2000’s Emo: A Subculture in Nostalgia - CULTURETAP

“Emo”, a shorthand for the word “emotional”, is a slang word used to describe fans of emo music, a genre influenced by mixes of punk, rock, nu-metal, and post-hardcore acts. This group of fans reached a peak of popularity in the first decade of the new century, evolving into a culture beyond music and exploring themes of rebellion and emotionality. Some groups refer to the 90’s-2000’s era of emo as the “emo revival”, as this was not the first time in history that individuals had identified themselves as emo. However, for the sake of identifying its popularity and focus of analysis (and the fact that I personally was a part of the 2000’s version), the word “emo” will refer generally to this time period going forward, excluding anything prior to the 1990’s. This autoethnography will be supported by Dick Hebdige’s reading on subcultures, which affirm how the emo subculture was born, developed and eventually neutralized into greater culture.

To begin, (arguably) the cornerstone of emo subculture in the 2000’s will be discussed: emo music. In the case of the popular music industry at the time, hegemonic ideas were reflected in its “top 40” artists, like The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, The Pussycat Dolls, and acts that lingered from their peak in the 90’s, such as The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. The products these artists released reflected dominant ideologies of the time; many of the most popular artists built their songwriting and image on themes of brand recognition, sexual freedom, and general party culture. R&B and rap influences were popular, but not necessarily the norm, as the top artists of this time period were still “pop princesses” such as Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera. What is interesting to note about emo music and culture at this time is that it still had room to fit into these same charts; bands such as Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance saw significant fiscal success and charted on the Billboard Hot 100 list, yet the intention of the subculture itself was to break away from the songwriting trends of the time. Emo music, in essence, was still “popular”, but still unpopular enough to be considered rebellious - not just towards authorities in institutions (a significant amount of emos were teenagers and young adults, so this might include school, parents, governments, etc.) but also towards their musical contemporaries that emos saw as more shallow. Emo was supposed to feel tremendously authentic and non-corporate, embracing behavioural and aesthetic oddities and rejecting pop music and culture. Language was used to gate-keep what was “too mainstream”, “not emo enough” or “too normie” (normal) to be allowed into emo discourses.

Like the punk subculture that Hebdige discusses in his work, emo culture is not entirely dependent on the music it identifies with. Emos were, and in some ways still are, marked by specific means of dress; essentials include dyed hair (usually either black, bright unnatural colors, or a mix) exaggerated plastic jewellery, black clothing - t-shirts featuring one’s favourite bands were essential - and either black boots (usually for girls and women) or Vans/Converse sneakers (usually for boys and men or are gender-neutral). This was the most popular aesthetic, however it is important to note that there was much contention about what fit into the “emo aesthetic” at the time. Some argued that brightly coloured hair, for example, was more reflective of the “scene” culture, a similar subculture that can best be described as emo in combination with EDM influences and an emphasis on Internet culture (individuals in this community were infamous for their exaggerated means of text messaging, such as by typing “OMG” as “OH-EM-GEE”). “Scene kids” were often mistaken for emos, but scene kids distinguished themselves with black and neon coloured clothing, hair that was more massively sculpted, and more of a focus on positivity and cutesy elements. The mixup between scene and emo may have also been due to the fact that both groups made the social media website MySpace almost exclusive grounds for finding community outside of their hometowns.

From left to right: examples of scene, emo, and goth outfits.

Geographically, emos are generally based in North America, specifically the U.S.A, as that is where most emo bands and acts come from. This is, of course, not a hard rule, but it is worth mentioning since other subgenres of emo were born out of specific locations in the United States, such as midwest emo, which first emerged in the late 1990’s. It was marked by its popular emo scene in said part of the country, as well as a shift towards less “hardcore” or harsh vocal stylings and guitar riffs, as well as more casual, “normalized” dress.

Hebdige states the following of how dominant ideology deals with the threat of subculture: “Two basic strategies have been evolved for dealing with this threat. First, the Other can be trivialized, naturalized, domesticated. Here, the difference is simply denied…Alternatively, the Other can be transformed into meaningless exotica, a ‘pure object, a spectacle, a clown’.” (Hebdige, pp. 133). I would argue that both of these strategies have been implemented in regard to emo music and culture. The aforementioned denial of difference was demonstrated in emo music’s neutralization as its own section of pop music during the 2000’s. Music videos by Jimmy Eat World, Paramore, and Dashboard Confessional (prominent emo bands of the time) were shown in succession with Destiny’s Child and Kelly Clarkson on MTV - because these bands had the popularity in numbers, companies could justify neutralizing them into pop contexts. This is also demonstrated through genre categorizations that emo tends to overlap with (or get confused for), such as pop-rock and pop-punk. Simultaneously, however, emo music did not often (if ever) reach the same popularity as its pop contemporaries or earn as many of the same accolades, such as Grammys. This is an example of the trivialization Hebdige discusses in his piece, as well as the second principle he outlines regarding “transforming the Other into meaningless exotica” (Hebdige, pp. 133). Emo music, with all its dramatics, was criticized as being one-note, annoying, or outright corny. That is not to say that pop music and mainstream pop culture did not receive similar criticisms, but the viewing of emo culture as a passing fad certainly contributed to its decline in popularity and synthesis into other, arguably more socially palatable aesthetics, such as the e-girl/e-boy, hipster, and nu-goth. In fact, Hebdige says of the punk movement of the 1970’s: “[Articles about punks culture in the mainstream] served to minimize the Otherness so stridently proclaimed in punk style, and defined the subculture in precisely those terms which it sought most vehemently to resist and deny” (Hebdige, pp. 133). In this way, one could argue that emo became a kind of new punk. Although emos of the 2000’s so persistently rejected authority and social “normality”, those same individuals became less “othered”, so much so that aspects of emo culture make their way into modern hegemonic ideas. Hegemony, of course, refers to the situation of “total social authority” held by specific groups, not by coercion or the direct forcing of ideas, but by shaping consent and how it is viewed so that subordinate groups view it as normal (Hebdige, pp. 129). Authoritative groups slowly (and perhaps unintentionally) acquired consent from emo culture to be neutralized into dominant ideology. Just because the decade that this subculture was most known for has passed, it does not mean that it suddenly died - rather, it organized itself into other aesthetics and genres, as discussed above.

In summation, emo both as a subculture and a genre of music has become naturalized into pop culture in a way that mirrors Hebdige’s analysis of punk subculture. Through concepts of hegemony, Otherness, and subcultures as a categorization, it has been demonstrated precisely how emo persists in modern contexts - through means accepted by socially authoritative groups.

References

Hebdige, Dick. “Subculture: The Unnatural Break.”

@iizzyy123. Scene vs. Emo vs. Goth Outfit. Pinterest, unknown date, https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/25543922876509419/. Accessed 31 October 2022.

This essay was initially written for WRI310H5F - Social and Professional Languages during the Fall 2023 semester at the University of Toronto, Mississauga.