. Then, I can put on my suite and smile at the emokids and hip hop kids and scene kids I pass on my way to the office, secure in the knowlege that there really is nothing new under the sun.
I was a peace-sign flashing hippy way back in the Stoned Age – we all create personas when we’re young and full of angst. However, I cringe to think how cool I thought I was.
Thankfully, there are no 35 year old EMOS – they’ve all been prescribed Zoloft.
Isn’t it comforting to know that a whole new generation has emerged to take up the hippy banner?
Back in high school, most of the teachers and parents openly favoured the mainstream, preppy kids. The kids who weren’t openly rebellious, did their homework, didn’t do drugs, didn’t talk back, clearly had the inside track on success in life. Funny thing is, I went to my 20 year high school reunion a few years ago, and on the whole, the mainstream kids didn’t do any better or worse than the rest of us.
I went to my high school reunion and kept wondering who all those old farts were. Then I looked in a mirror and saw my mother. Reality check squared.
Debt, taxes, friends dying of cancer, econmic doom and gloom – now there are things to be emo about. No one understands you? Damn, I’d be doing a song and dance if that was all I had to worry about.
Meh, these are just kids who don’t like being called goth but like the lifestyle of complaining and thinking that world is full of conformists that are out to get them. I was kinda like this in Junior high/high school except it was grunge music. I developed a apathetic attitude to everything. This is kinda like this, but now that I’m a little bit older, I’m just gonna shake my fist and yell: “Get off my lawn, you damn kids!”
Stercus Accidit-
You’re so right. It’s just a new generation, a new way of presenting misunderstood angst. Nothing different from previous generations, just new packaging. It’s all been done before. I don’t begrudge any of them.
Dr. Fever: the reason these kids don’t like being called goth is because Emo and Goth are two different things. They may appear similar to those who don’t know the scenes, but they really aren’t.
I think when you get older you tend to get your priorities straight, but when you’re a teenager and your life is over if your parents won’t let you go to the mall on Friday night shit that’s laughable to you and I is pretty rough for them.
But, if the only thing I had to worry about is what I worried about 12 years ago shit…
I often envy my little cousins for that reason. They don’t have fuck all to worry about (but I’m sure to them they have a whole set of worries that are oh so traumatic).
And all the kids out there that don’t dress like the emo kids in public? They’re going home and thinking the same things, that no one understands them. They just put on a happier public face than the emo’s. And listen to pop music to make themselves feel better and worse all at the same time.
While I do emphasize with them, I still like to laugh at them just the same.
Where do they get those pants with all of the zippers and straps and shit, anyway?
Let them be what they want, they will grow out of it. I was a baggy pant, grunge shirt wearin’ freak back in high school; I now love wearing high heels and a comfortable summer dress….oh my how things change 15 years later!
indeed. look back at pics of you around that age….
it shall come to pass.
JS— what’s so different? Both whiny, mostly feel that the world will never understand them, both want to be “non-conformist” (although little do they realize that as sub-culture/pop culture, it is conformity, as they have a “uniform”) . The only initial difference I see is that one listens to Death Metal and the others listen to Emo.
Cranky: Hot Topic.
Emo kid heaven.
Goths don’t listen to Death Metal. They listen to Goth music, like Dead Can Dance, Lycia or Black Tape for a Blue Girl. A lot of Goths also enjoy Industrial, like Mind.In.A.Box. or VNV.
I personally have a real dislike for the whole emo scene. Even the word “emo” aggravates me a little bit. I do however agree that every teenager goes through an awkward phase and struggles with self-identity and countless other emotional issues, despite these problems seeming inconsequential to those of us no longer in our teens. Some turn to emo to “nonconform”, others try to conform as best they can. The teenage years were the best of times and the worst of times. Eventually they’ll grow up and realize that covering an entire half of your face with your jet-black bangs looks really stupid.