The Emo thing, redux
 

So, I'm hoping I'm not overstepping any boundaries here, but I really wanted to get in on this, even tho I was a little late, and Fifth, seemed to suggest that there was something to discuss, just that it wasn't happening, so if I'm misunderstanding, feel free to lock this one too, please.
I'll try not to kill your blood pressure, Fifth.
Anyway, I was thinking about this a LOT at work, and I won't for a second suggest that the victims were in any way to blame for what happened. Nor would I ever suggest that there's any reason for what happened.
But, I have to agree with some of the opinions that were expressed in the previous thread about the whole Emo subculture as a whole.
And my opinion is this (And keep in mind I'm trying to use as obvious examples as possible for ease of discussion):
It's destructive. It's like the modern Skinhead movement. The both have their own styles of clothes, music, mannerisms, etc. And they've got specific attitudes associated with their culture that teaches a destructive characteristic. Primarily hate.
Now, don't get me wrong, I know that there are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part I think we can all agree that Modern Skinheads are associated with racism, and bigotry.
The Emo subculture seems to me, to be about hating yourself.
I mean, suicide? Cutting? Self-loathing? These aren't good things! I just can't see how glorifying this sort of thing can be deemed acceptable. Racism isn't.
I dunno. Maybe I'm missing something. My little sister is a self-proclaimed Emo, and it breaks my heart to see how she's changed over the years. And I just can't see what good can come from such a subculture.

Actually there's a whole lot of left-wing skinheads and an even greater number of skinheads who just plain and simple don't give a crap about politics or race issues. At its core the skinhead movement (if you can call it that; can't think of a better word right now) is born from the working class and has/had less to do with beating up black people than with going to their ska concerts and having a good time on the weekend to balance the really fucking hard working week.

You're right when you say that nowadays they're associated with racism, but we need to consider whether this is a generally correct association or whether it just applies one comparatively high-profile aspect of a subculture to the whole of it. This happens a lot - just think about what context video games are usually mentioned in and you'll see what I mean.

I assume it's much the same with emo subculture. We as outsiders only see certain aspects of it. Personally I'm sure there's far more to it than cutting, crying and hating life/yourself/school, but I'm not familiar with it enough to say what that could be. And of course most teenagers looking for a group to belong to will only see this reduced version of the subculture and adopt it themselves, believing it to be the standard and, over time, maybe creating a sub-subculture where cutting, crying and hating things is in fact all you do.

I agree with everything about the skinhead thing, but I couldn't find anything else closer to what I was looking for as a comparative. Even Neo-Naziism is surprisingly less "let's hate everyone who isn't white" than I expected.
But because of my sister littler sister, I've tried to become as much an expert on the Emo, Goth, and 'Vampire' subcultures as I can in order to figure out just what it is that has my sister so... entrapped is the best word I can think of. And I just can't find ANYTHING about it (aside maybe from the appreciation of music, which is always good in my books) redeeming, or positive. Even the aspect of coming together as a group is just chock full of negativity.

I didn't read the other thread so I don't know what was said. Don't really care.

Sometimes people get into things like that for the clothing and musical fashions that go along with it, without actually cutting themselves and all that. Just because some members of a given group engage in a particular activity, whether positive or negative, doesn't mean all members will.

...I can't believe I just said something positive, or at least neutral, about someone going emo. Anyway, without knowing what your sister is doing that has you so concerned, what I can say is that a young person dressing a certain way to fit in with an increasingly popular group is nothing new at all, nor is passionately following trends in music that the older generation thinks are terrible crap.

You're right. But it's not the poseurs that concern me. It's the hardcore "in it to win it" types that define the culture who are making a life from negativity that are the concern.
Walking around in Diesel jeans hanging past your ass, wearing bright colored bandannas and flashing your Wu Tang bling all over the place while shouting "West side!" doesn't necessarily make you a Thug. But doing all that while shooting at cops probably does, so as much as I appreciate individuality as a whole, there are certain aspects of human culture that I'd like to see disappear.
The point is that music, clothing, and "play-acting" don't make you destructive.
Cutting, Suicide, and self-loathing, kind of does.

I haven't really familiarized myself with the emo-subculture at all. I know very little about it.

Even though I find it hard to believe it's just about hating yourself I must admidt that that is somewhat the picture I have about the emo-subculture.

But hey, we all feel self-loathing sometimes. I mean, we all do stuff we regret and that can easily lead to a feeling of self-loathing of a certain level, depending on what exactly you've done that you now have to regret. So maybe a lot of emo's just have a phase, if you will, in which they've done something stupid and now they kinda hate themselves for it. While normally this would pass with time, if you get in to a sub-culture which promotes self-loathing and negativity instead of trying to find ways to solve your problems... Well you can see where that will lead to. More negativity, possibly even worse things.

In a way it's easier to just hate yourself, than trying to take full responsability or fixing things that have gone wrong or finally accepting things as they are and that it's not the end of the world.

I wonder if I'm making any sense, my english get's kinda confusing sometimes when I'm writing a lot of stuff in a roll.

Anyway. Just throwing some thoughts in to the air.

Right, of course. What I meant, though, was that self-harm is a symptom of a deeper problem than being part of a subculture, and not necessarily caused by it. I'm sure every emo kid doesn't cut, and obviously they don't all kill themselves or there wouldn't be any. Also, plenty of people do both of those things who are not emo.

I don't know, I don't know any emo kids personally, as most of them seem to be a generation behind me, so maybe I'm lacking facts. My general view on collective group weirdness is that most of any group is made up of dabblers with a few hardcore participants in the mix... someone joining the group won't necessarily do, or be, everything associated with the group. Unless your sister is mentally ill or something, I wouldn't think it's anything more than a phase.

I agree that there's plenty of negativity around without being emo on top of it, but I guess people have strange ways of dealing with that sometimes. It could be unhealthy, in which case I'd call it a symptom rather than a disease, or it could be a phase.

Actually, I thought Osterbaum hit it pretty close to the mark, in that, while I agree it's probably a phase, the problem is that you get the few who start with the clothes, the hair the music, but get dragged down by the rampant negativity.

And that's my biggest problem with the Emo thing. I see a lot of cases that just seem to start small, and go big. I'd never suggest that they're ALL in a bad way, but I think as a whole, the group primarily promotes negativity, and that's just not how I roll.

I'm just going to take a moment to note that I have known a number of people who belong to the emo subculture, and I have also known a few people who were caught in some self-destructive, suicidal downward spiral.

However, I have never once met a suicidal emo.

I don't mean to suggest that there aren't suicidal people outside the emo culture, or that all emo's are suicidal. I DO mean to suggest that regardless of how you roll, the culture as a whole is a negative one. It promotes negativity and promotes negative feelings. How you deal with that is your own business, but negativity in my books = bad.