I agree that this news story does kind of scream slow news day / moral panic.

As did the original mods/rockers news story.

right?

“Every tejano, rock & roll and/or hip-hop dancer has been ganging up on the goth chicks and chasing them away. It’s not that we’re really against them, but their depressing music and their fucked-up lifestyle. We’re here to make money and have fun, not make everyone feel sad and depressed and suicidal and all that shit! They want to be like that, let them open their own club! Call it the Body Bag or something like that! Jeesus!”

Guess I’d better call down to Perfect 10 San Antonio and tell my DJ buddies to erase all that Bauhaus I loaded on the hard drives before I went into the hospital…:P

In short…new? Not remotely. The difference is back then, nobody found it remarkable that I ever saw or heard of, and it certainly never rated coverage in any sort of media outlet. Our teacher certainly didn’t say a thing, though we were not hiding and she saw what we were doing. Kids will try anything, provided they see another kid doing it first and it looks interesting. Wondering what the consequences might be, is not usually even a second, let alone first thought.

In regards to the whole Emo thing, I have no answer. I can’t imagine having so much dislike for another group of fellow humans, based off nothing that affects me personally in any way, shape or form. Oh, wait…that kinda covers most of humanity’s negative history, doesn’t it? Irrational hatred, blind condemnation, physical attacks. It can be dangerous to be seen as both “Other” and especially in conjunction with appearing weak. It brings forth the worst in human nature, alas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/27/goth.murder

Maybe you mean Nordic Metal?

…If the reports are any indication, it takes Girlfriend In A Coma and makes it a case of life imitates art! :-)

One clue might come from a guy a I know from South London who was into the scene in the 80′s: “Where I grew up, the goffs used to sit outside the school gates and frow bricks at people.”

I see emo (and late 90′s/21st century goth) as being the watered down version of the 80s stuff. Hence the death rock resurgence in the last few years, and the late nineties “cybergoth” branching into the hard house/dance scene.

It amazes me that the subculture has survived this long, far better than most – I guess it represents something fairly primal/archetypal, and is intrinsically anachronistic, where most other subcultures are tied to circumstances, be they temporal, social, political or some combination of these.

Emo is just what happened when the marketing/song writing departments from the big record companies got hold of it.

That all said, I still tend to enjoy hanging out in “trad” goth clubs, myself…

Meh. I’m a little tipsy, and have spent way too much time in dark clubs thinking about this when I should have been having fun. Don’t mind me.

#66- “Oh yeah Oh no, it doesn’t have to be so
Forces of the creative mind are unstoppable!”

#72- Goth is now apparently passe while Emo is not, at least that’s what I gather. The music is also different, and I get the sense that most Emo kids are not into philosophical theory and romantic writers like many of the goths I used to hang with. It comes off to me as really being a created youth subculture, but perhaps that’s just my old lady crotchiness kicking in. Perhaps I’m wrong? Like I said I don’t know much about the emo kids running around these days. I’m unhip and out of the loop.

Mindy

“First they came for the emos…”

Tolerance, what a wonderful thing!

A jock running after him. Slip-on skull print Vans hitting the industrial tile floor, followed by thudding tennis shoes. Emo boy wars with his summer coat of tight jeans and studded belt impeding his movement, thin chest heaving under a skin-tight shirt. Half-bangs obscure his vision, eyes rimed by traditional Emo markings.

And the hunting call of the jock.

“DON’T RUN LITTLE EMO BOY! DON’T RUN! I WANT TO GIVE YOU A HUG! DON’T BE SAD!”

He caught him, grabbed his shoulder- spun him around and swept him up in what must have been a bonecrushing hug.

It was surreal, because the boy hugged him back tightly before being set down like a child and walking away. Not that it hadn’t started out surreal.

He’s gotten more girls at 17 than I’ve had in my entire life. Dammit.

Anyhow Morrissey has an unexpected Mexican cult following:
http://www.believermag.com/exclusives/?read=article_veltman

And Morrissey has nothing to do with Emo anyhow – the original Rites of Spring version or its pop sell out mutant off spring.

Oh yeah – read Cannetti. That book rocks!

but seriously… that emo-bashing “riot” in México D.F. was surreal, but the one in Queretaro, which I saw before this one, was a bit, ehm, darker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMp7Nnn7VbY

A mob circling one guy, chanting “he wants to cry!”, and the guy @1:05 saying that it bothers him that they “look more like girls than boys”… yay, tolerance! Funny, i bet that most of those mobbers would crap their pants if they were confronted by a gang of hip-hoppers, heh!

translation of the video @78:

(shouting)

Reporter: This is how dozens of young people intended to finish off a group of kids in Plaza de Armas, Queretaro

(shouting)

Reporter: The aggressors congregated there with a sole purpose: to expel the so-called “Emos”.

Reporter: Days before, through the Internet, a call was made to rescue Plaza de Armas. An “anti-Emo” movement requested to end with a group of kids who gathered there; kids who are characterized, amongst other things, for dressing in black and covering their faces with bangs.

(crowd chanting “he wants to cry! he wants to cry!”)

Reporter: The call was succesful, hundreds of people were about to lynch the Emos.

Kid in trenchcoat: They don’t bother me, the Emos, in and by themselves… what bothers me is that they take a spot for them, that they want to have the square just for themselves, so to speak… it also bothers me that they look more like girls than boys.

Reporter: Fortunately, the intervention of some young people and the police prevented a fatal ending.

Man in blue shirt: We make a kind request to these kids’ parents, to be more aware of their activities…

Reporter: It was anounced that in the coming weekends, security will be tightened in downtown Queretaro, in response to a new call against Emos.

(Reporter signs off)