People at my school think I'm emo....?

Question

I'm 13, female, and I like HIM, Aiden, Armor For Sleep, Angels and Airwaves, Hawthorne Heights, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance. I wear my bangs side swept, and obviously, being a girl, wear tight pants... I've also cried in school and joked ALOT about death... does this make me "emo"?

I also listen to Linkin Park...

I'm not offended by it at all. I find it interesting. How some people call you gothic, others punk, then many emo. It's a very interesting thing for me. I don't approve of labels, but I find the story behind each one fascinating.. also each individuals definition of them.

Answer 1

the only person that can label you properly is yourself. You are your name and that is it.

Answer 2

Sounds like a normal 13-year-old. Thirteen is an ucked fup year. Fourteen can be better or worse. Eighteen is awesome, 19 incredible, and by 20 you look back in pride to see how much you've grown.

But half the point of high school is just to get through it. It's one thing to joke about death - especially if you're talking comically like the card game Paranoia (Last time I played, my character was mistaken for a giant marshmallow and roasted) - it's another to contemplate it. The philosophers have done it, true, but you can't really think rationally about death until you've learned to enjoy life.

You can be 'emo' if you want. You are whoever you wish to be.

Answer 3

"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. Acts like Yaphet Kotto, I Hate Myself, Saetia, Hot Cross, A Day In Black And White, Funeral Diner, I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, You And I, and hosts of others came in the next decade. Most emo bands have since broken up, but there's still the occasional hold-out (again, the majority of Level-Plane Records' roster has been a procession of emo acts). Like most DIY hardcore/punk of the time, a majority found its way onto vinyl and not much else. Some people consider bands like Fugazi, and later Sunny Day Real Estate, a progression of emo, but personally, I don't quite follow that philosophy.

Often, more recently, this gets intertwined with post-hardcore, and understandably so - that's nothing to make an issue of, since well ****, at least it's close.

Since the late 90s, though, bands have been emerging in the vein of Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, and the thousands of their clones. As far as I can tell, some lazy journalist somewhere, writing an article about them, decided "Well, ****, no one knows what emo is anyways, so I'll call these bands "emo" - sounds more appealing than bubblegum pop rock..." and the spiral continued downwards into the current amalgomation of bands MTV has told everyone is "emo."

Somehow, people decided that "emo" meant "emotional," which is obviously bullshit, as 99% of bands make music to illicit emotion, which would make "emotional" a completely all-encompassing genre from classical to opera to pop to rap.

Answer 4

It's okay people label me as well and I tell them to BITE ME... I'm just me,not emo, not punk, or any thing else they want to call me. I'm going to be my self no matter what they say. So i just stoped listening to them. It used to bother me, but i don't let it any more. K ... ;)

Answer 5

It's just the bands you are listening to. (Nothing wrong with them by the way I listen to them..) The bands genre is alternative rock and emo, and people base things on the music you listen to.

Answer 6

you are not an emo just because you like rock music and your own style of yourself because that is what i like but an emo is someone that cuts themself when they are feeling bad about themselfes or they will take pills so i wouldnt worry about it if it is not true.

Answer 7

Your identity is tied to the bands you listen to. That alone makes you 'emo.'

Answer 8

Not necessarily, it's all how you view yourself. Don't get caught with the classifications too much, none of it will mean ANYTHING when you get out of school.

Answer 9

The real question is who cares what they think as long as you know who you are??

Answer 10

No you're just in touch with your feelings.