#TRANSPARENTSOUL: The Resurgence of Emo

Written By: Zin Lee

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My Chemical Romance. Eyeliner. Black tight jeans. An overly long and thick fringe — These are the building blocks of Emo culture.

In some ways, Emo has always been a factor of youth culture. Music has always evolved to capture a significant type of melancholy within the youth. Emo just seems to be the most visually striking of it all. Disregarding the Emo movement’s predecessors, anguish can be seen in many popular subcultures over the past decade alone. We can see it in the 2013 Tumblr Girls, the minor key covers of Lorde songs . And now, we see it on TikTok in the revival of Emo. Not to mention, the fact that TikTok is such a powerful medium, in that it can showcase both visuals and music, makes it perfect for such a subculture to exist.

Admittedly, Emo is a mixed bag of genres. Evolved from the mid-1980s’ Hardcore Punk movement and the mid-1990s’ Grunge movement. It has often been compared with other subcultures like Goth and Punk, much to the resentment of each selective group. What makes something "Truly Emo" is hard to pinpoint. But if one peruses TikTok, they'd see that kids today hold a different opinion. After the wave of 2013 Tumblr Girls has ended, TikTokers, particularly ones known as 'E-Kids”, now post outfits that one would spot at a Bring Me To The Horizon concert— Flashy coloured hair, extreme eyeliner, piercings, and teenagers pleading desperately, "Can we please go back to that time?"

That begs the titular question: Is Emo coming back? There has of course been a debate on whether these adolescents can be considered "True Emos," or if this is just another case of kids feeling nostalgic for a time before them. There's also discourse within the TikTok Emo community itself, of whether or not they “count", similarly to the Scene/Goth/Emo issue of years prior.

Emo is hardly something to be dismissive of; in fact, I say we should welcome it. Being a teenager is hard. It always has been. You're experiencing everything for the first time, you have very little control over your own life, and hormones are using all of their power to make you miserable. But things seem even harder for kids nowadays.

In the wake of social media, bad news is shoved in your face left and right, with little signs of things getting better. Kids have been stuck inside for the past year, unable to actually live like teenagers. So it makes sense that they would become interested in a culture that validates feelings of isolation and angst. If this apparent resurgence is a way for the youth to healthily express themselves and have fun, then let them have their chained belts and fishnets.