Experiments in Emo
By Tim
For all of you who do not know me (and that's most everybody) my name
is Tim. I guess I could be described as a "punk rock" guy. I smoke cigarettes
and have been known to consume alcohol on occasion. I listen to classically
"punk rock" bands, and I consider myself a pretty happy go with the flow type
of person. The reason I am telling you all this is because this lifestyle of
seems to be in direct conflict with another lifestyle that is closely related
to my own. In case you don't know what I am talking about, I am talking about
the "emo" lifestyle. Now I know what you may be thinking, how could a
lifestyle be based on a style of music? Same way that lifestyles are based on
the amount of money that you have or by all those great TV shows on the WB.
I guess for those of you who are trendily challenged I should explain
what emo is. It is a style of music as well as a lifestyle that focuses on
being really really sad. The basic dress code for being emo is tight, dark
colored shirts and pants of gray or black. Now occasionally you will get a
guy who wears dark green or blue pants but they are usually of a more liberal
or rogue emo person. You also must own one of those one-strap backpacks made
popular by the Gap a few years back. It is a staple in the emo community.
There are different types of emo kids, there are the ones who are just
listening to the bands and are not "true" emo, and then there are the true
emo kids who are living to the letter of the law. These can be the "straight
edge" emo kids or just the ones who stick to the dress code, listen to the
emo bands and adhere to the sadness bylines. ("Straight edge" for those of you
who don't know is where you shun all chemical stimulants from your daily
intake of substances. But to be truly "straight edge" you should be a vegan,
not smoke, drink alcohol, consume caffeine, illicit drugs, and you as well
must abstain from sex. Now there are very few emo kids who do all of this but
the ones that do are like modern day religious hermits shunning all the
pleasures of the flesh and contemplating the tragedy that is life.) Now that
all the boring explaining is out of the way I will tell you about my day as
an emo kid.
Well, I started my transformation by going to the store and buying
some black hair dye because black hair is also a big staple of the emo
community. Then I stayed inside and out of the sun for about a week so I
could be a nice pasty white, which is yet another staple of the emo
community. I interviewed about a dozen emo kids about their habits and the
contents of their one-strap backpacks. The contents of those one-strap
backpacks had always been a mystery to me. I was beginning to think that they
were a modern day Pandora's Box but to my dismay their contents were rather
boring. The resounding theme in the one strap backpacks was a change of
clothes, some CD's, a large box of tissues, books of poetry either their own
or somebody else's, and pictures of starving children in Rwanda. Now I know
that may sound odd but, I found that the picture of the starving children was
kind of like an Alcoholic's Anonymous sponsor. Whenever the emo person feels
they are getting too happy they pull out the picture and look at it and helps
them to keep the somber mood. To finish my transformation I downloaded some
emo songs off the Internet. Printed out lots of stories, and papers off of
emo sites and dug out some dark colored clothes I had grown out of my
freshman year in high school. So I went to bed that night and woke up the
next morning an emo kid.
That next day I woke up like most emo kids do, to the thought of what
an utter debauchery my life has become. So I took a shower donned my emo
clothes and headed out the door for my emo day in the world. I made sure that
everywhere I went I listened to emo songs by bands such as Jimmy Eat World,
and Boy Sets Fire. I couldn't find a picture of starving children in Rwanda
so I used a picture from the last episode of Cheers. (C'mon people that was a
tragedy.) Anyways I went to the CD store and sat and listened to all the new
emo CD's and wrote in my poetry book about all the people that had been mean
to me in my life, and I made sure to think about all the girls who I really
liked and had never paid any attention to me. Next I went to one coffee shop
where I knew a lot of emo kids hung out. I would say there were about fifteen of
us in all but we didn't talk to each other although we all looked alike and
were all doing the same thing. We were all hunched over our poetry books
either reading or writing and trying to hold back the tears. I guess we were
just all too busy thinking about how much our life sucked to really have the
time to listen to anyone else's problems. It was also early in the day and I
don't think that the emo thing really gets started till nighttime. So to
round off my emo day I went to an emo show at a local club.
There were no big emo shows in town so I had to go to the little ones. There
I met many great emo kids and had a whole bunch of very insightful
conversations about the futility of man and the loss of our identity through
the shameless abuse of happiness. My tissue box got a big workout
that night. After that I said good-bye to all my new emo friends and headed
back to my house to absorb my emo night. I went to bed depressed and woke up
the next morning and reflected on my emo day. Here is what I came up with.
Those tight dark clothes really aren't the best wardrobe choice for
the summer. My one day as an emo kid left with a chaffed ass for a week.
Although I didn't have very much in my one-strap backpack the one strap does
not distribute the weight very well and my back was very stiff for the next
couple of days. I noticed that the constant state of sadness I was in the day
before had sucked all the energy out of my body and I just felt like sitting
on my couch and watching MASH reruns all day. My nose was chapped and my eyes
were all bloodshot from the amount of crying that I had done the day before.
I reread all the poetry that I had written from the day before that I had
thought was so poetic and saw that it was all crap. And when I looked at the
picture from the last episode of Cheers it just filled me with nostalgia for
the golden years of TV. So to all the emo kids out there, good for you. Be
sad and be proud. Not everyone can be sad all that time, it takes a lot of
work. Don't listen to all the people saying, cheer up life isn't so bad. You
keep being sad and keep wearing those one-strap backpacks but if you are
straight edge do not dare slap a cigarette out of my hand because in my
opinion that is a crime punishable by death by dismemberment. So I will say
once again be sad and hang your head down low, because if everyone in the
world was happy who would keep Kleenex Brand Kleenex in business?
--- Thoughts? Leave em here. ---
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