What does it mean when someone in grade 7 calls you an EMO?

Question

My daughter is in grade 7 and was walking down the hall in her school when some girls said 'are you trying to be an EMO?" She doesn't know what that means and neither do I. If you are in grade 7 what do you think that means?

My (step) daughter's mother past away 3 years ago and she is still having a hard time dealing with that as you can imagine.
A few weeks ago the school's Guidance councellor saw her showing some friends how she had been cutting herself and that's when some other girls called her an EMO. She only done this once, but once is more than enough, and we have since put her into therapy to deal with her grief. Could the fact that she cut herself be a reason for someone to call her that?

My (step) daughter's mother past away 3 years ago and she is still having a hard time dealing with that...as you can imagine.
A few weeks ago the school's Guidance councellor saw her showing some friends how she had cut herself and that's when some other girls called her an EMO. She has only done this once, but once is more than enough for us, and we have since put her into therapy to help her deal with her grief. So is loving the therapy and the fact that she has permission to keep secrets from us, which in this case is OK with us. Could the fact that she cut herself be a reason for someone to call her that?

Answer 1

"Emo" is a term for students who dress a certain way (dark clothes, Hot Topic), listen to certain music (Panic at the Disco, Dashboard Confessional), and are viewed as mopey or depressed

some entries from urban dictionary:

" A group of white, mostly middle-class well-off kids who find imperfections in there life and create a ridiculous, depressing melodrama around each one. They often take anti-depressants, even though the majority don't need them. They need to wake up and deal with life like everyone else instead of wallowing in their imaginary quagmire of torment."

" 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 amalgamation 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 2

I'm not in 7th grade, but I believe that this is what they might have been talking about.

Emo is a slang term used to describe a range of fashion styles and attitudes somewhat affiliated with emo music and its related scene. As an adjective, emo can describe a style of fashion or music; or a general state of unhappiness or melancholy (as in "to feel emo"). Emo is also used as a noun, often pejoratively, to identify a member of the "emo scene" or someone viewed as fitting the "emo" stereotype.

Answer 3

Emo is a slang term used to describe someone into punk music.