Identity Crisis:
Am I Emo? Am I Hardcore?
by Nicole Gough
Issue 3, Winter/Spring 2004
In eighth grade science class, the teachers passed out sheets of blank, white paper and instructed the class to draw a picture of a scientist. Minutes later, when the drawings were complete, the teachers began to interrogate them. "How many of you drew a male?" "How many of your scientists are white?" "How many are wearing lab coats?" The point of the assignment was to explain stereotypes. Not surprisingly, the generation of music-lovers has been stereotyped also.
It seems that many of the people who attend shows and listen to the bands fit into a general description. People who support different bands dress in certain ways. The stereotypical "emo kid" dresses in tight pants, tight shirts, converse sneakers with gel bracelets and pieces of sock wrapped around their wrists. Hair is generally short on girls and fro-like or curly on boys. Many "emo kids" go out of their way to find black-rimmed rectangular glasses, and some even dig up those tight beanies to wear on their heads. I've seen this image stereotyped in many places. "The Emo Game," an online video game, lets you choose a certain person to be in order to fight against evil Dave Matthews band fans or some other kind of anti-emo person. You don't earn points; as your character dies, he loses tears, and bonus points are little red hearts you can pick up along the way. My point being that because emo music is about crying and heartbreak, it's assumed that everyone listening to it cries a lot and suffers massive amounts of heartbreak. You don't have to be heartbroken and upset to like emo music. It's music; you like it or you don't.
The best example of emo stereotype I've encountered was in a magazine I read a few months ago. There was a two-page article on "How to Dress Emo." It was stock full of pictures of emo girls and emo boys with little arrows pointing to each of their accessories; vintage shirt, tight pants, studded belt, beanie, sock, etc. They priced each one, too, and it was pretty pathetic because the cost totaled to over a hundred dollars. The whole point of vintage is to actually be vintage clothing, not the fake stuff they sell at the mall that's grossly overpriced. If you're going to wear a sock on your wrist, why spend $5 when you can just pull an old one of out the drawer and cut it up? Give me a break.
Another generalization focuses on a "harder" type of person: the "punk". People think "punk" and immediately picture a mohawk or blue, green, or yellow hair with silver beads and chains and black combat boots and studded jackets and patch pants. In fact, the saddest thing about punk is that it is completely against its nature. The word has become a misnomer for multiple reasons. When punk was first born, it was the epitome of angst and rebellion. The dictionary defines it as "A young person, especially a member of a rebellious counterculture group." The goal of a "punk" was to rebel against the system, to promote nonconformity, to be an individual and do things independently with no care for what anyone else thought. But isn't that what today's punk is not? If one can stereotype a "punk," it's an example of conformity. They all look the same. Dressing in the same fashion has destroyed the entire meaning of the word "punk."
I can go on for hours listing all of the musical stereotypes. I could go into detail about "hardcore" kids and how they should look or kids who like rap and what they should wear. The point I'm trying to make is that this whole thing is ridiculous. Music is music. It's nothing more. You don't have to dress a certain way to enjoy a certain type of music. It should have almost nothing to do with your clothes - you like music because you like the lyrics or you like the chords or you like the entire sound in general. And that should suffice. You don't need elaborate dress codes to make some kind of statement about yourself.
Just listen to the music. That's the whole point.