3:38 p.m. - 2005-03-25
emo on LJ
Dun read on unless u want to torture yourself.
Emo on LiveJournal
Abstract
As the Internet matures, youths are finding new ways of expressing themselves; besides creating fansites for their favorite music idols, they are writing their daily experiences into online blogs. The Emo Kid culture is a relatively recent development within the sphere of youth subcultures and many of its members are adolescents who grew up with the Internet. These two developments converge when we consider how our listening of music is not just a simple matter of listening: we �aestheticize� our daily life by processing our experiences into experiences mediated through our use of music, a notion put forward by Michael Bull (2000).
Therefore, the driving question is how Emo Kids write about their lives on Livejournal (a web-diary service), giving shape to their relationship and affinity with an Emo culture. The paper serves to investigate the ways Emo Kids participate in Emo culture on Livejournal (either as a cross between play/performance, establishing identity or self-representation) and the implications of these activities.
Literature Review
In approaching the study of Emo Culture on Livejournal, a literature review has been conducted in theories about popular music cultures and virtual communities on the Internet. For theories about popular music cultures, a chapter called The Sociology of the Music Consumer from Tim Wall�s book, Studying Popular Music Culture (2003), has proven to be very helpful.
The earliest studies of music and culture by Theodor Adorno and other Frankfurt school theorists in the 1930s, have their concerns mainly situated on media effects, about the dangers of mass culture, with a dominant hegemonic view of popular music as perpetuating the class divide within society. Although their theories might have skewed towards an unbalanced hegemonic top-down perspective; their theories have highlighted some political implications of music (and other mass media) on society.
Then, later studies of media and culture have been able to avoid over-attribution of media effects to music (or any mass media) by recognizing that music consumption does not occur in isolation from other social practices.
Eventual studies of music and youth culture in the 1970s and 1980s have revolutionized the concept of �youth culture� into a more pluralistic �youth subcultures�. (Tim Wall 2003, 169.)
This led to subcultural approaches of studying �Youth Culture� and music consumption.
Tim Wall elaborates on subcultural approaches by introducing Dick Hebdige, who in his book, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), �argued that subcultural groups like teds or mods or punks (and by extension all musical subcultures) construct a style � of dress, music, forms of transport, and forms of dancing or listening or buying � that is meaningful to them and others, through a process known as �bricolage�: a process of improvisation where conspicuous consumption is organized in distinctive ways to transform the meanings of objects.�
This is quite significant to our study in examining the style of Emo Kids, who have appropriated certain elements of style from Punk and Gothic cultures.
Tim Wall writes that Hebdige�s approach of relating consumption of certain types of music to certain sets of values, has highlighted 3 main characteristics of music consumption:
1. First, that taste and choice in music is not arbitrary or haphazard, nor simply a matter of subjective choice. Rather, it is culturally generated. We do not choose the music we consume in isolation. Our choices of music and the ways we consume them are meaningful to us and those around us.
2. Second, the way in which the music is meaningful to us is not simply reducible to �the music�, but is produced in the particular ways that we consume it. Hebdige shows us that the �sense of style� generated by the ways we consume music transforms it meanings. (bricolage).
3. Finally the meaningfulness of one act of consumption relates to other acts of consumption (or other social practice) to form a whole style. This was how Hebdige used the notion of �homology�.
By exposing the consumption of music as not just an innocent act, we can look upon the phenomenon of Emo Kids with the concept of �cultural capital�, as articulated by Bourdieu (1984) and Fiske (1992), in which certain forms of knowledge and practice are privileged in society.
Sarah Thornton�s studies of dance music cultures reconstitutes Bourdieu�s �cultural capital� as �subcultural capital�and she focuses on the ideologies at work within subcultures �by which youth imagine their own and other social groups assert their distinctive character and affirm that they are not anonymous members of an undifferentiated mass� (Thornton 1995, 10).
As Tim Wall writes,
Summarising Thornton�s conclusions Gilbert and Pearson have noted the �naivete and insupportability of the rigid distinction between �underground� and �mainstream� cultures� [through which club subcultures produce] not oppositionality, but elitism and exclusivity� (Gilbert and Pearson 1999, 159).
The notions of elitism and exclusivity are quite telling when one considers that the Emo Culture is often introspective and prides itself on individualism. However, the notions of elitism and exclusivity are prevalent in most cultures.
Besides the political aspects of music consumption, Lawrence Grossberg has his �domain of affect� theory which suggests that fans (of certain music genres) experience different feelings and moods that �give �color�, �tone� or �texture� to our experiences� (1995, 57). In addition, he suggests that these affects are created through a particular sensibility that defines the possible relationship between texts and audiences, and sets the terms in which texts are experienced (1992, 54).
Grossberg argues that our affects relate to our ways of prioritizing differences, but are now �primarily as a means of defining our identity� (Wall 2003, 174).
Using Grossberg�s �domain of affect� theory, the research can study the texture of experience Emo Kids feel as they participate in Emo Culture and extend it to studies about identity.
More on music consumption and our moods, Tim Wall writes that
Jo Tacchi�s (1998) ethnographic work on the detail and richness of everyday listening practices , and Tia DeNora�s (2000) investigation of the way music affects mood and sense of self both explore the connection between listening practices and emotional states � between sound and sentiment � in what Tacchi calls �the affective dimension of everyday lives and relationships� (Tacchi 1998, 1). Tacchi showed how those individuals who took part in her research shifted their listening habits as their lives and their emotional states changed. (Wall 2003, 182)
This is what Michael Bull has termed �an aestheticisation of urban life� (Bull 2000); a process by which we deal with the experiences of everyday life by turning them into one mediated through our use of music (Wall 2003, 182).
This notion is interesting when we consider Emo Kids posting lyrics of certain songs on their Livejournals and also often posting emoticons about their moods and the music they are currently listening to. It would be interesting to investigate the processes by which Emo kids aestheticise their daily lives.
In considering web blogs (LiveJournals), it is interesting to consider Anthony Giddens and his �reflexive project of the self�.
He posits that self-identity is not a set of traits, instead it is very much like a biography.
�Self-identity has continuity - that is, it cannot easily be completely changed at will - but that continuity is only a product of the person's reflexive beliefs about their own biography� (Giddens 1991: 53).
He stresses that our identity is �in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going� and that it is not an entire fictional story, �It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort them into the ongoing 'story' about the self.� (Giddens 1991: 54).
Hence, in writing about their daily experiences into the web blog, Emo Kids can be said to be developing their own biographies, their own narratives; giving shape to a personal sense of identity.
As the study encompasses a significant amount of Internet activities, a review of some literature about virtual communities has been taken.
Virtual communities is a rather tenuous concept. Sometimes users might be speaking to others whom they don�t consider as members of a same community.
However, as far as the opposing Gemeinschaft (�voluntary, social and reciprocal relations� an immutable �we-feeling� �[Foster 1997].) and Gesellschaft (�impersonal association� utilitarian sentiment that underpins modern, industrial, urban life.� [Foster 1997].) are different definitions of virtual community relations, perhaps it is enlightening to consider Benedict Anderson�s Imagined Communities (1983), where he writes, �All communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity or genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined�.
The idea of virtual communities relate to our study when we consider that a �community, like any form of communication, is not fully realized without a conception of self� (Foster 1997). The ways that Emo Kids present themselves online would thus not only be an act of identification but also a process that shapes Emo culture.
Thus far, the literature review has informed the study about processes of music cultures, identification and virtual communities. These would form the framework in our study of Emo culture in LiveJournal and hopefully shed new light in the processes of change within an Emo culture.
What is Emo?
Emo is a musical genre. Influenced by post-punk sensibilities, Emo has explosive energy (i.e. hard-hitting tempo, heavily-distorted guitars, screaming delivery) and a melodic structure usually composed of soft-loud-soft phases (akin to grunge), coupled with sensitive lyrics dealing with emotional themes, i.e. adolescent love, heartbreak, anger, depression, etc.
However, there is still some debate by fans (and emo-haters) as to what bands/music are considered �emo� and even bands themselves are reluctant to label themselves as �emo� because emo has become a rather derogatory term in recent times.
The stereotypical emo kid look is tight t-shirts (with retro pop culture references, or kitschy heavy metal designs), tight jeans, studded belt, converse Chuck Taylor shoes or other retro brands (Brooks, Saucony, New Balance, etc), jet-black hair falling over the eyes, vintage track jackets, and black or horn-rimmed nerd glasses. There are also accessories like trucker caps, tattoos or piercings.
Context of the study
Emo music originated from Washington DC, US, and it has spread globally, influencing music makers of other places, i.e. Europe, Australia, Asia. Together with the music, its style has been embraced and there are many Emo fans around the world. With Internet access, people can easily acquire the music or information related to the bands.
Currently, it can be considered the mature period in the evolution of Emo culture because some online emo communities have already been deemed to have run their course and have closed down. In addition, there seems to be a growth of more LiveJournal users taking the initiative to create their own communities for emo-related activities.
Emo has also become a term carrying derogatory meanings. American columnist Dan Pourhadi has even described it as, �the single-most hated subculture of our society�(with) shirts, web sites, and false stereotypes all being created to combat the emergence of emo, and portray it as a culture of fakes and conformists�. (Pourhadi, 2005).
Though it is a bit extreme to say that Emo has become the single-most hated subculture, a check on the internet does confirm that there are various parodies about Emo and the stereotypical emo kid.
Methodology
The methods used for the study are observation and textual analysis of some LiveJournal blogs and communities maintained by Emo kids, coupled with an online questionnaire posted to their communities.
The method of observation and textual analysis is employed because the study hopes to investigate how online Emo culture is manifested, its various characteristics and social structure. The questionnaire is used so as to gain some understanding about the perspectives of the members in these Emo communities and how they relate to Emo culture.
Findings
The structure of most Emo communities on LiveJournal is that they are usually started and maintained by a moderator. Anyone can start or create their own community. The moderator has the power to decide which users can be members of that community or to promote certain members to become moderators and the moderator can also ban certain users if they do not comply with rules laid down by the moderator.
There are several ways of becoming a member of a LiveJournal community. Firstly, one has to have a LiveJournal. And then, it is often a matter of simply clicking a button to join a community. However, some Emo communities have their own registration rites, which applicants have to go through, in order to be in that community.
The registration process can be listing out applicants� favourite bands, movies, books and opinions; though sometimes they also have more elaborate rules. Some communities demand that applicants post photos of themselves, in order for their application for membership to be voted by other members. There are also communities which state that applicants have to promote that community at 3 other places, using photo or html links, in order for the application to be successful.
However, these elaborate photo-voting and promotion rules are not exclusive to Emo communities. They are also apparent in other communities such as Nonuglyqueerkid (a community for lesbians/gays). Some members explain that they want to keep people who type �LiKe tHiS� out (i.e. people who type with capital letters all over the place).
When users first become members of an emo community, they might post an introductory post about themselves. These introductory posts can range from simply saying hi to more personal ones such as explaining their likes/dislikes, hobbies, favourite bands, love experiences, etc.
Observations about LiveJournal posts
Personal photos posted to Emo communities are usually of members themselves. Some of them are dressed in the Emo style and/or adopting a certain Emo look which can be described as forlorn or sad. Some photos are posted under a �theme�, which means that the poster might dress up or edit the photos using Adobe Photoshop or other photo-editing software, to create a certain mood or feel.
Sometimes users will post lyrics of songs by Emo bands. Some are accompanied by personal thoughts or experiences, about how the user relate to the song or similarities between the contents of the songs and their own lives.
Some users also post poems on their LiveJournal blogs and the subject matter in the poems relate to emotional matters. For example, a poem by a LiveJournal user with the nick xfallingxawayx:
�thinking about alot of things
can often change your mind
your broken heart filled with pain
that just wont become at ease
your in a deep depression
your suffering from pressure�
Besides personal stuff, members might also post the following:
1. promotional links to other emo communities, inviting other users to join their communitiy.
2. news about bands, their gigs, album releases, etc.
3. links to music samples of their own Emo bands.
4. their results in Internet quizzes.
There are some terms and slang being used in Emo communities; the most common of which are song titles/lyrics and band names. It would not be apparent if one does not have knowledge about the Emo bands or the lyrics.
Some emo communities have �stamping�. It refers to a metaphorical stamp of acceptance when applicants have successfully joined a community. Hence, some members say that they have been �stamped�. This is not an exclusive phenomenon as other communities (such as nonuglyqueerkid) also have this.
Another often-used sign is the symbol <3.
<3 means love. For e.g. a member might sign off saying, �I <3 Dashboard Confessional!�.
An explanation for this might be because the sign <3 looks like a heart tilted sideways.
Perspectives of members in Emo communities
They like Emo music because they see it as �a source of comfort�, the themes in it are �relevant to current life issues and experiences, e.g. relationships, adolescent stresses, the beginnings of existential awareness� these all kinda make it more powerful and thought provoking� more engaging�. One correspondent also replied that the music seems more �real� as compared to other music because the bands� performances are so intense.
Almost all the correspondents say that they belong to more than one online Emo community and their participation in online Emo communities is usually to find out about new bands and gigs and meet other fans.
When asked to name their favorite emo bands, they were able to name about 4 or 5.
Some do not feel that they have an impact or influence on emo culture, though some others say that by buying albums, or setting up a zine, they do contribute to it.
On whether they regard themselves as an Emo Kid, there are mixed answers. Some feel that it is just a label and listening to the music does not necessarily make them a Emo Kid.
Others begrudge that they might be one but the term has become too popular, �a pop clich�.
Analysis
About the structure
Technology plays a large part in the manifestation of online Emo culture.
LiveJournal is like a hybrid blog-forum, it allows the interlinking of blogs and setting up a community blog/forum has greatly eased the process of forming communities of similar interests.
To a certain extent, other communities on the Internet have similar characteristics to Emo LiveJournal communities. This points to the fluidity of language and semiotics on the Internet. There is a flow of information between various cultures on the Internet, thus certain signs/terms such as <3 or stamping or sXe (straight-edge) can have similar meanings although they are in different communities.
Perhaps because of the anonymity on the Internet, communities feel that there is a need to �know� a person, to gather information about him/her fully, before they would accept him/her as a member. In addition, stamping and extensive application rules help maintain the exclusivity of certain Emo communities.
About community and personal blog posts
When users type about their daily life experiences into their blogs or emo community posts, they are literally creating what Anthony Giddens calls �the reflexive project of the self�. The narrative reflexivity is when we make sense of our identities not in terms of a set of traits, but in the terms of an ongoing story, like a biography.
When Giddens formulated this theory, he probably wasn�t thinking about online diaries and blogs. In fact, his theory was formulated around the early 90s, when online blogs did not even exist yet or were not as widely used as current times.
Interestingly, Giddens links the rise of this �narrative of the self� to the emergence and development of the discourse of romantic love in the late eighteenth century. He felt that �romantic love introduced the idea of a narrative into an individual�s life�(1992, 39) and he points out the �simultaneous emergence of the novel� during that period. (Gauntlett David, 2002).
Aren�t there parallels with Emo culture�s discourse of love and relationships? Or the widespread Emo LiveJournals?
Of course, blogging is not only a matter of writing a story about oneself; there is a sense of revealing one�s personality to the world, through subjective framing and positioning of one�s experiences.
This is where Michael Bull�s �aestheticisation of urban life� might come in.
Framing one�s experience of life using lyrics and their meanings inherent in a song, people feel that their emotions are expressed more fully. Thus, when users write about their lives on LiveJournal, they can be said to be writing their biographies, forming self-identities in the process, and importantly, also engaging in an Emo activity because of the introspective and emotional nature of writing one�s feelings and thoughts.
Going back to structure
When Emo users aestheticise and position their relationship or life situations (using their knowledge of Emo music) and posting to Emo communities, they are thus reinforcing the social structure of Emo culture.
This is in accordance with Gidden�s theory of structuration.
In this theory, the structures of society and human agency are related and social order is reproduced through the repetitive acts of individual agents. Expectations of behaviour are thus formed and there are feelings akin to moral outrage when these expectations are transgressed.
Emo users, through their varied and repetitive posts about Emo bands, music, and various other interactions, create a social order, a structure, and thus a culture.
However, as David Gauntlett put it, �there are established ways of doing things; but it also means that these can be changed when people start to ignore them, replace them, or reproduce them differently.� (Gauntlett, 2002).
Therefore, even when emo culture is maintained by its members, there are processes which shape and change it.
About the decline of the term Emo
Consider this: It is relatively easy to join an online Emo LiveJournal community.
The philosophy within Emo music, about introspective emotional reflection, is almost universal. People who feel sad or depressed about relationship problems or other matters can easily relate to the songs.
However, with the ease of affiliation and adoption of Emo culture, there are bound to be new members within the community who are unaware of Emo music�s punk and hardcore roots. This is where the delineations of authenticity come in. Especially with the commercial success and mainstream acceptance of some Emo bands.
A situation might arise where some new members develop their own understandings of Emo culture, thus diverging from other members who have the knowledge about Emo culture�s roots. For example, a young applicant to an emo community mistakes the term �sXe� as sexy instead of straight-edge and gets rejected and made fun of. (Straight-edge refers to living a life without booze, drugs, sex and cigarettes. In recent interpretations, it can also mean being vegan).
Therefore, when members within a culture do not act within norms, it can lead to a break within the culture. This is apparent within Emo culture where some more-informed fans feel that their culture has been misappropriated by people whom they deem inauthentic, i.e. posers, blind-fashion followers, etc.
This could be one of the reasons why the term �Emo� has some negative connotations, even to members themselves.
The phenomenon of Emo parodies and spoofs could be a result of the maintenance of culture itself. When people make fun of posers or question their authenticity, they are indirectly preserving the ideals or philosophy of the culture, that is, being real and being true to oneself, as opposed to selling out, or dumbly following trends, being mass marketed.
Such activities and phenomenon have to be considered within the historical development of Emo culture or other counter cultures. Emo culture does not come into being by itself. It is influenced and developed by rock, punk and post-punk sensibilities, and it occurs within a landscape of other cultures.
Conclusion
The study confirms and links online Emo culture to Giddens� theories about self-identity and structuration.
Online Emo culture (music, graphics, sign conventions, etc) shape the personal blogs of its members who in turn contribute to the overall structure of online emo communities.
Subcultures are never totally separated from the so-called �mainstream� culture. The flow of information and influences between cultures is continuous.
On a more personal note, I feel that online Emo culture is a contested site of meanings.
It bears the battles of stereotypes and value judgements about authenticity and truth, from other cultures and also its own members. (i.e. �Is Dashboard Confessional emo? But they�re on a major label!�)
Within a community, members� individual actions do have a considerable influence in that they add to the overall social order of the community. Human agency is stronger than we think and in the online world, where access is amplified, our actions have an almost karmic effect on our lives.
THE END
References
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Bull, M. 2000. Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life. Berg.
DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge University Press.
Foster, Derek. 1996. Community and Identity in the Electronic Village, in Porter, David (1996), Internet Culture. Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Extracted from Gauntlett, David (2002), Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction. Routledge. Extract available at: http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens5.htm
Grossberg, Lawrence. 1992. �The Affective Sensibility of Fandom�, in Lisa A. Lewis, The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. Routledge.
Pourhadi, Dan. 2005. Defining Emo: Expose, in The Pourhadi Perspective. Available at:
http://www.pourhadi.com/index.php/C4/
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Tacchi Jo. 1998. The Consumption of Radio Sound in Domestic Contexts. (Publisher unknown).
Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Polity Press.
Wall, Tim. 2003. Studying Popular Music Culture. Arnold.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Methuen.
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