the meme-ification of emo and the rise of red pill emotinal unintelligence

Emo panic which was derived from the satanic panic of the eighties is not a new concept, in the 2000s when an teen girl that was an mcr fan committed suicide the daily mail ran an article calling my chemical romance a “suicide band” causing a rapid increase in parents putting family issues and the consequences of there bad parenting and placing the fault in the childs interest “making them that way”. Parents began to believe that a child being a fan of emo music or dressing in alliance with emo subculture meant the child was suicidal or harming themselves. This mindset lives on now with “wrist checks” and the term emo being drastically changed to the point a person can be called emo just for dark clothing. But what does this mean socially? How does telling a kid in a black hoodie to show them their wrist or singing emo songs at them symbolize the uptake in emotional unitelligence? 

Well first we have to dive into what emo is, often it's said to be the shortened version of emotional, musically speaking the genre emo is "emotional hardcore” characterized by emotional or confessing lyrics. Derived from punk and post- hardcore emo has heavy loud (sometimes called  “whiny”) vocals and guitars with usually fast tempos, but the genre is large and includes also ranges to slow ballads (ex: the album “Pretty odd” by: Panic! At the disco, handfuls of songs from And The Academy is…, etc.). The genre, no matter the sound, has one constant, emotional lyrics. Keep in mind the biggest names in emo are mostly men. So we have men singing emotional songs and expressing complex ideas which traditional society is not a fan of. Often times emo men specifically are called fags or pussy for expresing the emotions inside of emo lyrics. This new era of using emo lyrics to tease and wrist checks reinforces these stereotypes of “boys don't cry” and “be a man”. It doesnt help emos case that often emo bands are in support of the lgtbq and trans community to the point a handful of big bands do “stage gay” the act of two male band members being inappropriate to one another during performances often groping, kissing, and other lewd gestures which in an emotinally unintelligent mind is just more fuel to call them fags. Often stage gay is used to piss off homophobes and to show the band does not mind having gay fans (gerard way of my chemical romance goes into this topic in several interviews) 

So this is where red pill content comes in. Within the past 2 ish years there has been more male influencers creating content catered to specifically younger men showing them how an “alpha male” behaves. This content places a lot of emphasis on traditional ideas for example, believing a woman's role should be reduced to her looks or what she can provide for a man, that a man should be head of a house and play not just a leader role but a protector role. This content reinforced the idea that feelings are for women and as a man you shouldn't be doing what a woman does because they are beneath you. This content puts a lot of importance on money and status, again reiterating the traditional values of men as breadwinners. The content becoming increasingly popular has caused a lot more pre-teen and teen boys specifically to believe in it as it is what is not just being told to them by the internet but being shown in society to this day. Teen boys are told it's ok to bully these “emo kids” because they are less than them because they don't behave as a man should, because they express emotions. This teasing morphed into parodies and memes playing on the irony of most emo kids. The usual characteristic of an emo stereotype for the purpose of comedy is antisocial, dark clothing, intense eyeliner, bad attitudes, the feeling that nobody understands them, overly negative even when given a good life and often has a family that is opposites of them (that snl skit “goth kid on vacation”, comedy skits by content creators like brandon rogers, and characters like robbie in gravity falls). With the normalization of the archetype along with teen boys being encouraged to poke fun at emos due to the emotions they express outwardly it shows a new way toxic traditionalism and conservative values continue to indoctrinate the youth and breed misogynistic and homophobic young men and women. 

You may be thinking “jude, this is a bit extreme to say making fun of emo kids makes someone a misogynistic homophobe, beside emo kids themselves playing to archetypes and poke fun at themselves" and to that i say, you're right, it is extreme. But it is extreme thinking like this that makes us realize these connections, one example i can think of is the older controversy of removing the aunt jemima character from the syrup bottles due to the fact it reinforces the stereotype of black mammys,an older black women that in the era of slavery took care of the children and the house. It is research and “extreme” thinking like mine that helps society move forward and get rid of the influences of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny on our society to create a world where these awful things that breed hatred and cause harm to large groups of people so that we can create a place in which every person has true equal opportunity.  And as for emo kids themselves using the archetype and poking fun at it i will say i an emo guy have done it, often when a emo person makes the joke they are doing it from a place of irony/ parody making fun of how ridiculous the stereotype is. It can be compared to when you're arguing with a sibling and they say back what you said but in an overly whiny or annoying voice, they're not agreeing with you, they're mocking you. Emo people mock the people that make fun of them just as most people mock what makes fun of them. 

To wrap this up the rise of red pill content has been reinstating conservative/ traditional values into the impressionable youth which takes the form not just in the rise of misogyny but also in the rise of making fun of emotional men as they don't fit the values they are taught. The emotional men I refer to are men that are a part of the emo subgenre as the emo subgenre is characterized by emotional lyrics. The meme-ification of emo is deeply rooted in homophobia and the toxic traditional role of men that new red pill content preaches.