Last week, I found my hard drive
from when I was fifteen, circa 2008. It was every bit as bad as expected; My
Chemical Romance, Green Day, Panic! At the Disco; you name it, the terrible emo
past was there. My shameful, black-clad, dramatic emo past was not something
unusual, however. In fact, I’d wager that there are thousands of
twenty-somethings around Ireland right now who still know every word to
“Welcome to the Black Parade”.
Looking back, my obsessions with
pop-punk bands and stripy things weren’t all that original. I may have paraded
sayings like “labels are for soup cans!” and “I’m not weird, I’m different!”
but the reality was that my pink highlights emulated a dozen other girls I’d
been stalking on Bebo. But that’s not something to criticise; at the ripe old
age of twenty-one, I’ve decided to embrace my emo past. See, it’s easy to fob
off teenage fads. Even now, my boyfriend tells me how utterly ridiculous I
looked at fifteen, derisively snorting at my repeated denials that I never hung
out at Central Bank. But teenage subcultures exist for a reason. From the
post-war swinger set, through hippies, punks, mods and grungers, there’s always
been a group to be a part of. Emo was ours; many a friend of mine has a Fall
Out Boy poster buried under their bed. But we’re all mad to deny the same fact
– “no, I was never EMO, I was cooler than that”. Objectively, “emo” was a fad
characterised by a belief that you were different from the norm, more your own
person than everyone else. And while that may have been characterised by
questionable spelling and bad music, what of it? The “random” sixteen year old
who embraces difference often grows up to be unique, tolerant and confident. I
see nothing wrong with that.
Another element of the emo
subculture we frequently forget about is how it pushed mental health among
teenagers into the limelight. There were half a dozen Daily Mail articles
published heralding emo as harmful to teenagers. Yes, self-harm was an utterly
terrifying element of emo culture, which I will never understand. But to my
recollections, it was also a time when we spoke about our feelings – “emo” is
short for “emotional”, after all. Feelings may have been overblown and
melancholy, but still; we spoke about them. I remember feeling confident and
happy as an “emo kid”, but I still was able to speak out about feeling down,
because that was…well, expected of me. I’m not saying being an emo kid was the
key to my mental health – but it gave me the ability to speak out and speak up,
because to an over-dramatic, black-clad teenager, no problem seemed too small.
Maybe I’m a healthy by-product of the emo lifestyle, but to me, it seemed
integral to helping me deal with adolescent issues.
So the next time you cringe at a
photo of your fifteen year old self, think twice. It’s so easy to criticise the
person you once were, without recognising the benefits of a certain way of
living. So while I have no intentions of getting a fringe cut in, I will listen
to My Chemical Romance with gay abandon, because to be honest, I wouldn’t be
who I am without them.
