Friday, November 13th , 2009

Yeah. So here's yet another late rant. This one's actually late by maybe a year or two, or at least a few months.
Allow me to semi-start off by saying that emo is at least three kinds of dead.
Just to make sure you’re up-to-date, here are those deaths in three brief acts:

ACT I:
After minor underground success through the ‘80s, emo begins to influence more commercially sellable music by the mid-’90s, and giving birth to groups like Weezer and Jimmy Eat World. In the late ‘90s, it feels a gradual rise in the now prospering “alternative” scene, and the birth of the modern emo image is born. This created fertile ground for the media, and in the early 2000s the label begins to spread over numerous unrelated artists, most of whom attempt to reject it to no avail. In a year or two, it becomes a huge fad, and most actual emo (and/or the more recent form, screamo) artists are either still underground or disbanded years ago at this point.

Emo is dead.
Exit ACT I.

ACT II:
At the height of the new ‘emo movement,’ (2004-2007) the term is applied to almost any trendy rubbish band or genre. The artists again reject the term aggressively. Nu metal, metalcore, and pop-punk bands are all screaming for their dignity as if they actually had any to begin with.
What’s more, the term’s meaning at this point is commonly thought to simply be ‘emotional.’
Everybody takes up cutting and trying to act depressed.
The homoerotic elements of the style are taken literally, and to the fullest extent.
Popular culture turns on one of its easiest targets yet, and this erupts in occasional over-publicized acts of violence.
In Britain, a group of emos protest the fact that a tabloid called them names, under the justification that hippies also held peaceful protests. Unfortunately, they failed to realize that the hippies never protested someone not liking them.
Many of the new emos espouse right-wing political beliefs in heavy contradiction to the original scene’s politics (though perfectly in line with the trends they’ve been brainwashed into).
An emo/hip-hop/everything popular offshoot, creatively dubbed “scene” is rising along the way, and you can practically see the dying pseudo-emo subculture trying to release its life force into this ‘new’ body.

Emo is dead, and its corpse is being violated mercilessly.
Exit ACT II.

ACT III:
Finally (late 2007-mid 2008), much of the craze dies down. Many former emos either feel rightfully disillusioned upon learning they weren’t actually listening to emo, though most simply blindly join the increasing emo-bashing, either leaving it or simply switching to ‘scene.’

Emo dun died while it was dead.
Exit ACT III.

So essentially, we have three acts, I think. First, it is butchered, then it is raped, then it is buried.
In spite of this, the body still twitches from time to time, and “scene” still has some people hanging on to it like it’s a real subculture.

I think I’ll continue this rant later.