Subcultures and subcultural theory was first recognized in a scholarly manner within the 1920s, defined in more recent times as groups of people that in one or more ways represent the non-normative and/or marginal styles and aesthetics in comparison to their peers. This is shown in great depths in Emotive Hardcore culture, more commonly known as the Emo subculture. The Emo subculture is thought to have come out of the United States, specifically from Washington D.C. The core concepts and attributes for the formation of a subculture, as well as the traits that allow for a distinguishable subculture from the general public, such as style, language, ideology, behaviour, and music, are all attributable to and within the Emo community, classifying it as a subculture rather than a hobby or interest group.
THE EMERGENCY OF EMOCORE
Emo or Emocore, known for its loud and expressive lyrics and instrumentals that began within the 1980s, largely credited the emergence of ‘Rite of Passage’ a punk band that is widely acknowledged to kickstart the idea of Emocore music, a subgenre of Punk music. Rite of Passage provided the punk youth of the time with a dynamic and refreshing taste of anti-mainstream music and on a more broad aspect an anti-mainstream culture, which eventuated into what we know now as Emos.
The creation of Emotion core music and its evolution into the stylistic youth subculture shows the integral aspects within the subculture like music is. These elements of the subculture allow for connection of the members to create a sense of unity, even in a culture such as Emo where it can be vastly different place to place and person to person. The beginning of this subculture within bound of underground music gives a sense of identity formation to those involved at the time- as the Emo identity had yet to be conceptualised officially or popularised.
EMO MUSIC AND LYRICS
This genre of music began as an offshoot of Punk, with a focus on lyrics to “offer an environment for the suffering individual to begin to think about and… describe their pain” (Anastasi, 2005), this music can also provide a sense that there is hope for themselves, the stories of the performing artists struggles relates back to them and gives them hope for their futures. Emo music, like most subcultures and its elements, were born from underground venues, where being at odds with mainstream society was the cool (Burt, 2010).
The music is conceptualised with the idea that emotions of vulnerability in relation to adolescence are the main focus (Bailey, 2005) and 2 this is perhaps why its appeal is so widespread to so many youths. For many youths involved within the community as it allows for “adolescence [to] share their experiences about their world” (Bailey, 2005) and allows for their feelings to be expressed in an environment that embraces it rather than rejects it. Through this, a sense of belonging and community can be created for youth that may otherwise feel alienated from peers their own age.
Other and Emo Ideology
The Emo subculture is defined by the concept of ‘other’ or differential. . Many of the members of the Emo community are also a part of other communities such as the LGBT community, which in itself is an act of resistance. Men, in particular, can be visibly seen defying society through dress and in extension ideology, many Emo males tend to embrace a ‘post-1980s androgynous’ (Peters, 2010), and can be described as a mix of skater boy meets hyper-stylised punk (Peters,2010).
Participants within the Emo subculture ‘will reveal a necessary blurring of gender’ (Peters, 2010) and describe themselves as people who are more lenient to androgynous as a personal identity as well as an aesthetic. While the physical appearance is essential to the authorisation of themselves from other young people in society it is the ideology attached to the dress style that set it in stone. Young men within the emo community tend to reject the common masculine dress type for most boys and embrace a more feminine style, wear articles of female clothing to solidify this.
By someone committing to the standout and others ideology, it allows for a sense of authenticity to be used when describing them as they are seen t have fully embraced the culture, and to be authentic emo, as well as embracing what the young individual may believe to be their authentic selves.
EMO AESTHETIC
Style is a key aspect within the emo community and contributes greatly to both a personal identity and a group identity. Due to the fact that the things involved in the style are both communal and personal elements to dress. things such as the side-swept hair (as pictured above) and the certain types of bracelets create an individual sense of identity through “shared costume marking their membership in a subculture” (Clarke, Marshall, House, Lantz, 2011). Discussion on the style within the community focuses on the overall look and uses key concepts or items such as the “aestheticisation of inner pain” (Mortara & Ironico, 2013).
By participating in a shared aesthetic, it allows for an individual to create a sense of socialised identity, visually showing it through dress, and within the emo subculture, the youth participants are strikingly different looking to those who may be their age but not a participant in the subculture. Through the strong ties of social identity that form between participants of the culture and due to the fact that the dress style is so unlike anything that many people in society would consider ‘normal’, many participants borderline gatekeep the subcultures dress style.
Connection Within Dress
Style and the Emo culture are as entwined as the sun and the sky. It’s a point of connection for many and posts in discussion forums such as Quora or Reddit highlight this. Kauffmann in the Quora post, detailing the specifics of Emo style, such as the “scene hair” (Quora,2019), detailing the types of makeup used and how to apply, as well as accessorising and clothing, along with a colour pallet to stick to, of mostly dark colours as “colour.. isn’t really emo” (Quora, 2019).
Popular trends within the community focus on accessorising things that are symbolic of “love, death, and grief of tears, blood and broken hearts”(Mortara & Ironico, 2013). These ideas and items are commonplace within Emo culture but not essential to the style or aesthetic of the culture, as discussed by the Quora contributor these things and ways of presenting yourself may not suit your personal likes and there is a variation amongst all members of the subculture (Quora, 2013), similarly to punk culture, Emo.
Style is also an outward way for members of these communities to give themselves a sense of identity, where other subcultures and communities may not be able to. While being part of a subculture is a social experience, it does have significant individualised effects, especially when first entering a subculture like emo’s who are starkly different from what one may be used to.
EMO EVENT
Both older and younger members of the Emo community attend these events such as EMO NITE as a way to socialise and share their love for Emo music and culture. These events, along with many events within the subculture are centred around music and shred love for it. Through these events, symbolic interactionism is at its most prominent. Symbolic interactionism is based on the principle that a social network is constructed through mundane gatherings of people (Del CasinoJr & Thein, 2020) , and it's a given that congregations such as EMO NITE are far from mundane, the principle still follows.
The symbolic interactionism created through events such as Emo nite or Emo themed club nights the attendees — almost always participants within the Emo community- create a generalised understanding and “constitutes symbolic and shared meanings” (Del CasinoJr & Thein, 2020) of capital relevant to the subculture, being items, ideologies or music.
ZINES AND MAGAZINES
Zines, characterised by the smaller sized publications, usual photocopies of handmade pamphlets by people in the subculture, for others in the culture as a means to share trends, ideas and sometimes political ideologies between the young people as well, due to the nature of zines being made for people within a subculture by others in that same subculture it possesses subcultural capital. Subcultural capital is the concept that involves group hierarchies that distinguish high-status insiders from low status ones. People participating in Emo culture are more inclined to accept you if you are ‘a real Emo’, specifically someone who understands and embraces the subcultural importance of certain items, as opposed to someone who is only in it cause a certain style may be trendy. Zines are the ideal example of this, as to get ahold of a real zine, you are usually required to be an active participant and in the know for that particular subculture.
Race and Ethnicity within the Emo Community
It is no doubt that the Emo community is predominantly white. The discussion of ethnic minorities within many subcultures, including emocore, has been discussed by black people of white a while now. the reasons for low non-anglo youth participation in these cultures, many minorities within the emo community feeling out of place in both their subcultural communities as well as their real, societal communities, wrote Eternity Martis — 14 at the height of her participation in the Emo subcultures, and black. the ways that race and subculture intersect is vast among ethnicities and across subcultures, within the Emo community the lower ethnic numbers could be due to the emphasis on paleness, in reference to death, but inadvertently excluding minorities of different skin colour.
BEING POOR AND EMO — class and rebellion
Despite youth being targeted with capitalistic commodification of the Emo subculture and its elements, there will always be an aspect of the Emo subculture that rises out of having to work with what you have, due to financial troubles or simply a lack of access to money. Within the emo subculture, ‘true’ Emo’s hold an emphasis on budget-friendly ways to express their styles and thoughts, and this is due to two reasons. one of the reasoning being it feeds into the ‘others ideology and aspect of the culture- to be different- but the other, suggested by Albert Cohen is a theory that suggests in a group of youth - such as Emo- that are popular with or have come out of working-class and lower working-class areas hold resentment to money and people with it due to their lower-class status and this leads to rejection of norms as well as rebellion interpreted as criminal or cultural (Cohen, 1955).
IT'S NOT A PHASE
A common response from parents to their teens when they begin participating in outwardly ‘extreme’ subcultures is ‘it's just a phase’, but as shown by many young people — including the girl in this TikTok — it is not a phase at all. Being told by those closest to you can bring more harm than good in many ways to the person. Being told, in between the lines that your identity is not valid due to it being a ‘phase’ can make a young person question what makes them, them and what is a valid identity for them to have. As identity is core to who someone is this can be very troubling.
A lack or dismission of identity within a person, especially a young person who is still developing a sense of one can be detrimental, verification from others that your identity is valid is “important for the ongoing confirmation of that crucial element of reality we call identity” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966).
Sources
*note sources say accessed 28th onwards due to losing original dates when computer broke
Anastasi, Aaron P. “Adolescent Boys’ Use of Emo Music as Their Healing Lament.” Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 44, no. 3, 2005, pp. 303–319. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27512872. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.
Bailey, B. (2005). Emo Music and Youth Culture. In S. Steinberg, P. Parmar & B. Richard (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Contemporary Youth Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.693.4222&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.
Brian M. Peters (2010) Emo Gay Boys and Subculture: Postpunk Queer Youth and (Re)thinking Images of Masculinity, Journal of LGBT Youth, 7:2, 129–146, DOI: 10.1080/19361651003799817. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.
Cohen, P., 1966. Social Attitudes and Sociological Enquiry. The British Journal of Sociology, 17(4), p.341. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.
Del CasinoJr, V. and l Thien, D., n.d. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Second Edition). Accessed 28th Oct. 2021.
Mortara, A. and Ironico, S., 2013. Deconstructing Emo lifestyle and aesthetics: a netnographic research. Young Consumers, 14(4), pp.351–359. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/YC-03-2013-00355.Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.
Philippa Clarke, Victor Marshall, James House, Paula Lantz, The Social Structuring of Mental Health over the Adult Life Course: Advancing Theory in the Sociology of Aging, Social Forces, Volume 89, Issue 4, June 2011, Pages 1287–1313, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/89.4.1287. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.