“Emo” is a subculture that sprouted from fans of emotional hardcore, or emocore, a style of punk rock. It’s generally associated with youth who are dispirited and angry with society, other people or themselves.

The best era for emos who listen to that type of music, in my opinion, was 2003 to 2009. Artists at this time made amazing albums such as “Discovering the Waterfront” by Silverstein, “Louder now” by Taking Back Sunday and “Don’t You Fake It” by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. These albums included sweet tunes like “Face down,” “MakeDamnSure,” My Heroine” and “Call it Karma.”

Some people think that the new wave of modern emos starting from 2012 ruined emo  culture. Currently some popular emo bands have become nothing but mainstream pop, like Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, Twenty One Pilots and My Chemical Romance. Those bands were once considered emo back in the day, talking about personal and confessional topics relating to pain, self-loathing and failed love. But please don’t call things emo that aren’t emo anymore.

My Chemical Romance remained true to emo but they broke up in 2013 and were mostly considered punk until modern day emos started claiming their music was “emo” even though they only know their most popular hits. MCR has great history and their music is good,

Other than the music, fashion was a very important part of being emo. Emos were known for dressing in all black or bright neon colors. Normally black ripped jeans, band t shirts, rubber bracelets and having their iconic emo eyeliner and hair. They would buy most of their clothes at Hot Topic back when the store wasn’t full of all these random pop artists and only had emo/alternative bands shirts and merchandise. Modern emos don’t embrace the full emo look but still shop at Hot Topic.  

Bands start changing their sound and start attracting new audiences as they grow, but this doesn’t mean they still represent their musical genre. Fans of the genre should look into their origins and be honest with themselves and see if they are a true fan of them and can truly call themselves emo.