/wrists : the emo danger

I had enough. Every day I read or hear negative news about emos, these kids between 11 and 17, always crying, always sad, extreme posers and suicidal. Everyone agrees that they are completely ridiculous, dangerous for themselves and others and they need some good therapy.
Young girls accused of being emo deny it with a lot of anger. Same situation with the bands. At some point you wonder if there is such a thing as emo. But what is behind this entire mainstream story that I apparently cannot escape?
In Eastern Europe reactions to this subculture take a classical expression: another dangerous Western import that destroys our children. Jokes on emos’ expense got here in poor translations from English, other local jokes are adapted and all of them create a new category to make fun of. But in relation to them, another-dangerous-alienating-element-that-we-should-beware comes in discussion: internet and its destructions, how massively it influenced emo subculture.
Parents are affected also by this media interest in emos, they are scared that their child can become emo and kill themselves. Clinical discourse intervenes here: from the first signals that parents or teachers are dealing with an emo, they should send the sick person to a therapist.
In 2008 in Mexico reactions against emos started to get organized. Various anti-emo groups attacked teenagers in Mexico City, Querétaro, and Tijuana as an opened reaction to their queerness. This aspect is highly emphasized by their critics everywhere, they are directly accused of being queer or gay, in relation to their display of emotions and tenderness together with their fashion statement where differences between emo girls and boys are missing. Queerness is often associated with the theatricality of their display, a hysterical symptom of grabbing attention.
In Russia, a law is about to be voted by Duma to ban emo websites and emo fashion at schools or state buildings, based on the assumption that emo is a dangerous teen trend promoting anti-social behaviour and suicide.
In Romania, Timisoara Police created a collective to prevent events where emo kids are involved. They go in schools to talk to parents about emos. On the other hand, Romanian Orthodox Church reacted also on several times on the emo danger, considered framed by a bigger move away from traditional values and morality. Priests spoke freely about the involved manipulation, corruption and destruction of contemporary Western subject. Romanian newspapers signal that in every school there are at lest 2-3 kids that are emo, especially fifth and sixth grade and are complaining about lack of statistics regarding emo kids.
Emos are attacked on music and fashion grounds as lacking authenticity and being lame copies of Goths, punks or Japanese manga characters. Attention-grabbing effect, posing and histrionic behaviour are generating a whole subculture bashing. Journalists share a charming optimism: soon enough this fashion will die like all the others. Soon enough they hope. What can I say, things haven’t changed much: it was the same reaction towards women in the nineteenth century, as soon as they became visible, having a voice, hysteria came into place to put into mental institutions the most active ones. These teenagers have a voice now, quite a strong one, and with similar tactics are put down exactly like hysterical women a while ago. Besides the hysterical elements of emo culture that I mentioned here and are constantly under attack, there is one more “dangerous” in its subversiveness: their struggle against sexual difference. Many of the jokes are making fun of boys’ lack of masculinity and their queerness. I wonder how a 12 years old can act more masculine…but the main issue here is the heard voice of this generation that has clearly something to say. The response to teenagers’ demand for agency is a typical one: institutionalizing and silencing.