RecCenter.com

This. Disgusts. Me. It makes me wonder about the intelligence in some of the modern day news outlets. How is this accurate journalism? All it does is perpetuate a stereotypical view of a group of kids. A stereotype is spread around by word of mouth of the actions of a few in a group of people. It is ignorant, and it is equally ignorant to play those stereotypes as truth. Had they actually talked to the emo kids who don't wear the My Chemical Romance t-shirts, or eyeliner, or thick rimmed glasses, there would have been a different view of the music itself. Not to mention the idiocy of the people they interviewed. The kids who sort of see the typical scenesters have no idea of what it is--they don't listen to it. It's not their scene. The only see what the media has shown them is emo. And the fact that they quoted "emo quizzes" is just appalling! Like those have any merit to them whatsoever! Those are all created by the kids who don't listen to the music and see the scenesters. See? We're back to the stereotypes again. What else is new? This hysteria isn't. Does anyone remember when the Beatles first came out? Or how if you play "Stairway to Heaven" backwards you get satanic messages? This is all a fabricated attempt to "protect the children." It's sad. It makes it seem as if the kids--WE--have absolutely no intelligence whatsoever and are simply slaves to a reverberating beat, a dark song lyric, and a fad. But really, as the music buff that I am, what really pissed me off was the songs/bands playing in the background, and the final list of bands at the end of the story. The songs in the background included "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance, "Hold On" by Good Charlotte. For starters, if the newscasters had any semblance of intelligence, they would realize that "Teenagers" is a tongue-in-cheek play on the teens of today. "Hold On" was by far more insulting. With lyrics like, "Hold on if you feel like letting go/hold on it gets better than you know" this seemed to be the typical "cheer up, emo kid!" ploy. Let me tell you: if somebody is really unstable and depressed enough to inflict harm on themselves, then this inane inspirational lyric is the last thing they need. What they need is someone to talk about their problems to. A comforting ear is more helpful than a crappy and condescending song. Furthermore, they included Coheed and Cambria, which has a disclaimer in their liner notes saying that the lyrics aren't meant to be taken seriously, and are a part of an ongoing story. And to even to further demonstrate the brillance of these reporters, they don't even mention those bands in their list of popular emo bands. They have old emo bands like Dag Nasty, Jawbreaker and Rites of Spring. For one thing, Jawbreaker can be either a pop-punk, emo or in some occasions, grunge depending on the album or the song; for another, I'm willing to bet if you were to ask anyone around here who those bands were, you'd get no response. Nice investigating KGPE! You've really shown me the light about emo! Might as well lock us up and grab your pitchforks... it's going to be a witchhunt for a scapegoat.