Preview

Emo Subculture

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
766 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Emo Subculture
The Sensitive Subculture
A skinny white boy dressed with long black hair, a tight-fitting vintage t-shirt, a pair of torn black skinny jeans and checkerboard converse sneakers walks on stage, strums his skull-covered guitar and sings. Emo is a subculture that heavily relies on emotion, mostly sadness and depression, and takes the emotions to an extreme; emo is short for emotional hardcore. The people in the emo subculture focus on emotion because they do not want to conform to the laid-back popular culture. They express their emotion through a unique music genre, fashion, and a melodramatic attitude in order to distance themselves from the common pop culture.
The emo subculture originated from a style of music that mainly focuses on expressing man’s emotions through lyrics about love, anger, and hurt. The music genre conveys women as sexual muses, victimizing the man. While the music of the pop culture welcomes and encourages women sexuality, emo music has made women the origin of emotional pain for men, depicting them as “heartbreakers.” The music also creates messages about emos feeling isolated. For instance, the image of the album cover for the emo band, silverstein, shows a boy with long hair, wearing tight jeans, sitting alone, and weeping. In their album, Silverstein sings about, love, anger, hurt, and isolation, so the album cover reflects what the music in the album is about. Along with love, anger and hurt, emo music also sings about violence. Blood, kill, dead, hate, and pain are some common lyrics that are used in emo music and are usually directly related to women. The lyrics suggest that women cause pain for men; however, in the common pop culture, men are the ones who are inflicting pain on women. The emo subculture breaks away from this by reversing it. This rebellion is expressed through the emotional music and lyrics of the emo subculture.
Along with music, the emo subculture expresses their emotion through a unique recessive fashion. The

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Eberstadt presents the parental agenda’s question regarding the influence of today’s popular music on teenagers. She states that recent studies and articles have invested time and concern in connecting contemporary music to possible violence, citing an incident in 2000 where multiple associations teamed up to present a statement on violent entertainment and its affect on children to Congress. She then turns the question around to ask her own for society. Eberstadt wants to know why American teenagers are attracted to the music of today and what it says about them. She uses rapper Eminem to find the answer.…

    • 403 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Music is much like the ocean. The ocean waves transport products across continents; and, for many, it is a source of relaxation and comfort. Music spreads ideas across populations and is an outlet for strong emotions. Although the ocean and music have positive effects on society, both the ocean with its tsunamis and hurricanes and music with controversial, dark messages can be destructive to small towns and young people. Music influences us in our daily lives. Our actions, thoughts, and emotions can all be affected by the music we listen to, therefore one should be mindful of their exposure to potentially corrupting music. In their song “The Middle,” Jimmy Eat World encourages positive thinking about a person’s self image and actions,…

    • 142 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout the years many methods have been utilized in making a macroscopic analysis of the youth of America. Traditionally, when using music to make this analysis, the overall influence of pop music on adolescents and children would be examined. Mary Eberstadt flips this logic around and asks the question: "What is it about today's music, violent and disgusting though it may be, that resonates with so many American kids?" By answering this question, Eberstadt hopes to not to learn what music "does" to adolescents, but rather what music can "tell" about them. Is it possible that today's pop music can be used as a lens to glimpse into the lives of today's youth? Eberstadt finds her evidence through examining many of the lyrics…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The concept of masculinity has been around for hundreds of years. There have been many studies and theories that have derived from this idea of masculinity and recently these theories have been applied to music as a link to masculinity. ‘Freud’s concept of phallocentrism is embodied in Rock Music as the guitar can be seen to be phallic symbol, a symbol of dominance and power,’ something that men of today, and centuries before today have strived to have.…

    • 1705 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sex Pistols Analysis

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Punk rock was a message to society that all was not well and all were not equal. And this appealed to people as they could connect and relate to the music. Thus turning to the music as an outlet for their anger. Punk subculture then became a new way of life. The people in it worshipped nihilism as the protest that it was easier to swallow nihilism than face the truth.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Lee Research Paper

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages

    My friend John Le, who I have known since high school, always enjoyed heavy metal music even though everyone else in our friend group enjoyed more traditional teenage music genres, such as hip-hop, R&B, and pop. His music choices alienated him somewhat from the rest of us and lead to many arguments between him and myself on the merits of the heavy metal genre, which works out perfectly because I chose to interview him due to this genuine interest in the experiences that shaped his adoration of heavy metal music. In this essay, my interview with John Le reveals that his fascination with heavy metal music stems from a desire for a genre to express emotional mood shifts and rebellion from the traditional rigid constraints (as well as expectations)…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On a research done by doctor Craig A. Anderson and Nicholas L. Carnagey states that music with violent lyrics increases violence thoughts and it effects is related to aggressive lyrics. The author states that according to a report in MVC by Robert, Christenson, and Gentile about twenty present of males and sixty percent of females that are fans of heavy metal rock have tried to kill or harm themselves. According to the author’s periodical, each music s is carried by its sound instead by its lyrics that can create a profound effect. In the case of heavy metal music, the sound can signal an aggressive plan. The author states that individuals that criticize heavy rock stars have strengthen the power of impulse; increase rebellion, anger and other negative effect on young people. The author states that rock is basically not meant for participation, instead it is intended for expressing the exaggeration drama ego of the artist. Mr. Duke identifies what young individual…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Music - Ethos and Pathos

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Pathos: The emotions that are really being played on the most are anger. People have so much anger when they can not understand the world or what is going on in it. The audience becomes furious to all the killing and death in the world and they need someone there to sympathize with them. Anti-Flag gets the listener angry by exposing the faults of the world. The listener appreciates this because Anti-Flag will not sell into the wrongs of the world. It uses the emotion of finding comfort in that there is someone else out there that has the same views as the listener does. The band uses punk rock music as a common ground with the listeners and expresses their views through their songs. This relates back to the author because this is a great way to protest through music. To the audience is the punk rock community who will not conform to society if their beliefs are strong enough. This relates to the purpose of creating an anger to go out into the world and make the people's voice heard. It all ties back together for the common goal of standing up for one's beliefs and not buying into the…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I have chosen to research this song and video as they are the embodiment of the sub-culture that is the main target audience for the 'emocore' genre. This song seemingly calls out to those who are sick and tired of being told to conform to societal norms, either by their parents or peers. This is a very 'emo' message to convey, as the target audience of emotionally troubled teens feel that they can relate to it in that they feel those around them try to force them into normality, not allowing them to express their emotional side. This song allows for the conveyance of those emotions in a very powerful manner, with the singer verging on screaming the lyrics in the chorus, which is a popular feature of heavier 'emocore' music. This idea is very much reflected in the lyrics with talk of expectations and 'pressure', also with the singer wanting to be 'more like me and less like you'. The lyrical style is very personal; reading almost as if it is a letter to a parent or peer who the sender is trying to break away from.…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Modern Day Goth Subculture

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages

    First of all, lets dive into what a subculture is exactly. Well, subcultures are norms different from the majority, and are managed by a social group within a wider society. Each Individual subculture has its own unique set of characteristics making it distinguishable from the other subcultures, but together, they still operate as a whole striving for the same overall goals. Now that the definition of what it is to be a subculture has been covered, a particularly type of subculture is going to be discussed. An example of a subculture is a Goth. Now what is a Goth subculture? Well, the modern day Goths began as a subculture in the early 1980s in the United Kingdom, they came out of the punk rock subculture itself. In the late 1970s there was…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being particularly emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or fearful. The term ‘Emo’ is a slang term known to be short for emotional. The term emo originally referred to a type of music that was similar to punk but over time turned into a pragmatic lifestyle pop with emotional lyrics that expresses feelings such as love, compassion, and anger.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Misogyny in Country Music

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages

    According to Amnesty International, misogyny in the lyrics of popular music is one powerful factor contributing to violence against women in society today. However, contrary to the stereotypical belief that misogyny is restricted to blatant and degrading language in the genres of rap, hip-hop, and rock, subtle forms of the issue also occur in…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Youth Subculture

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Subcultures are seen as groups which have traditionally occupied an underground or marginal status in society. Subculture can be identified as a set of cultural arrays of behaviour conceded by a segment of the population in one country. This paper seeks to answer the question of whether subculture is relevant to understanding the youth in contemporary British Society. It will look at two theoretical studies around the youth subculture and how they were perceived and their criticism. In an attempt to answer the question, this will look back in time where subculture as a concept was first envisaged and how it was presented and if it was relevant to understanding youth then and use that to access how youth subculture is perceived in contemporary…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teenage emos are perceived as being a dark, attention seeking individuals, but are actually complex, vivid characters. Stereotypes consists of categorizing a group of people by exaggerating the truth in order to paint a mental picture of what the group is believed to be. A misconception is an incorrect opinion based on misunderstood information involving a group of individuals. Stereotypes are due to a small select individuals who develop an assumption, in which the assumption spreads to others of a similar mindset and continue to be passed around. The use of misconceptions is widely accepted due to the teachings given that influence the untruthful categorizing. Stereotypes and misconceptions are used in order to be accepted into society by…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Teen subculture experiences can also bond diverse people together and help them understand one another. Another example of being brought together due to common interests, the “grunge” subculture brought students together that commonly appreciated similar music and art. For those that were artists, art classes often brought numerous subcultures together and thus bonds were formed through the common…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays