Saturday, November 10, 2007

The boys wear girl pants....not that there's anything wrong with that


There is a trend at my school that for some reason really intrigues me. I don’t understand it. The kids call them “Emos” which is short for emotional. At first, I thought maybe they had replaced the marginalized group of other emotional students, the Goths, but we still got some of those and they are not friends with the Emos. This clique or community of teens seems to stem from a particular style of music, (similar to Goths) but I think it would be interesting to study what other characteristics they share, such as family, socio-economic background, other hobbies, birth order(!?) anything really. Emo’s have a similar fashion esthetic and appearance, and, for some reason, are the targets of a lot of animosity from their peers. I wonder why? I know that teenagers are desperately trying to define themselves during this period of their lives and like the kids in the other cliques, the Emo’s aren’t that different, yet they still fascinate me. I recently helped one of my students (not an Emo) put on a concert for charity and 2 of the bands featured drew a big Emo crowd. I watched dumbstruck, at 3 dancing boys and began to wonder what else do they do? (I mean the dancing was really strange, a lot of failing and kicking and then pacing- so what other strange things do they do and more importantly, where did they learn it and why do they do it?)

I would want to interview the students and observe the activities they participate in, such as concerts, hanging out time, parties (a side note many Emo’s are often Straight Edge, which means they do not use drugs or alcohol). I would want to talk to their parents, other students in the building and staff. I would want to research about the bands they follow and interview them. Some challenges would be the students themselves, would they be able to be “real”. Teenagers, more so than adults, are ultra concerned with how their image so that would influence how they interacted with the interviewer. Another challenge is making it seem interesting to other viewers. I might be totally alone on my fascination with them. Also, adults might find the subject matter a little self-indulgent or trite. I mean they’re teenagers after all, who cares, right? They will grow up, figure out who they really are and then be mortified by their high school antics like the rest of us. Teenagers by design, are meant to be dramatic and so a documentary on this teen sub-culture might be a bit too much.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Interesting...I have never heard of this group called the Emos. What age level are these teens?