liKe oMFg thErE nOT eMO!

Abstract:
A recent posting on mtv2.com of Sunny Day Real Estate performing on 120 Minutes in 1994--http://www.subterraneanblog.com/2008/08/07/sunny-day-real-estate-in-circles-live-from-120-minutes-plus-more-tracks/--and their, by-today's-peculiar-standards, un-emo attire, caused me to write a small essay about how the self-proclaimed yet uninformed emos du jour would react to seeing this band, ostensibly influential in emo's evolution, dressed in such a way. Instead of merely talking about the already explored topic of how image can often supercede message, I mused specifically about how the emo "look" has changed in the past couple of years or so from something subtle--sweater-and-black-specs--to an aesthetic that, because of its ties to high/runway fashion, glamour, and goth, threatens to overtake the music entirely. In other words, the once separate clothing "genre" of fashioncore has become emo.

While emo used to be a label attached to individuals or bands who dressed or behaved a certain way, but one they infrequently associated with themselves, the dynamic has changed. Since fashion is all about being on display, the individuals who dress this way do it because they want to be seen as emo; they want to be trendy; they want to be unusually beautiful. In other words, the counterculture has become the popular, dominant one.




I recently discovered that MTV2.com had posted some archival footage of Sunny Day Real Estate performing on 120 Minutes. As I watched them perform "In Circles" from their classic debut Diary, I realized that most of the current culture that unabashedly calls itself emo, but has of course so logically conjoined it with romanticized acts such as murder and massacre, would laugh at the notion that this band pureveyed emo, stood for emo, or god forbid, considered themselves emo. While the band most certainly wouldn't have touted themselves as emo--that's something that bands and individuals have only recently begun to do; I'll address that shortly--many fans of the band's music would vehemently defend them not just as players of emo but among the founders.

I posted the video on a message board figuring that peers there would like to see a band with actual artistic merit performing in the kind of high-quality footage that such a major network can provide, and one of the posters made a very perceptive comment:

"Imagine the reaction from a mallcore scenester to this video would be something to the effect of 'wtf is that asshole from the foo fighters doing there. lols ew their clothes are baggy and.. not black. emo? yeah right.'"

This caused me to muse that the the current "emo" fashion has not superceded the music in the unfortunate-but-expected way that "image dwarfs message," but rather because of the way that a "look" or "aesthetic" has become a proper "fashion"--and one that by way of a symbiotic relationship with the runway, glamour world threatens to render the music superfluous if not asphysicate it altogether. While the derivation of this occurence is more complex than I theorize here, I hope that I at least begin to initiate a necessary dialogue.

The mainstream or popular defintion of emo has changed in only the last two years or so--and I'm talking exclusively as regards fashion; that emo could even be considered a manner of dress--and the growing tendency to define it as such. Previously the masses defined emo--clearly this statement is inherently ironic, for if anyone were to demarcate the parameters of emo, it obviously wouldn't/couldn't be the general populace--as meaning Rivers Cuomo glasses, Chucks, fitted jeans, and sweaters. But somehow this--admittedly absurd and in no way superior--encapsulation of emo has been conflated with what was once deemed fashioncore--an aesthetic influenced by goth. Whenever I now hear people talking about emo guys, for example, what they mean are anorexic boys in girls jeans with asymmetrical haircuts, eyeliner, a surfeit of tattoos, etc. What I wish to stress here is how the initially mentioned, more reserved, indie-influenced? look has been supplanted by one tending towards stylized squalor.

It's no surprise, then, that since fashion is often about a glamorized, gaudy lifestyle, there has been an increase in the occasion for one to regard him/herself as emo, whereas before if someone was emo s/he just listened to the music pigenholed as such or casually dressed that way. In other words, s/he didn't seem to be dressing that way in order to be seen or known as emo; if s/he was emo then that was, as 2pac would say, for only God to judge. The emo individual has gone from wallflower to fake, plastic rose.

I must admit, I have on occasion caught myself slipping into an elitist mode and questioning if that female wearing the studded belt and shirt that says "Punk Rock Girl" has ever heard of a band like Lifetime, for example. This clearly is not my place. But can you imagine one of these "emo" girls with the straightened-for-hours hair and runway makeup watching a performance of supposed emo godfathers Sunny Day Real Estate circa '94, seeing that their clothes weren't skintight and exclusively black, and scoffing at the notion that this band could be emo with such "hideous" threads? What I mean is, while I fault myself for judging the "punk" girl, shouldn't one question the authenticity, the derivation, the influence of the music first and the appearance--if at all--second?