Lords of the Hilarious, Round 1 – EMOs vs. METALHEADs

Welcome to the first battle of our LOTH series which will be a regular monthly issue here at PELICANMAG. In this, we’ll be looking for the most hilarious group of people. As you may know, many young people tend to reflect the music they listen to in their look or their behaviour. When they are very, very young, like 13-15, they are easily influenced by their idols or by older people who have the same image. „So they buy a lot of stylish clothes and accessories, while their hair is shaped in the way it’s supposed to be – or their parents buy the clothes and they sport the look, anyway.“ This article is full of links spread throughout the text, trying to show what I mean.

THE EMOs ’The way it is supposed to be’ is often their alibi or excuse when they start looking too hilarious for an ordinary person. But there can´t be any excuse for a 13-year-old EMOboy with his fringe shading his eyes so that he can´t see the beauty of the world and is thus doomed to be sad and depressed. So on that note: let´s start with the EMOs!!!

What the hell is EMO? Not an easy question, it could be a genre of music arising in the late 80s and coming from post-hardcore, which accentuated the emotional side of music or life. The music was often very screamy and violently wild with deep, meaningful, and heavily symbolic lyrics. Nothing for the kids, really. So why on earth have there been so many young EMOkids over the last 10 years? It´s very easy to answer. Tokio Hotel in Europe and My Chemical Romance in the USA and the UK are bands which took the EMO image, polished it, and sold it out to the mainstream. And so it came that millions of EMOkids arose around the world, even in the sleepy Czech Republic, which is always behind in the trends. But how could you spot an Emo kid? Generally we can say their looks are halfway between a Punk and a Metalhead; always black with a lot of details in white, red or pink, which are the EMOs favourite colours. The pants are very tight so almost all the EMOs look very underweight, fragile and you feel sorry for them. Well, the EMO outfit doesn´t really look nice on ‘bigger’ people, just see for yourself! The details are often stripes, stars or hearts, which fits nice on the girls but boys lose their masculine features in a dramatic manner. And when those ’boys’ start to use make-up, which is a must for true EMOs, you can´t tell whether it´s he or she. You can often see them wearing  metal accessories like spiked wristbands. Those over 18 are often covered with large, colourful tattoos, getting their whole chest coated with some ’very deep, symbolic‘ composition. Another popular part of the body covered by tattoos are the arms, which are used as a canvas and are often fully tattooed without a single spot of the original skin. But what if you are under 18 or penniless? The solution is very simple: buy a fake tattoo sleeve or two, and then you too can look like a complete dumbass. Maybe you´ll hit on some drunk EMOgirl in the dark.

hateyyou

But the most infamous part of the EMO culture are their hairstyles. Long ironed fringes, coloured hair, artistic shapes you can´t touch or you´ll break their entire world. I can´t say the hairstyles always look bad. Girls wearing the EMO or SCENE (which is a POP branch of EMO) haircuts often look great but when a guy tries to look as girlish as it gets, it´s not that nice a look. Their faces are ever so sad, when they smile, it looks forced. The biggest EMO hit of all time is called ’I´m not OKAY’, so you can imagine it yourself. The funniest part is that many of them come from wealthy families where they actually couldn´t come across a real problem.  And if you ask them: ’What´s the problem, dude?’, they reply that the problem is YOU! How funny. Once I wanted to know what a real EMO party looks like so I bought a ticket for one gig where the line-up looked very promising, containing acts from the USA, Italy and many others. The venue was full of kids under 18, the oldest EMOs were the band members and the overall atmosphere was…just hilariously bland. One poser after another, bragging with their hair, showing the American T-Shirts that their parents paid for, etc. At the parties you often see people having fun, being loud and having a great time, drinking alcohol, smoking weed or being overly active, showing all the signs of some stimulating drug use. None of this was present there, it felt like some high school party with teachers hiding in the shadows and watching their students in case they go too far. Me and my company had to leave quite quickly to avoid dying of boredom. There are no videos on YouTube witnessing this misery because they are instantly deleted by law. So after this experience it dawned on me why they are so depressed, so soulless without any views of happy future; why they allegedly cut their hands or legs with razors; why they don´t want to see. If they spend every weekend like that among the same people, the result is clear. You will never see an adult EMO making money for their own living except for the EMO musicians. Nobody is that stupid after growing up. In conclusion I can say that I am happy for this fashion to be over in our country. The whole generation of Emo kids grew into FASHIONCORE or PUNKROCK youth, which aren´t that hilarious or bland. Nobody knows what happened to TOKIO HOTEL and such bands. When MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE appear at a rock festival now, they are booed and people throw bottles at them. Was it worth the money?

Next week we‘ll take a look at a much more persistent group who will never really disappear from the streets – more recently they’ve actually been growing in numbers: the almighty METALHEADs, masters of the darkness. In the comments you will be able to vote for the winner between these two. Looking forward? I bet you are!

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