So, if you haven’t noticed, over the last five or six years, punk, emo, and rock music has been increasingly popular on the charts and just among people in general. This is because of the generation from 1990 to 2000 ( Also, I would just use a term for that generation, but most generational terms have no regulation or clear definition, which that’s a topic is for another time). That generation is now growing up or has already grown up and become economic influencers, resulting in a change of interest in the pop culture. So here’s five signs that you’re still emo, but you just grew up.
1) The first keys to “The Black Parade” start playing, and you just stop. And when Gerard Way starts singing with his beautiful emo voice that you connected to on a spiritual level in your youth, you start singing, humming, or thinking the lyrics in your head. And who knows, I’m not judging, but maybe your heart breaks a little bit from remembering the lost love of the emo band My Chemical Romance, and tears fall down your face in true emo fashion. If you were at the start of the emo age range then you saw this shooting star of a band rise and fall.
2) “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” plays, the music starts, Brendon sings, and you sing with him. And right after Brendon Urie says ”No, I can’t help, but to hear an exchanging of words”, you remember the music video featuring weird clown makeup and bohemian aesthetics, and say, or think, the words “I love you” “I love you too”.
3) A true telltale sign of being an emo who has grown up is if you’re either really sad or excessively happy, or some mixture of both, whenever you listen to your favorite, depressing, emo anthems. It doesn’t matter if something tragic or ecstatic happened to you. The best way to react is to listen to the emotional, imagery-laden, soul moving music of your emo youth and emo present.
4) The more emo a guy looks the more you want to either be with him or be him. It doesn’t matter if it’s eyeliner, messy bangs, skinny jeans, piercings, or tattoos, that man is the ultimate emo package to you. You can’t help but admire the ones who stayed in their emo roots as much as possible regardless of others’ opinions. He’s the emo you look up to, and maybe even aspire to be sometimes.
5) And the final and most important realization that you’re a full grown adult emo is: being fine with expressing your emotions and emotional issues as well as encouraging the expressions of others and in fact expecting that level of emotional intimacy and honesty from them.
Whether the songs are burned deeply in your soul, or the aesthetic of the emo subculture makes you happy, or you just want more expressions of emotional honesty from others, don’t worry. You never stopped being emo, you just grew up. And the members of the bands you looked up to from youth did too. Just live your best emo life, listen to the music that makes you feel something, and live in the moment because, if there’s one thing emo culture has taught us, it’s that is is pretty cool to just be yourself.