What Is "Scene": The History and Meaning Behind the Scene Subculture

INTRODUCTION

Long time, no see friends. I have been super active on Twitter these past few years. I am very active on the emo/scene corner of the website. It's a niche little community. Emo/scene content isn't AS widespread on there compared to social media like TikTok or Instagram, but occasionally things from those apps will sometimes cross over onto Twitter. And it seems that there is quite a bit of misinformation about scene I have noticed make its way from other places onto my timeline.

Before I start, I gotta give a little background on myself. I must preface this by saying that I am not the bastion of scene. I was a little late to the game, I got into the subculture in 2009. While I was there to experience some of the Myspace alternative music/fashion culture, be aware that the scene was already on it's decline by that point. And my experience in the scene is not universal. I have ran this through with other scenesters that are older than me and had much more experience with the era of Myspace and the local band explosion of the 2000s. We mostly seem to be on the same page about what I am about to say in this article.

But you see these screenshots below?

These are just plain incorrect. Scene did NOT originate from rave. And I am going to use this as an opportunity to explain why this is wrong, the history of scene, and what "scene" even means.

WHAT DOES "SCENE" STAND FOR?

Ask most modern TikTok scene kids what "scene" stands for, and most probably would not know how to answer it, and some may, but will only be able to provide a very vague answer. I want to stress that I don't think this is their fault. The internet is terrible at archiving trends and tools of the past. I blame this problem heavily on the botched Myspace data transfer, which caused millions of pieces of media to become irredeemably lost. Wayback Machine is very flawed, a lot of images, videos and links are broken. The internet lost a lot when it became more centralized and less personable. And algorithms bury old sources and links. The internet is a very different place compared to 15-20 years ago. So, modern scene kids have to just piece things together based on what very little information is left over. They're trying their best.

The simple definition of "scene" is just a shortened version of the phrase "the hardcore scene".

I can almost hear some of you thinking, "how is it the hardcore scene? None of scene music sounds like hardcore punk. Plus scene is not a music subculture, it is a fashion subculture."

First of all, scene is ABSOLUTELY a music subculture. Music is just as important of an aspect as the fashion. Just so some people don't get butthurt, we are using "hardcore" as an umbrella term in this case, we not just talking ONLY about THE hardcore music genre alone. The scene does have origins in the hardcore live music scene of the 1980s. A lot of alternative music we listen to today, and in the 2000s has roots in hardcore. Emo in itself evolved out of hardcore. Under the umbrella term "hardcore" we are including ALL hardcore subgenres and fusion genres. The biggest ones being Emocore, Post-Hardcore, Metalcore, Deathcore, Screamo, Grindcore/Cybergrind, Nintendocore, Electronicore, Easycore, and Mathcore. These are all music genres that scene kids listen to. See the connection now? Contrary to the modern belief, the prefix "-core" was originally not used as an aesthetic tag, it was used to describe a genre of music that stems from hardcore. Scene kids are hardcore kids. The type of hardcore kid varied by person.

SCENE HISTORY

Scene started in the 80s. I know, crazy right? We usually associate scene as we know it in the 2000s with choppy hair, raccoon tail hair, and shutter shades. It wasn't always that way, the scene always evolves. Hardcore punk started in the early 80s. It was a heavier, more aggressive take on the exploding punk genre, with a culture surrounded by DIY ethic and anti-authority/rebellion against the neoliberal status quo. Hardcore experienced its split in the mid-80s which birthed the genres post-hardcore and emocore. Metalcore (a fusion genre of extreme metal and hardcore) arose in the late 80s into the 90s. Deathcore (a fusion genre of death metal and metalcore) was invented in the late 90s. So on so forth. Many of these genres broke into commercial success in the 2000s. Here in the early 2000s, we introduce some of the first fashion inspirations to the scene with this subtype of hardcore- "fashioncore". These are the hardcore bands that had the iconic fringe swooped haircuts, dyed hair, tight shirts, eyeliner, white belts with belt buckles, piercings, and girls bootcut jeans. This was some of the earliest fashion statements of scensters. The earliest fashioncore scene bands were notably: The Blood Brothers, Norma Jean, Underoath, Atreyu, Drop Dead Gorgeous, From First to Last, It Dies Today, Avenged Sevenfold, and Eighteen Visions. Bands would continue this trend well into the late 2000s (see images below).

Fashioncore bands were hated a lot by metalheads outside of scene. A lot of it was rooted in the rampant queerphobia of the 2000s. This fashion, much like hair metal of the 80s, was a rebellion against societal gender constructs, especially in clothing. Not every band saw their fashion in that way, but the spirit was there. Plus it looked super cool.

The 2000s was a DIY music explosion. Lots of people were in bands. Almost everyone knew of at least one person who was in a band. There were shows nearly every night, at VFWs, churches, high school gyms, strip malls, bars, someone's living room or backyard, you name it. It was a common after-school/after-work thing to do- go to your local show. Support the local scene. Have fun. People always went, regardless if they knew of the band or not.

And not-so-fun fact: for those who wonder where the term "scene queen" comes from as well, it used to be a misogynistic derogatory term used on women who dressed up like "wh0res" to get pics at shows or sleep with band members. Obviously it has been reclaimed since, which is awesome. The misogyny of the scene in the 2000s deserves it's own post.

THE SCENE AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC

The late 2000s was a time where sound of pop stations began to shift from a mix of rap, R&B, crunk, and rock to a more a more trance trance and electropop centralized sound. Electronic music was becoming more mainstream, but also with the rise of free recording and production softwares like GarageBand and the accessibility of electronic soundfonts and samples, literally ANYONE could make music from their own home on their MacBooks. And a lot of these young musicians were those hardcore kids! The scene kids! The kids that were wearing bright colors, experimenting with the emo/hardcore fashion look, making crunkcore, or myspace electropop? Those were the ones that were going to local hardcore shows, the ones that may have even been in hardcore bands themselves. This is how a lot of myspace electronic/crunkcore/indiepop got associated with the "scene" label as well.

For example: Jordan Blake of A Skylit Drive made an electronic projects named 'Watchout! There's Ghosts!'. Christofer Drew was a hardcore kid that made cutesy acoustic/ukulele love songs, and he also had a post-hardcore/metalore band EATMEWHILEIMHOT!. Attack Attack!, Enter Shikari, I Set My Friends on Fire, and Asking Alexandria incorporated trance synth breaks into their songs, creating Electronicore. Dot Dot Curve and Brokencyde added hardcore screams into crunk, turning it into Crunkcore. Forever The Sickest Kids made pop-punk with autotuned vocals and synths. Breathe Carolina made eletropop and trance with electric guitars and hardcore screams!

Mainstream things became a part of all cultures at the time, including the scene. Including fashion that was associated with the club scene. But that's because club music was mainstream at the time. And that's where I think this "rave" association with scene comes from and what gets misunderstood when it comes to scene history. Let's be real here, the club/rave fashion of scene was only just a small subset of scene kids. There were many different types of scene kids. Scene was never a uniform. It was always an ever-evolving form of self-expression with ties and connection to the hardcore scene it came from. This is why I refuse to gatekeep new scene kids that try new things.

CONCLUSION

So, yeah. Scene is not a rave subculture. It 100% comes from emo and hardcore. My goal with this post wasn't to make any young scene kids feel like crap or posers. I promise, we all start somewhere and we are all trying to find somewhere where we can fit in and be ourselves. I like scene cause that was the space for someone like me back then. I was a rowdy rough around the edges kid who loved heavy music and darker aesthetics. I grew up with a metalhead father who also liked a few scene bands. My dad was the anti-eltist, and I hope I learned a thing or two from him. I hope that kids can take this post and gain something valuable from it. As an older scenester, I think that new scene artists are pretty cool. I especially enjoy 6areleyhuman. I think they perfectly capture the music stylings and lyrical themes of myspace electropop. Their fashion is fucking awesome too! I honestly dont understand why they are gatekept from the scene. We were the same kids listening to the scene clout chaser Jeffree Star in 2008. If this is what is keeping the scene alive, I am all for it. I want to see more kids forming bands and making their own music. I want to see more of that DIY that we had in the 2000s. I want to see more kids at local shows supporting their scene and helping it thrive! That's what the scene was all about. Thank you for reading my post.

P.S: Pierce the Veil and My Chemical Romance are scene because post-hardcore is a hardcore genre. You're welcome.

Also, I'm sorry about the weird image sizes, I was trying to get them to fit neatly but I cant get it to change image ratios in html, so it may look a little clunky. Basic layout codes can bite my ass.

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