EMO
The music:
It's basically punk rock, except the lyrics are about emotional things rather than being a rebel. Emo is a kind of rock music which describes several independent types of music with common similar roots. Mid-tempo hardcore punk, pioneered around roughly '85 by the D.C. band Rites of Spring. It's in no relation to the pseudo-emocore/mall punk of today. Google REVOLUTION SUMMER/MID-WEST EMO for more information on the legitimate genre.
The People:
It is a label people give themselves for being apathetic and emotional to an extreme (usually miserable), but wallowing in it and not wanting it to change. They tend to feel they are misunderstood and that life is not fair to them in specific. It is in fashion with some of the group to cut themselves and wear heavy eye make-up. The hair cuts tend to have awkward sharp angles and are often glossed. Many of the guys wear very tight jeans, often women's. The girls tend to lean more towards late 70's to early 80's fashion.
It is a label people give themselves for being apathetic and emotional to an extreme (usually miserable), but wallowing in it and not wanting it to change. They tend to feel they are misunderstood and that life is not fair to them in specific. It is in fashion with some of the group to cut themselves and wear heavy eye make-up. The hair cuts tend to have awkward sharp angles and are often glossed. Many of the guys wear very tight jeans, often women's. The girls tend to lean more towards late 70's to early 80's fashion.
Taken from http://wiki.answers.com
Emo is a somewhat ambiguous slang term most frequently used to describe or refer to a fashion, style, or attitude linked to post-hardcore. Emo may also describe emo music or a general emotional state (as in to "feel emo"). It is also (sometimes pejoratively) used to identify someone who fits a particular emo stereotype or category or someone who is overly-emotional.
When referring to a person's personality and attitude, most definitions of emo hold that an emo person is emotionally candid, sensitive, shy, introverted, glum, and quiet. Depressed and broken-hearted are sometimes used to describe the emo personality. Emo music and poetry contain multiple references to unrequited love, emotional and relationship problems. Being melodramatic or overly emotional is also often associated with being emo.
By almost all current definitions, Emo clothing is characterized by tight jeans on males and females alike, long fringe (bangs) brushed to one side of the face or over one or both eyes, dyed black, straightened hair, tight t-shirts which often bear the names of rock bands (or other designed shirts), studded belts, belt buckles, canvas sneakers or skate shoes or other black shoes (often old and beaten up) and, if they wear glasses, they will often be thick, black horn-rimmed glasses. Emo fashion has changed with time; early trends included haircuts similar to those worn by the Romulans and Vulcans in Star Trek, tightly fitting sweaters, button-down shirts, and work jackets (often called gas station jackets).
In the years since emo music's rise in popularity, it has attracted severe criticism.[9] Emo has been characterized as a fad that will be discarded and forgotten in the near future.[10] Critics cast the fashion as "embarrassing," and the people as imagining or pretending that they lead harsh, painful lives when they actually live in comfortable homes.
Emo people are portrayed as melodramatic, self-pitying teenagers who pour their efforts into writing depressing poetry. Contemporary emo has been called a "sad caricature" of what it once was.
This site is intended to be a basic FAQ and primer on emo - short for "emotional." Emo is a broad title that covers a lot of different styles of emotionally-charged punk rock. This site is intended to introduce the reader to all the common styles, describe them musically, and give ideas about the essential records of all those styles. You will be an expert in emo, in the broad sense, after reading this website.
Some pointers about emo fashions (above simple, universal hardcore attire)
* the Emo Romulan look - short, thick, greasy, dyed-black hair with bangs cut straight across the forehead, and cut high over the ears. Someone from Time In Malta recently described to me the San Diego Crimson Curse scene as "Spock Rock."
* actually, any greasy dyed black hair. Bangs in front and spikes in back is very emo too.
* horn-rim glasses, or at least thick black frames.
* bald head, furry face (boys only). Goes especially well with horn-rims.
* heavy slacks, often too tight and short.
* thin, too-small polyester button-ups in dark colors, or threadbare children's size t-shirts with random slogans. Button the collar if you got one.
* clunky black shoes
* scarves
* gas station jackets. This has diffused a lot over the years though, it's no longer exclusive to emo kids. Nowadays, you may want to select a nice corduroy denim jacket.
* also classic outerwear but quickly diffusing to normality: the famous Blue Peacoat
* too-small cardigans and v-neck sweaters
* argyle
The emo jacket is a sort of work jacket that you can only find in army-navy or thrift stores. Usually in earth tones, gray, brown, maybe a navy blue with stripes. All style. The emo jacket is a product of the nineties. Popularized by the kings of cool, Nation of Ulysses and others, Antioch Arrow, Hoover
The emo jacket radiates an underlying assertion, "I'm cooler than you." It's a sublime statement of intuitive knowledge, internal hipness. It whispers, it doesn't scream. It doesn't have to."
That's right - baggy shorts are straight-edge fashion, not emo."
By Oly Polly
"Emo is not Goth, but they come from the same place "
Both goth and emo come from the same adolescent urges to rebel against convention while fitting in with their peers, combined with severe mood swings that afflict all teenagers.
Goth culture is inspired by Victorian romanticism. It deals with the mood swings by affecting a supernatural air, celebrating a kind of death-within-life like the Victorian gothic horror novels. That's where it gets its name from, despite having very little to do with the Gothic architecture where the novels were set. That gothic architecture was itself a revival of a medieval Gothic church architecture, which ultimately derives from the Goth tribes. A Visigoth or Ostrogoth would have no patience with a Goth Kid and probably whack his head off with a sword.
Emo kids insist they're not copying Goth, and both the dress and music are very similar. Both, however, wear a lot of black clothing, black makeup, black hair dye, etc. It can be very hard to tell whether a boy wearing a black leather trenchcoat, long black tresses, and enough mascara that he can barely keep his lids open is Goth or Emo.
In fact there is a lot of overlap between the two cultures because Goth is so very, very broad. An emo kid would never wear a pink frilly dress with black leather suspenders, but a Goth girl would adore the irony.
Emo kids don't get irony. The name is short for "emotional", and it's their way of dealing with the mood swings, by expressing it in maudlin songs. The songs don't SOUND maudlin, because they're very loud and filled with harsh electronic sounds. In fact, it sounds exactly like the sort of harsh, beat-driven electronica favored by the goth crowds, at least to those who aren't intimately familiar with the differences.
There in fact ARE no absolute differences, because there are no solid definitions of the two groups. They're big and amorphous. Emo kids tend to be younger (it's something you usually grow out of at the end of adolesence), while goth can keep going into the 20s. In fact, the irony can be so delicious that I've seen goths much older than that.
You include the "punk" topic, and punk is yet another manifestation of the same underlying adolescent ideas. Old punks deride goths as simply copying them, and the fashion is very similar. The music is also very similar, except that punk is mostly about traditional electric instruments and goth has a strong electronic, computer-generated element.
Punks were also much more politically outrageous, while goth and emo kids are usually apolitical because apathy is their defense against... well, whatever.
By Pam Perdue
"Emo" is not short for "Emotional." "Emo" does not mean Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional, despite what MTV has lead you to believe in the last few years. "Emo" is not sidebangs, tight pants, and male vocalists who sing like little girls about their failed relationships. "Emo" is not the use of diluted, meaningless metaphors and similes such as "My arms are like pinecones," and most definitely is not the rampant use of words such as "autumn," "heart," "knife," "bleeding," "leaves," and "razorblade." I just thought I'd clear that up after all of these "definitions" in which I have encountered an unbelievable amount of people who try to pass off their blatantly false pretenses as fact, and are slowly infecting others with their high-horse, holier-than-thou bullshit. Because honestly, with your ridiculous definitions, Beethoven, George Gershwin, and Britney Spears are/was "emo bands." Now, onto the real definition. In the early 90s there was a movement in the hardcore genre that came to be known as "Emotive Hardcore," spearheaded by Rites Of Spring. Harder-core-than-thou kids, who swore by Dischord Records a la Minor Threat, actually coined the term "Emo" as something of a put-down for the kids who really liked Rites Of Spring, Indian Summer and this new wave of "Emotive" Hardcore bands. That's right, "Emo" was once not something kids called themselves. The field exploded outwards from there - Level-Plane Records has always been the most famous Emo label.... By Chelsea
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