As a culture, nothing has annoyed me much more than this EMO teenage/college-kid subgenre. When did severe depression and all that can go with it(sadness, cutting, attempted suicide..ect) become chic? It's not cool. Walking around pretending that you suffer from a mental illness so you can write terrible poetry and stories, about people who cut themselves, is insulting to the millions of people who legitimately suffer from this stuff and have to take happy pills everyday just to cope. I have severe depression and I take 3 pills a day. I don't walk around wearing black eyeliner, listening to Panic at the Disco. No other depressed people I know listen to that drek or act like these emo kids. With that said, the Goths would like their angst and wardrobe back, Emo fanbrats.
LOL I have missed you Otter! This is exactly what I've been trying to tell these people, but they don't listen. You remember being a teen, you know everything, everyone else knows nothing, and the world is coming to an end as you know it! hahaha. Personally, I hate depressing music, or depressing anything for that matter. I mean that is just silly to me, if one is depressed how will listening to other people's problems make theirs any better? Our society is just plain stupid; I blame fairytales.
I think a lot of adolescents question their sanity and whether they are normal and fit in... this kinda lets em be sad AND fit in. we didn't have "emo" when i was younger and we weren't "goth" and we still wrote poetry and shit... i think emo is the new goth anyway, it's basically the same thing just different hair.
What Tigerlily said. I dont see whats wrong with behaving like that if it alleviates your sorrow even a little bit. I didnt have the effort to do goth when I was a teenager but I think a more acceptable outlet without it being as extreme as goth-ness woulda bene nice growing up. I probably woulda turne dout just as fucke din the head, but such is life.
im equally annoyed with people who 'display' their 'depression' (some are perfectly happy, they just need a clique to fit into so they take on that label). i go to highschool and it seems every third person is modeling the emo look. I personally dont view the look as anything more than just another stereotype; its not much different from peppy cheerleaders to arrogant jocks, or weird drama kids to flamboyant music people. and i like panic at the disco! i enjoy 'emo' music too, but i wear skirts everyother day and would never take a black eye pencil to my face.
Whats wrong with displaying your depression though if it helps you in some way? Seriously, anything that helps alleviate dperession without harming others is a-ok in my book, because dpression is terrbile, really terrible.
Ok im really really depressed right now, and before i get in depth on this issue i want to say that if you think i'm just saying this for sympathy then, I assure you i'm not. I am depressed because i don't have a girl friend, and never have. I really want one bad. Not just for sex, but mostly just for love. Just someone to rub on and hold. I'm way to shy though, and extremely self conscious of myself and feel like i'm unattractive. It's so bad that i can't even talk to girls hardly because of it, and when i do, i seem to give the impression that i look like i'm pissed, or sad, and want to kill someone. which i am depressed of course, and thats why i look like that. I've always been this way, and really want some advice on what to do to fix this problem. I can't just go out and talk to girls like a normal person, and i'm so nervous that i can't even think straight when i do. I've been taking a half a xanax bar when i try to talk to girls and it helps me be much less anxious, but when i try to have a deep conversation i can't think straight because of the xanax and look stupid. If this goes on much longer i will kill myself. Call me coward all you want, but i gaurantee if you were to take a walk in my shoes for a day, you'd feel the same way.
wait a minute.. you're going to kill yourself at 17 because you can't get a girlfriend? that in and of itself is a big problem. if that really is the only thing wrong in your life that is causing you to be depressed you need to take a good long look at the pros and cons of even having a gf. having a relationship takes a lot of work and can put more stress on you. oh and take a look at all the threads throughout the forums about guys having trouble getting a girl. it is pretty normal. most ppl have some difficulty getting into a relationship at some point in their lives. nothing to be worried about, but if you think this is a legitimate reason to kill yourself then like i said above... i think you probably do have a problem.... all you're talking about here is how you have some social anxiety in talking to girls and you feel this super intense need to have a girlfriend. how are you getting the xanax? are you talking to a counselor at least about your worries? personally i do not think having a girlfriend should be so important to anybody. take a look at the rest of your life... is everything good or at least decent except for the girl thing? yes, EVERY sane and intelligent person has insecurities and you can get help for your anxiety around girls. it can be done, but it'll probably take some work. you'll probably have to swallow your doubts for brief moments and be really brave and put yourself out there... you just gotta have that security of KNOWing it is NOT the end of the world if a girl doesn't like you or if a conversation doesn't go smoothly and pick yourself up and try again... it really does get easier with time.
back to emo, music and it's attendant styles has always been society's pressure valve: In my adolesence I had the option of backpacker chic and john Denver , slightly retro psychedelic (I was born to the psychedelic era), punk, godawful New Wave, metal and the good old whiny country and jazz torch songs. Each had a "look" for those who associated fully with it. I also had a bunch of social protest folk, ranging from WWI resistance to the last songs about Vietnam. What is emo-look if not a weak and watered down Velvet Underground-esque lament to pain and sadness? Sure, I'll take Lou Reed ANY freaking day over the new schlock, but MY schlock is ALWAYS better than the new Schlock. It's a rule. ;P so did grunge later (and grunge paid homage to it's heroes and god fathers in Johnny Cash and Neil Young) youth culyture will ALWAYS need a release of the emotions that build, especially as we lengthen adolesence into beyond college (what is up with that? I moved out and my son will, too. THat's the point of raising kids to be adults.) Hip hop tells the stories of a "forgotten" age and culture, as does country. THey have closer roots than either side would admit. Rastaman Chant helps a lot of alienated kids, black, white, rural, urban, feel part of something. So emo is taking what really is happening and telling the youth-story to the world, and itself, again. Maybe we should work on the problems, not the symptoms.
man, i am so damaged, but your right, i dont listen to (insert generic alt band here). i do things that make me happy, i dress in bright colors, i listen to happy music like the beatles and joni mitchell. i dont dwell on misery, and so far im still alive! peace
Hmm. I wasn't refering to a "look", I didn't even know there was a "look". I knew that there was so called "emo" music as MTV jumped on the bandwagon to name it (erroneously at that, because "emo" was already a taken style). What I was referring to is everyone thinking they they are so oppressed in life. These "poor little rich boys" running around in their $30,000 cars in high school talking about wanting to die because "life just isn't fair". WTF! I don't give a shit what outfits you people wear or what music you listen to, what I personally care about is mental health and how it is treated in this society that we live in. You do not have a mental health problem because you are going through some teen angst. Every generation before you has gone through it and you will get through it too. It really makes it difficult for those with real mental health issues to get the treatment they need. It is like everyone is crying wolf and the people who really have the wolves to deal with can't be heard or helped. It is almost as if people have forced themselves to be depressed, which in my opinion is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.
I guess to me when they talk about the emo thing, I see different being diagnosed every thing from ADHD to Bipolar to Chronic Paranoid Schizofrenic, assorted personality disorders, to OCD. The actual effort I view when I do go outdoors of this 'emo look' is so far from depression in my experience with the beast. I know the most depressed times were spent in a psychiatric hospital in a bed not wanting to get up to eat, and laying in bed wearing an adult diaper pissing myself and not able to find the will to even get up to go and smoke a cigarette. I see as me being depressed even when somewhat under the grips of the Happy pills that dont work and more and this type to that type that SHOULD as they say be happy only not. To dress for me then on the worst of days I would have to roam the streets in a hospital gown, an adult diaper, catatonic and having not a clue as to where I am at or who I am and on a medium day spending the time worry worry and more worry about if I am loosing my sanity again and how long before they come and take me away? For many like me up and down and inside out worn down from depression and a life of poverty ahead when suffering from chronic mental illness and to put the effort into the eyeliner and all the 'gear' is alot of work it seems to me. So it would be for me false to dress all like that more appropriate is to wear a tshirt that you have had on for countless days and nights and a shower possibly took at least earlier in the week mixed with the agitation and pissed off mood of being out of 'reasons' for the depression and in the end realizing that the beast of depression is when you have everything or more than you have ever had in your life and still cant explain why the vacuum sweeper never gets put away and the carpet fresh has been sprinkled on the rug for so long that the sweeper never got around to sucking the powder up over time it just sort of dissapeared into the carpet and as you walk to the bathroom to take a piss all feeling pissed off as you trip over the vacuum cleaner in the hall, to avoid the bathroom mirror at all costs. So getting dressed for depressed really is like just throwing on something that almost fits and leaving it on and smoking non stop as I find myself doing and ashing all over myself and music for me is something I do find depressing music to be ok for me cause all growing up and ppl expect certain ppl to keep quiet about being mentally ill and then the ppl that sing the songs are at least allowed to express themselves and not told boys dont cry and all and so the music is a way for me to hear someone say I was never allowed to 'talk about' unspoken rule of the 'things we dont talk about list'. I feel like there singing for me cause they are my voice when I dont have the will or ability to even talk or stay awake. I think it is a wake up call the first time you find yourself incarcirated for no more reason than that of being ill and having commited no crime from the law of the land, only the sickness that mother nature handed you and sometimes that hand dealt is so damn messed up that dealing with the dealt cant be dealed with so it is just not all that glamorous to me and this existance. I am not even really depressed or emo right now simply numb. Thank you - Pillhead
a lot of non-american cultures keep the kids at home until they're 30... a lot of it has to do with finding a job decent enough to support yourself. a lot of places are too expensive and the parents' don't mind because it's expected.
Exactly my point. And the reason this is so is because everyone thinks they are depressed or have bi-polar because they are "emotional". There is a fucking difference between being emotional, which every single teenager on the face of this planet is, and having a mental illness. How would you like it if everyone on earth ran around telling everyone they had cancer or aids just to get attention? Because that is what a lot of people are doing these days regarding depression and now all of a sudden bi-polar disorder. Doctors on the other hand don't care one way or another for the most part. Whatever puts more money in their pockets. But that isn't the point. Perhaps the illnesses could be taken more seriously by the healthcare field if everyone didn't claim they were sick. It is funny though, it will turn out to be just like antibiotics, and sooner or later these so called "happy pills" won't work anymore and people will need something stronger.
It was never expected 20 or 30 years ago. I don't think it was ever expected that someone would live with their parents until they are freakin 30 years old. Holy shit, that is almost half of your life! Tolerated in certain circumstances perhaps, but never expected. That is just what has happened here the past 10 years or so when the country went to shit. That isn't what we have now though anyway, we have boomerang kids. Those who go out and get more education than their parents ever had, on their parents dime no less, party it up and learn practically nothing and find a job (hopefully) doing a whole lot of nothing, but collecting a paycheck of probably more than the parents make combined ever. Yet, they can't afford their own place to live. I'm not saying it is the child's fault either. I'm just saying it wasn't supposed to be this way. You are right it is more expensive now than it has ever been for a single person to make it on his/her own, but that isn't the fault nor the problem of the parents. That has to do with the society in America. Everyone lives beyond their means, that is why it is too expensive to live here. People see someone in Hollywood doing something and they are like "I want to be like them, I deserve it, so they charge up their credit cards to the max (some people go up to $250,000 in credit card debt alone) just to keep up. Then old Harry next door sees that and he is like, well if Jow Blow can do it, then I can do it too, and before you know it everyone in America is up to their eyeballs in credit card debt that they will never be able to pay back before they die. No wonder people are stressed. So they work more or longer or harder, to keep up, which causes more stress. It doesn't end until people realize that they should just be happy with what they have. Not to mention our government doesn't help make things any cheaper. Regarding whether or not parents mind, oh believe me they mind, they mind a whole fucking lot. Some of them put up with it though. Others don't. But I doubt they love it so much (unless they are warped in the head and never want their kid to grow up and move away). Parents are people too. They once had lives before they had children and although the thought never comes to the mind of a child freeloading off his/her parents, mom and dad really want to know when you are moving the fuck out so they can go on with THEIR lives.
I don't mind them really. I bizzarely find overtly-emotionalness, and being highly clingy /etc/, as sort of cute. The original Goths were a Germanic tribe. (from Wiki). "The Goths (Gothic: gutans [ Unicode: ], Gutans) were an East Germanic tribe who from the 2nd century settled Scythia, Dacia and Pannonia. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, they harried Byzantium and later adopted Arianism. In the 5th and 6th centuries, split into the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful follower-states of the Roman Empire in Iberia and Italy." I have nothing against people, who identify as such, but I think the real Goths want their name back. Such a thing probably exists, but I think there are exceptions to everything. I've ran into a FEW teenagers who weren't angsty, strange as it seems. I don't mean to sound harsh, but it all depends in my views, if someone has any good reason to feel that way. A lot of people just might be naturally emotionally unstable, or POSSIBLY have the typical teenager thing going on, and some people may wind up that way because of their pasts. I've known quite a few people who seemed okay, but they have depression issues, I wondered if they were just naturally that way, and it seems 8 out of 10 times, they usually have a bad childhood, or a lot of Society wasn't very nice towards them to put it lightly. Yes a lot of people are "Drama Queens" I know, but I think people shouldn't forget, that a lot of people actually have reasons for being like that, and in some peoples cases who just happen to be teeangers, theres more to it than teenage angst. I mean you never know, who could have had a really rough painfull abusive childhood, grew up poor, or who grew up severly alienated for various reasons. I think teenage angst does exist, and I am guilty of that myself, but I think in a lot of peoples cases, theres sometimes a lot more than that.
You know, the thing is I have depression and bipolar problems and I often listen to depressing music, but you know what after I listen to depressing music for awhile and got used to it, it doesn't bother me that much anymore. I like Skeeter Davis, The end of the world I like Olivia Newton John I like Crystal Gayle And I like many others. The thing of it is that everyone has a different outlet for there problems weather it be through music or other forms. Music is a way artist comunicate to society, maybe there way of getting certain issues they have been through off there chest.
