Emo. Short for emotional. Emo. A genre of punk rock. Emo. A dress code of tiny t-shirts and horn-rimmed glasses. Type the word "emo" into your average search engine and you'll get over three million results that will encompass nearly that many different opinions of what emo actually is. The general approach to the term is a lot like the approach to pornography, "I can't tell you exactly what it is, but I'll know it when I see (or hear) it."
The history of emo is somewhat less ambiguous than its current meaning. "Emo" music developed out of the D.C. punk scene in the '80s. In its original incarnation, emo was short for emocore, or emotional-hardcore. The name was applied to hardcore punk rock bands who distinguished themselves from their peers by adding an emotional component to their music, dealing with sadness and love and angst in their lyrics. The music was also characterized by particularly dramatic vocals which, at best, left the audience in an emotionally charged state, crying or screaming. These days, emo has been popularized and sent into the mainstream through bands like Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday and Saves the Day.
Emo music has even inspired its own subcultural style. Take your average Rites of Spring fan and you get someone who looks a lot like Weezer's Rivers Cuomo--nerdy glasses, vintage tees, cuffed jeans, Converse sneakers and slightly shrunken tops. Black hair and straight bangs, tight hoodies and thrift shop attire are also associated with emo. And while emo devotees are notoriously upfront about their feelings, instead of wearing their hearts on their sleeves, they tend to favor ironic slogans and band logos.
Lately, labeling someone as "emo" is something of a put-down, a stand-in for "overly emotional" or "melodramatic." The implication is that they are excessively moody and angsty, prone to crying jags and plagued by a love of bad poetry. Hot Topic even issued a patch that read, "cheer up, emo kid!" But for those who call themselves emo, the term means something more pure. At its core, emo is all about being upfront with your emotions. Or, as one "expert" defined it, "emo is like being Goth, but much less dark, much more Harry Potter." -- marni
