Leave the Emo Kids Alone!

Well, I was in the middle of reading up on some background for a new post, when I saw the following story on Wired. I saw the headline several times earlier in the day, but without a summary for context, it didn't really sink in that it really meant it. Apparently there has been escalating strings of violence directed at Emo kids in Mexico.

That's right, Emo kids. Getting attacked. By punk-rockers and rockabilly kids. And now they're banding together and rioting in response. Now, I have several insensitive responses to this, mostly revolving around my hatred of Emo music and culture, and my mild disdain for people who don't realize that punk died sometime in the last millennium and/or think that pompadours, mutton-chops and white undershirts as outerwear are good ideas. But my dislike of Fallout Boy notwithstanding, This Shit is Fucked Up.

Emo is strongly identified with homosexuality in Mexico, and we all know how manly and straight you have to be when a rockabilly dude. Some of the rhetoric surrounding the attacks has included the term, "emosexual." It would be hard to deny that there is something at least a little bit sexually ambiguous about the whole Guy-liner phenomenon, but when just the name of a musical genre has become hate-speech, that hardly fucking matters. Knock it the fuck off, just leave the Emo kids alone.

Tags: news, music, wtf