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A Message to All Emo Kids....Life is Not the Bad!

 By: Peter Pacey

E•mo [I mṓ]

 A group of white, mostly middle-class well-off kids who find imperfections in their life and create a ridiculous, depressing melodrama around each one. They often take anti-depressants, even though the majority don't need them.

                                                     -Courtesy of the Urban Dictionary

             Every year, 15 million children die from starvation; in Asia, Africa and Latin America countries alone, 500 million people are classified as living in absolute poverty. In the time it has taken you to read up to this point in this article, 200 people have died from starvation; and the worst part of this tragedy is that all of these deaths are preventable. Despite these depressing facts and statistics, a new craze of apathetic whiners known as “Emo children” have began to appear in our communities, outrageously claiming that their lives are worse than everyone else’s.  

            The average Emo wears tight black pants, short tight black shirts with band logos, has hair, that by Emo ‘code’ has to cover 3/5 of the face, and wears extensive amounts of nail polish and eye make up. And I’m only talking about the guys. Female Emos generally share the same rules except that their hair has to be shorter than that of the guys. As for the Emo persona, stereotypical “Emos” walk around telling anyone who will listen that their life is worse than yours, that no one understands them, and despite how kind and supportive their parents are, they insist that they just want them to drop dead. As well, Emo people generally try to perform their own acts of self-expression by cutting themselves (usually on the wrist), instead of drawing or doing some other worthwhile extracurricular activity. 

            Sadly, if you were to ask me why people, usually kids, choose to act this way, I really couldn’t give you an answer. I do know that the majority of these kids generally seem to follow this classification because they like a certain bands such as The Used, Taking Back Sunday, A.F.I, or Hawthorne Heights. Some even follow this crowd because they just want to fit in with a ‘group’. However, the whole reason this actually all got started is a mystery to me. Perhaps some poor kid probably got mad at his mom for not letting him stay out late and started to listen to Jimmy Eat World on his iPod on the way to West 49 to project his pain. But who really knows? 

            Right now, with all of the passing fashion trends this is probably going to be something that we all look back on saying “man, what got into those kids?” But for the time being, I suggest to anyone, that’s feeling extra angry at the world, to talk to somebody about your anger or frustration with the world or take up acting, or possibly even join a sports team or club.  Whatever you do, don’t fall into the fad of altering your appearance, or start cutting yourself or wearing nail polish just to show the rest of us you’re different or to gain sympathy and attention. Trust me, despite all the problems we teens face in the world, your life really couldn’t be all that bad. One thing seems clear to me though…becoming an Emo may just make it even worse.