How emo stuff inundated the media in the mid-2000s

DonZabu

Like Shadow the Hedgehog, the second Prince of Persia, and Spider-Man's haircut.

Any other examples to add to the pile?

Malkavian

The first two I wouldn't call emo, so much as Grimdark. Spider-man 3 was just grabbing popular fashion at the time.

I see those as the inception of what the nineties were for comics with things like God of War and Gears of War also being a part of it. We're not quite out, but we're getting there.

Bee

Yeah, Warrior Within doesn't count as emo on account of having the emotional depth of a shot glass.

My example though would be my college dorm mate.  Nice guy, but good LORD he had bad taste in music.

MadassAlex

Dunno about media, but the Nietzsche misinterpretations were pretty amusing and self-congratulatory in retrospect. 

Actually, I do know about media. There was the whole conflict between teenaged Emo fans and metalheads, which I waded into with relish at my relatively newfound shreddy identity. In retrospect, it was dumb, but I don't really regret it because so was Emo. In fact, Emo always struck me as a trivialisation of actual behavioural disorders like genuine depression, but I can't fault it too much. People, and teenagers are technically people, just tend to join together in groups with people that validate their feelings and perspectives.

Emo is like the ultimate middle class blues session. They've got nothing particularly to be worried about, but, being human, can't escape periods of grief or general sadness. Whereas the working classes found musical outlets for this through rock, metal, punk and grunge, Emo was the youth of the middle class telling the somewhat less advantaged that it felt the same way -- and no-one with less privilege wants to be told that someone much wealthier than them knows that feel, bro. It's no wonder traditionalist branches of rock rejected Emo, and the difference shows in the presentation. Classic rock, metal, punk and grunge have a working class outlook that's a part of the dress style. It's all practical, reasonably tough clothing that can survive getting knocked around a bit. But Emo was expensive. One has to maintain their hair the right way and wear very particular items of clothing that didn't cross over with practical tasks. Black dyed, straightened hair was the norm. 

This obviously didn't sit particularly well with traditionalist branches of fans, who could find unification in their collective shagginess and fondness for drinking one's sorrows away, be that over beer, whiskey, vodka, rum or -- if you had a particular taste for Manowar -- mead. 

Emo also broke away musically. Grunge was doom metal after it had slept with punk for six months running. Rock was the blues as white folk liked it. Metal was rock's younger, more volatile sibling. So was punk, except punk would do things while metal was busy preparing. Emo was clean, crisp and didn't seem to go to the effort. Where rock was variable, metal was technical, punk was by and large completely unhinged and grunge was going "chill, bro" and doing a little bit of everything during its best moments, Emo was all the simplicity and power chords of punk without the fury and self-assertion. To a traditionalist, it seemed to glorify giving in to misery and giving up the fight against oneself.

I guess, what I'm saying here, is that Emo appeared to be a musically lazy pseudo-movement geared towards middle class kids who tried to find rationalisations for their occasional misery when occasional misery is pretty much just human. That said, when this was at its peak, I didn't have the capacity or information to express this with any clarity. 

But now the enemy is hipster or post-hipster or whatever fuck postmodernism mang. 

MadassAlex

Oh goodness, I wrote an essay again. 

Morven

Besides, Emo just stole the mood and style from Goth, stuck it on shittier music, and packaged it all commercial for middle-class woe-is-me kids.

Granted, as an old-school Goth, I would think badly of it ...

Goth had a bit more of a "fuck-you" embedded in its wangst, I'll say.  A bit more of those post-punk roots.  And Goths weren't well off.  They just spent every penny they didn't spend on booze on music and the outfit.

Whale

I read an article on the BBC website in 2008 that said that at the top of an Economic cycle things tend to get darker and at the bottom of one, things tend to be lighter because we all need a pick me up

MadassAlex

I've oft thought that the further away from hardship we get, the more we tend to seek out representations of it. Most first world people never experience real violence, but you wouldn't know it from looking at our media. 

MillerCross

>fuck postmodernism

Alex confirmed for antiposmofag. Forever shunned

MadassAlex

I'm tellin' ya, the 1390s are comin' back. 

MillerCross

we shall fight it at the bay, then. 

DonZabu

As a side note, the lead singer of Fall Out Boy's solo career is hilarious:

(Wait till 2:55)

ClockworkUniverse

Moved to the Media category.

All Nines

^^ Oh God.