Punk music on estrogen. Often acoustic guitar with soft, high male vocals that dwell exessively on the singer's feelings, especially melancholy remembrances of past relationships/mistakes in life. A form of music that diverged from punk in the '80s, the name "emo" is derived from the emotive style of the lyrics and music. This genre has lately been marketed heavily by the music industry to teenagers with bands such as Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday, and has seen much commercial and mainstream success. The music has also spawned a subculture which conforms to certain conventions in dress such as tight sweatshirts, tight band T-shirts and horn-rim glasses. Adherents profess to exessively melancholy temperments. Males that adhere to the emo subculture are sometimes confused with metrosexuals; indeed the line between the two is somwhat blurred, though both groups claim to be intouch with their emotional side. The ephemeral and hackneyed nature of emo songwriting suggests that its audience will be restricted largely to teenagers. the genre suffers from a lack of credibility outside the aforementioned demographic group, much like current Nu Metal bands.
girlfriend: C'mon, lets have sex.
boyfriend: I'm too sad to have sex.
girlfriend: I'm sad too; lets have sex and cry.
boyfriend: I'm already crying.
boyfriend: I'm too sad to have sex.
girlfriend: I'm sad too; lets have sex and cry.
boyfriend: I'm already crying.
by Pureblarney July 30, 2004
by Lockesly April 07, 2004
A word people who are old like me come to urbandictionary.com to define so they can point out how they were emo fans before most people looking at this site were in elementary school.
Old Person #1: Have you heard what people nowadays call 'emo'?
Old Person #2: Yeah its so weird. I woulda called them Green Day clones back in '92.
Old Person #1: Them was the days.
Old Person #2: Yeah. I'm gonna go make fun of emo on urbandictionary. People will think I'm an old creep in a young person's world.
Old Person #2: Yeah its so weird. I woulda called them Green Day clones back in '92.
Old Person #1: Them was the days.
Old Person #2: Yeah. I'm gonna go make fun of emo on urbandictionary. People will think I'm an old creep in a young person's world.
by arrow_keys July 15, 2005
Retard: LAWL! I'm so fucking stupid! Everything that I don't like is emo. I don't even know what that word means, but whatever! OH SHIT I JUST SWALLOWED A QUARTER!
by Bloodbath 87 March 06, 2009
Emo is a lifestyle that is stereo typed by many people who truley don't understand. Emo the stereotype is people that are depressed and who cut themselves. Those people are called self harmers.
Emo means emotional so as an example if you are emo you aren't sad you are realy sad(where the stereo type comes from which is a lot of the emo people so you see where the stereotype comes from), You aren't happy you are realy happy (Many people dont notice this as emo), you aren't angry you are realy angry,Etc.. Emo means you feel your emotions to an extreme.
Most emo's wear all black and listen to rock music(usualy screamo). True emo people have real problems they sometimes look like normal everyday people without the hair styles, makeup, and all the hate. The fakes are middle class-upper middle class kids who think they have real problems when in reality they dont. They take and dye their hair, start wearing black, and listen to screamo or metal, and "hate" their lives.
Emo people use music, the way they dress, and look to express themselves.
Emo means emotional so as an example if you are emo you aren't sad you are realy sad(where the stereo type comes from which is a lot of the emo people so you see where the stereotype comes from), You aren't happy you are realy happy (Many people dont notice this as emo), you aren't angry you are realy angry,Etc.. Emo means you feel your emotions to an extreme.
Most emo's wear all black and listen to rock music(usualy screamo). True emo people have real problems they sometimes look like normal everyday people without the hair styles, makeup, and all the hate. The fakes are middle class-upper middle class kids who think they have real problems when in reality they dont. They take and dye their hair, start wearing black, and listen to screamo or metal, and "hate" their lives.
Emo people use music, the way they dress, and look to express themselves.
by Synisterblades November 14, 2009
Emo = Emotional Hardcore
Contrary to popular belief,
Emo is not about being depressed or cutting,
it's not short for emotional,
it has nothing to do with teenage posers who follow the trend of pretending to be bisexual, depressed, and wearing all black.
It's not a fashion.
The fashion that's commonly referred to as "emo fashion",
is actually called "scene".
And MCR and Fallout Boy are NOT emo.
In actuality, It's a branch off of hardcore punk that started in the mid 80s with the punk band, Rites of Spring.
They hated the glorified violence and restrained music that infected the D.C. hardcore scene,
and took hardcore to a greater level of experimentation
with more emotional lyrics and more melodic instruments.
Soon after, a surge of new bands started forming and creating their own adaption of the style that Rites of Spring innovated.
The summer of 1985 became known as "revolution summer".
Good emo bands from "revolution summer" include:
Rites of Spring, Embrace, Moss Icon, Dag Nasty, Gray Matter,
Nation of Ulysses, and Fire Party.
After the disbanding of Rites of Spring,
Ian MacKaye (from Embrace) and Guy Picciotto (from Rites of Spring) formed the post-hardcore band Fugazi in the early 90s. who influenced bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Far, Braid, and Jimmy Eat World.
In my opinion, Sunny Day Real Estate are to mall emo, (the music that's commonly referred to as emo today)
as Rites of Spring are to emo.
They started the whole movement of mainstream "emo" bands.
Happening at the same time,
was the the unground movement of screamo.
Screamo sounded similar to emo,
but louder and with a lot more screaming and slightly different song structures.
Screamo started with bands such as Antioch Arrow, Palatka,
Portraits of the Past, and The Swing Kids.
The music comprised of brutal yet somewhat melodic guitars, loud, fast drums, song structures that switch from quiet to loud, and obviously, screaming vocals.
One thing that's not true is when people say real emo is a dead genre.
because, while mainstream "emo" has taken over MTV and the radio, an underground emo/screamo scene still exists.
Circle Takes the Square, Raein, Daitro, Haram, 1905, and ...Who Calls So Loud, City of Caterpillar are all examples of emo (and screamo) bands from the last eight years, most of them are still existing.
It's not a dead genre, you just have to look for the real deal.
Contrary to popular belief,
Emo is not about being depressed or cutting,
it's not short for emotional,
it has nothing to do with teenage posers who follow the trend of pretending to be bisexual, depressed, and wearing all black.
It's not a fashion.
The fashion that's commonly referred to as "emo fashion",
is actually called "scene".
And MCR and Fallout Boy are NOT emo.
In actuality, It's a branch off of hardcore punk that started in the mid 80s with the punk band, Rites of Spring.
They hated the glorified violence and restrained music that infected the D.C. hardcore scene,
and took hardcore to a greater level of experimentation
with more emotional lyrics and more melodic instruments.
Soon after, a surge of new bands started forming and creating their own adaption of the style that Rites of Spring innovated.
The summer of 1985 became known as "revolution summer".
Good emo bands from "revolution summer" include:
Rites of Spring, Embrace, Moss Icon, Dag Nasty, Gray Matter,
Nation of Ulysses, and Fire Party.
After the disbanding of Rites of Spring,
Ian MacKaye (from Embrace) and Guy Picciotto (from Rites of Spring) formed the post-hardcore band Fugazi in the early 90s. who influenced bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Far, Braid, and Jimmy Eat World.
In my opinion, Sunny Day Real Estate are to mall emo, (the music that's commonly referred to as emo today)
as Rites of Spring are to emo.
They started the whole movement of mainstream "emo" bands.
Happening at the same time,
was the the unground movement of screamo.
Screamo sounded similar to emo,
but louder and with a lot more screaming and slightly different song structures.
Screamo started with bands such as Antioch Arrow, Palatka,
Portraits of the Past, and The Swing Kids.
The music comprised of brutal yet somewhat melodic guitars, loud, fast drums, song structures that switch from quiet to loud, and obviously, screaming vocals.
One thing that's not true is when people say real emo is a dead genre.
because, while mainstream "emo" has taken over MTV and the radio, an underground emo/screamo scene still exists.
Circle Takes the Square, Raein, Daitro, Haram, 1905, and ...Who Calls So Loud, City of Caterpillar are all examples of emo (and screamo) bands from the last eight years, most of them are still existing.
It's not a dead genre, you just have to look for the real deal.
Person1: Is My Chemical Romance emo?
Person2: NO.
Person1: Then what is emo?
Person2: *points to definition*
Person2: NO.
Person1: Then what is emo?
Person2: *points to definition*
by JetBlackMirror January 09, 2009
Emo people are people who don't care what others think about them. They don't really want to be accepted by "the crowd" ...Emo people listen to some pretty good music. I myself Like avenged sevenfold, death cab for cutie, panic at the disco, black veil brides, etc. .....I Like most of the stuff at hot topic, but I cant buy any of it cause its so expensive. Emo people don't actually have a certain type of dress. Everyone assumes that emo people LOVE wrist bands, and chains, scarves, choker necklaces, skulls, and rock, because over half of the emo people they know probably express their feelings through that kind of stuff.
Emo reallly does just stand for "emotional"
..You dont have to be poetic to be emo, but mostly everyone who is emo is artistic in some way.
Emo does not mean that you cut yourself, or try to commit suicide. Some Do, but thats just because that's what they choose. NOT ALL EMO PEOPLE WEAR BLACK ALL THE TIME. Stop Listening to the stereotypes. Get your facts straight.
Emo reallly does just stand for "emotional"
..You dont have to be poetic to be emo, but mostly everyone who is emo is artistic in some way.
Emo does not mean that you cut yourself, or try to commit suicide. Some Do, but thats just because that's what they choose. NOT ALL EMO PEOPLE WEAR BLACK ALL THE TIME. Stop Listening to the stereotypes. Get your facts straight.
The emo kid sat in the back of the class without saying a word, So we thought he was just stupid, but He turned out to be pretty intellegent. When I saw him with his friends, he was laughing and having a good time.
by ImNotActuallyEmo<3 April 06, 2011