The musical and social importance surrounding the word ‘emo’ is arguably the most ambiguous and unexplained area of genre categorisation and sociology. Yet the subculture is one of the most prominent and prolific in modern society. Existing in scenes, members of this subculture are visually striking and recognisable by their uniform like appearance and affectations and their supposed affiliation to music categorised as emo. The ageing and expansion of the movement has adopted elements of mainstream culture and has been borrowed by mass culture for commercial purposes. And as a result the subcultural homology of emo has been blurred and consequentially emo is now a misrepresentation of the core ideals and social purposes of subcultures, where emo has become nothing more than an image.
Subcultures have traditionally existed and been sociologically defined as countercultures, therefore used to explain the values and homology of the subculture and their opposition to popular mainstream culture. And as according to Theodore Roszak, refers to the ‘more significant, visible phenomenon that reaches critical mass and persists for a period of time … [that] expresses the ethos, aspirations and dreams of a specific population during an era’. Subcultures have traditionally facilitated a historically important position in society, often as a reaction against popular culture and mainstream media. Examples of these movements include; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, Russian/Soviet and Asian countercultures. These groups broke away from traditionalist society and held continual opposition for and from conservative and/or oppressive elements of society. However more specifically, musical subcultures have historically represented successful alternatives to mainstream culture, the most prominent example being the punk movement of the mid to late 1970’s. This hereby encompassed a subcultural narrative of distinct styles of music, ideologies, fashion, visual art, dance, literature and film. Punk represented a lifestyle and was a community in which the members fought to resist the commercialisation and appropriation of popular culture.
The most commonly known and publicised period of emo is that of the third wave. Operating within the height of internet culture from 2000 and into the present, the third wave represents the transition from an underground scene to a commercially viable pawn of mainstream media, hereby facilitating the emergence of emo as a subculture. Emo became less about the music and a sense of community and began to represent an image, categorised by dark attire, styled hair, heavy eye makeup and a general sense of brooding and teenage angst. The symbology of the music was lost as genres stemmed new genres and lines became blurred. Bands typically referred to as emo transcended from Mineral to Jimmy Eat World to My Chemical Romance and the traditionally underground style found itself gaining attention from commercial media outlets such as MTV. Where in a movement which had traditionally drawn so heavily upon the ideology of DIY, bands tagged as emo were being signed to major labels such as Capitol and Warner Reprise. With time emo has mutated into a contrived and generic label in which the music of supposedly emo bands holds no cohesive linkages. This in turn has fostered the emergence of countless genres such as grindxcore, mathxcore, nintendoxcore, screamo etc; where the only similarities in existence are in the band members’ physical appearance and clothing. Understanding of the music was lost, and now found itself vulnerable to mainstream and commercial exploitation, where emo was defined by the appearances, affectations and behaviours of the scene members, and rarely by the music.
Historically the purpose of subcultures was to offer a community of belonging for individuals ostracised by mainstream society. Conservative society rejected the ideologies and social practices of individuals because they differed from those of popular culture. Whereas the current wave of emo mimics popular culture and borrows elements of mainstream media, hereby failing to demonstrate the necessary rejection of the popular and mainstream culture present in traditional subcultures. Emo represents a culture of people who find themselves ostracised from society because they want to be. The music has become obsolete and irrelevant within emo, and instead the focus is placed upon appearance. Increased media attention has cultivated the intended perception of a member of the societal movement of emo. Whereby in its own fantastic paradoxical hypocrisy members construct their appearance upon a popular mainstream understanding of emo. The movement feeds off the mainstream presumption of what they should wear, listen to and how they should behave. Consequentially nullifying the social purpose of emo as a subculture and condemning its existence as cosmetic. Therefore hypothesising that emo represents nothing more than a societal trend functioning by a set of guidelines conceived by mainstream media, dictating the way in which members should dress, socialise and behave.
Emo no longer represents a movement of people empowered by a sense of music based community; rather it represents an incorrigible counterculture of socially impeded and intolerant image obsessed fashionistas more preoccupied with their physical appearance than the music they are supposedly connected by. Hereby establishing that the mainstream hybrid of emo is a misrepresentation of the core ideals and social purposes of subcultures, therefore concluding that emo has become nothing more than a commercially viable and exploitable image.
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