# Why do people become emo?



## 2Milk (Oct 29, 2014)

Why do some people (specially during their teen years) become emo? 

I used to have the biggest crush on emo girls. They looked so good with their dark clothes, dark hair, and shirts with skulls on them. 

What is emo culture? Is it a culture or just a fashion statement?


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

I think a lot of people get numerous subcultures mixed up with emo not everyone who wears dark clothing is emo. I think it depends on the person too as to whether it's cultural or just clothing they like wearing.

I'm just a bit too old for emo, so for most of my teen years I was a 'goth' or 'devil worshipper' and then people started labelling me 'emo' when that became a bigger thing. I don't consider myself wholly part of any one subculture though and I never considered myself part of the emo thing at all. 

When I was quite young I liked the Beetlejuice cartoon so I guess that was the start. I had this doll whose torso was made out of this white stuffed fabric and I used felttips to draw Beetlejuice clothing on it. I must have been pretty young then. It was one of the first cartoons I got into and I was really obsessed with it for a while. I remember one of my aunts thought it was really weird because she'd only seen the movie (I hadn't seen it at that point.)

Oh and then when I was around 8/9 I would sometimes watch Buffy (which at the time I called Baffy until I realised) but it was on past my bedtime so I'd only occasionally get to watch it.

Then on a picnic (I swear to god, it was in the countryside on a really sunny day :')) an older girl let me and some other younger kids listen to a Marilyn Manson CD she had and I thought it was kind of cool because of all the swearing, I was probably 10ish then. I didn't become a fan of Marilyn Manson though until much later when I listened to some of his earlier music (mid teens,) I got into rock music though at about the age of 11 just general rock music different styles of it. Saw a lot of teenagers about during this time wearing darker clothing and skateboarding and stuff and I thought they looked cool as well so I took bits from like skater, punk, metal head and gothic clothing styles and merged them together.

Lol this post is hilarious but yeah there actually was a journey to being a dark clothed weirdo for me. Don't let your kids watch the Beetlejuice cartoon folks.


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## Mc Borg (Jan 4, 2008)




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## acidicwithpanic (May 14, 2014)

My Chemical Romance told them to.


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## reese444 (Dec 28, 2016)




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## CloudChaser (Nov 7, 2013)

It's mostly about obsessive individuality which is fairly common in teens, especially when you are all crammed into a school that treats you more like a number than a human.

When you speak to them they are more than happy to tell you that they label themselves as 'emo' but they are always a slightly different kind of emo from everyone else.



> Yeah I suppose I am an emo but I don't just follow everyone else, I listen to all kinds of music and I wore a pink shirt yesterday. *flips hair*


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## SFC01 (Feb 10, 2016)

smelly *******s


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## Cool Ice Dude55 (Jan 7, 2014)

Because My Chemical Romance, Myspace, and bright mis matched clothing was bae.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

You don't choose to be emo, the emo chooses to be you. 

-2000th post! I officially have no life! W0000!


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## HenDoggy (Jul 26, 2014)

I think scene hair looks stupid.


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## clarkekent (Dec 2, 2015)

Emo is an exclusively first world problem. You think people with no clothes and no food become emo?

Too much time on their hands. I'm quite emo actually.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

doe deer said:


> is emo still a thing? i thought it died with myspace


Some culd argue ur avatar looks quite emo lol


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## doe deer (Oct 9, 2016)

naes said:


> Some culd argue ur avatar looks quite emo lol


 so black = emo? logic on point


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

doe deer said:


> so black = emo? logic on point


Fine, it's just weird then. You like that comment better?


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## doe deer (Oct 9, 2016)

naes said:


> Fine, it's just weird then. You like that comment better?


 i don't really care


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## ivan91 (Jan 2, 2017)

doe deer said:


> i don't really care


but we do. this is a important subject.


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## doe deer (Oct 9, 2016)

ivan91 said:


> but we do. this is a important subject.


 of course _you_ do


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## ivan91 (Jan 2, 2017)

doe deer said:


> of course _you_ do


breakfast


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## doe deer (Oct 9, 2016)

ivan91 said:


> breakfast


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

doe deer said:


> i don't really care


You seemed to care in your previous comment. I'm glad to know you have gotten over being petty now though.


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## doe deer (Oct 9, 2016)

naes said:


> You seemed to care in your previous comment. I'm glad to know you have gotten over being petty now though.


 are you ok? as far as i know you quoted me first and i just replied. but nice to see you being rude for no reason.


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## ljubo (Jul 26, 2015)

doe deer said:


> are you ok? as far as i know you quoted me first and i just replied. but nice to see you being rude for no reason.


You are the rude one imo.

nothing wrong with being a emo. I was a emo once upon a time. Best time of my life.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

lol it's true:

'we're always told that we should be individuals, that we should be ourselves, and then if you actually do it that's a different story.'

'Hey babe, you do you, be yourself, be who you wanna be. Wait no, not like that!'


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

doe deer said:


> are you ok? as far as i know you quoted me first and i just replied. but nice to see you being rude for no reason.


You can't be serious.


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## TheLastShy (Sep 20, 2014)

If I remember correctly it was all about being dramatic and edgy af. But I didn't see any of them recently. Maybe most of them took their lifes already? That's a really suicidal trend indeed.


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## ihatehunks (Jan 27, 2017)

Does anyone care to listen to good emo music? I can suggest some albums. The bands most of you are associating with the word really do suck but the genre offers some real gems if you care to hear them.


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## solasum (Nov 17, 2008)

Persephone The Dread said:


> lol it's true:
> 
> 'we're always told that we should be individuals, that we should be ourselves, and then if you actually do it that's a different story.'
> 
> 'Hey babe, you do you, be yourself, be who you wanna be. Wait no, not like that!'


Love Black Friday - definitely my favorite YouTuber. That's ridiculous that she got kicked out of a cemetery and was denied entrance to a museum. That only makes me want to look even more eccentric.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

solasum said:


> Love Black Friday - definitely my favorite YouTuber. That's ridiculous that she got kicked out of a cemetery and was denied entrance to a museum. That only makes me want to look even more eccentric.


Weirdly I don't follow her videos too much and the last couple I was recommended by YouTube have both been about her being chucked out of places. She went with her previous partner to a bone church somewhere else in Europe and got chucked out of there too. I can't really picture that happening in London, but I dunno, you'd think Paris would have lots of goths around though being a huge city.


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## The Library of Emma (Mar 3, 2016)

In a parallel universe i think i would be emo.

i already listen to some of the music, wear dark colors, and value individuality and creativity.

the one thing i am hesitant to do is dye my hair :/


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## Memory (Mar 4, 2011)

I think some people are addicted to sadness. It's easier to wallow in self pity than to confront issues that need to be changed. It feels comfier and more familiar to be sad. Maybe they feel they don't belong, but being sad is something people can relate to, so they connect to other sad people through that.
Or maybe because mental pain is invisible, they feel the need to show it in some way, and do so through how they look.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

2Milk said:


> Why do some people (specially during their teen years) become emo?


 Because they want to? I don't know. Why do people do anything? Why do people wear hats?


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## solasum (Nov 17, 2008)

Persephone The Dread said:


> Weirdly I don't follow her videos too much and the last couple I was recommended by YouTube have both been about her being chucked out of places. She went with her previous partner to a bone church somewhere else in Europe and got chucked out of there too. I can't really picture that happening in London, but I dunno, you'd think Paris would have lots of goths around though being a huge city.


She and her now-husband were kicked out of some bone church in Prague, which doesn't surprise me too much. Yeah, England is more progressive than Czech Republic or France.


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## Valley (Jan 31, 2015)

I guess they like the style


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## CrystalGemPearl (Oct 3, 2016)

TheLastShy said:


> If I remember correctly it was all about being dramatic and edgy af. But I didn't see any of them recently. Maybe most of them took their lifes already? That's a really suicidal trend indeed.


They just evolved into hipsters.


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## Virgo (Jun 27, 2016)

I was a super emo teen. 

I wanted the hot emo guys.

Lol. I'm semi-serious about that. When I hit puberty, I was very very sexually attracted to emo guys. But of course it was the music I loved, the clothes I loved, the perfect "reflection" of my personality. Despite it being a one-sided, generic label, lollll. But I loved that, at the time. I loved getting together with other emos and being super emo together, lollllllllllll. Well, in the very rare cases I got to, anyway. I was mainly a loner tbh.... yeah... 

Teenagers want to "find" themselves and, just like someone else mentioned, they want to showcase their personalities so I think that's what that's about.

Btw I never got any hot emo guys.


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## Shredder (Apr 19, 2011)

Persephone The Dread said:


> lol it's true:
> 
> 'we're always told that we should be individuals, that we should be ourselves, and then if you actually do it that's a different story.'
> 
> 'Hey babe, you do you, be yourself, be who you wanna be. Wait no, not like that!'


At the end of the day I don't think it's about individualism... at our core, majority humans crave to fit in somewhere. It may fit outside of mediocrity but it's still following a trend or fitting into a tribe. Of course you will get a few individuals that start a trend but once it has enough momentum to have a name then it's lost its essence of individuality.

I love this clip because I love the honesty of Mr "I'm not". It's an honesty that you don't see very often.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

Shredder said:


> At the end of the day I don't think it's about individualism... at our core, majority humans crave to fit in somewhere. It may fit outside of mediocrity but it's still following a trend or fitting into a tribe. Of course you will get a few individuals that start a trend but once it has enough momentum to have a name then it's lost its essence of individuality.
> 
> I love this clip because I love the honesty of Mr "I'm not". It's an honesty that you don't see very often.


No one's a perfect individual but that clip actually proves that point tbh, he differed from the others and got told to shh.


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## Shredder (Apr 19, 2011)

Persephone The Dread said:


> No one's a perfect individual but that clip actually proves that point tbh, he differed from the others and got told to shh.


 Yup.. agreed. It's a great example of the paradox of modern individualism.


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## Greys0n (Mar 30, 2016)

I thought that emos died in 2007


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## JohnDoe26 (Jun 6, 2012)

Don't really know, but I guess they want to express the melancholy they experience in a unique and creative way. Or, they're incredibly attracted to the horror movie/occult/gothic aesthetics, so it's like they want to cosplay 24/7.


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