| The emo subculture is a mixture of punk and hardcore tendencies. The term "emocore" derives from emotional hard-core and is thought to have appeared the mid of the 80s.
The first emocore adherents of the subculture began to add melodic elements to their songs. Sadness, love, sense of loneliness are common topics of their songs. Thus, the emo style could be defined as rock music with emotional lyric features. Still, the definition of the emo style is still under debate.
Though the emo subculture was originally referred to as a music genre, at present it is referred not only to music, but also to behaviour, clothes, hair style and the way of life.
The emo style is known as unfashionable. This way its representatives demonstrate that they are not interested in social processes. Emo representatives consider themselves outcasts and, hence, demonstrate their non-conformity to existing social rules and regulations through the emo style. They prefer skinny jeans, usually in bright colours, and tight T-shirts, with names of emocore groups printed on them. Studded belts and black wristbands are common accessories in the emo fashion. Piercing is also one of the forms of adorning the body that is popular with emos. Black Converse sneakers are typically worn by emos. Some boys also prefer thick black horn-rimmed glasses.
The emo fashion is also renowned its hairstyles. Popular looks are long side-swept bangs, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Straightened and coloured black hair is also a part of the emo trend. Hair is usually highlighted blue, pink, red, or bleached blond. Short choppy layers of hair are also typical. Sometimes this fashion has been characterised as a fad. At the beginning of the third millennium, the emo style was associated with an immaculate look, but when the style spread to teens, it became darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the colour black.
Emo representatives are highly sensitive personalities. Specialists consider them introverts who do not want to communicate with the world around. Instead, they demonstrate their viewpoints by means of poetry. Poems they compose are full of sorrow, nostalgia and desperation. Commonly these emotions are typical of teenagers aged 12 - 18, when they are emotionally and psychologically unstable. For many emo representatives emoism becomes a way of life. |
