Been a while...but finally an explanation of this curious term "Emo".
Emo, depending on who you talk to, stands for "emotional" or "emotive". Emo has evolved with every new generation of teenagers. You’ll hear people nonchalantly call it punk, and that's definitely where it came from – but it’s important to clarify the difference between the punk and the emo kid.
Punk: Gives mainstream the middle finger. It's all about DIY (Doing It Yourself). Becomes a walking contradiction once people find out about it. Gather together in essence to fight and protect each other.
Emo: Tend to keep away from the mainstream - but in a different way. It's the suburban kid that feels out of place and is looking for understanding and acceptance. Emo kids are looking for others who feel the same - "better to be together than alone".
Andy Greenwald (Spin writer, author of Nothing Feels Good) puts it best:
"Emo - or whatever you call it - doesn't happen on the stage and it doesn't happen in the diary. It happens somewhere between the two. It is the act of reaching out towards something larger to better know yourself. It's the desire to make yourself bigger by making yourself part of something bigger."
I’m a firm believer that we were/are all “emo” at some point – outsiders looking in…yearning for acceptance, yearning for others who are yearning for acceptance. You know you’ve written some lame poetry about how you caught the girl you were dating in high school kissing some other dude under the bleachers or about how you felt left out cuz you didn’t have a hypercolor t-shirt and mossimo jeans.
You were looking for some understanding and a community built around it. You were a teenager – so therefore, you were emo. Congratulations.
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