Anti- Emo conspiracy?

MS13 behind Emo bullying? Interesting article.


Kids, gangs, Emos & suicide
pittsburghlive.com - Aug 24, 2008

March against the Mail today

The march/gathering has moved location looks like the police would not accept it being direcly outside the Mail. See here.

The publicity surrounding the march has resulted in a few articles. The BBC has looked into the problem:

Rock cult or nice kids that do their homework?
BBC News, UK -29 May 2008

As she knuckles down to prepare for her A-level exams, Kate Ashford, 17, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, offers a less sinister explanation for the appeal of MCR.

The theatrical angst and drama of emo is, she suggests, no more than an outlet for a generation creaking under the weight of social expectation.

"Being a teenager has got to be so much more difficult these days," Kate says. "There's a lot more exams and pressure to get into university.

"Listening to a band like MCR is a cathartic thing. And I suppose emo style is meant to be about standing out, looking different - even if all the other emo kids are dressed the same as you."

Matthew Hirons, a 22-year-old web developer from Stourport-on-Severn, is even more phlegmatic. He suggests that the critics take the music far more seriously than the fans.

"People say emo is all about depression and suicide," he says. "But I'm a happy person. I've got a girlfriend and a good job. I just like the music and the fashion.

"I think anyone over 25 will find it hard to understand what it's all about. Even I'm a bit past it for an emo, to be honest."

The Times article is far better however with a wideranging article on the problems of emos in South America. But why no mention of emo attacks in the UK?

Emo kids are under attack.
Times Online, UK - 29 May 2008

Coincidentally, Mexico is one country that has recently experienced a wave of antiemo attacks. The emo cult is growing throughout Latin America, and its followers are regularly subjected to abuse, prejudice and even violent attack. They are seen as homosexual, antisocial poseurs, weird and fanatical. In March antiemo attacks swept through Mexico.

On March 7 a mob of 800 in the city of Queretaro went looking for emos to beat up. On March 15, a silent march against the attacks, organised by a gay rights group, was staged in the same city.

In Chile there are reports of skin-heads attacking emo kids. In São Paulo, Brazil, emo teenagers report regular attacks, especially in the city’s poorer Eastern suburbs. In Lima, Peru, a gang of anarchist punks recently attacked emos, kidnapping one who was kicked and punched before he was rescued.

For South American emos, the appeal is more about identity, means of expression, and style. Especially for those in the continent’s enormous urban sprawls, where the increasing economic boom means that families have internet and cable television but where there are few outlets for increasingly sophisticated teenage youth.

This is clear in the shabby, nondescript Galeria Brasil in Lima, situated on the edge of the city’s drab, grimy, suburban sprawl. It’s one of Peru’s most famous destinations for rock fans. But this grubby concrete mall, with its CD and T-shirt shops, looks like a Hackney tower block. Teenagers idle out their afternoons playing out-of-date video games for 25p an hour. Looking around, it’s easy to see why a cult about teenage identity and isolation might spread so quickly.

Jimmy Carrillo, a Peruvian TV reporter, profiled emos recently. “The emo movement is very strong here in Lima,” he says. “It’s a new movement. It’s very colourful, weird, very estranged from other movements.” Emo is gaining ground in poorer, transitional barrios such as Villa El Salvador and Los Olivos, where people are open to the influence of American rock and MTV. But the prejudice against the perceived homosexuality of emos runs deep. “This is a very macho country. So homosexuality is taboo,” Carrillo says. Anarcho punks particularly hate them. “They hate homosexuals. And they look at the emos as people who stole ideas and music. It’s a double punch.”

Junior Medina, 20, is a singer in Lima’s hottest emo band Ediana. “We are called gays, queers, pussies, faggots,” he says. “The lyrics are one cause, because they are romantic, about heartbreak.” Their followers are accused of being poseurs. “Emos are more concerned about the way they look,” Medina says, fiddling with his floppy fringe.

Yet Latin American emos are fighting back. In March Medina took part in a studio debate for the Peruvian TV chat show Enemigos Intimos, in which emos were heavily satirised. “That was fake,” he says. Realising some of the other emo participants were imposters, he waited until 1am, and filmed two of the vacant emo teenagers – actually channel employees – leaving work. Medina posted the video on YouTube. The national newspaper El Comercio ran an exposé and the show’s producers were forced to apologise.

“Emo isn’t emotional, it’s just queer,” is a popular saying among fashionable youth in Brazil’s most style-conscious city, São Paulo. When the cult hit the city in 2006, homemade “comedy” videos appeared on YouTube showing how to lynch an emo.

The assumption among many Brazilians is that emos are gay, unsociable, and self-centred – none of which goes down well in this conservative, sociable country. Victor Sousa, 20, is a former emo and he encountered plenty of prejudice, he says. “The homosexual prejudice is unfair. People say that, but it isn’t true for everyone.”

Typical of emo’s critics is Ligia Terceira, 30, a salesperson in Shopping Tatuapé, a vast, hectic mall in Zona Leste, São Paulo, where many emos gather and where many are attacked. “Many of them look like homosexuals,” he says. “It seems they don’t like people. They exclude themselves from society. They have closed minds; they’re radical and fanatical.”

Emo problems in Peru and Mexico

Peru: Understanding the Emo Youth in Lima

And they are defenseless because a friend told me that he had seen many of them beaten by gangs and by punks that hang out around the Spanish Cultural Center for their appearance.

In Peru misunderstandings abound and the media hit a new low using "fake" emos in a tv programme:

About a month ago, on the local television program Close Enemies, there was a program dedicated to emos, which ridiculed and treated them poorly. The blog Descarga Directa [es] published a video, which showed part of the program, on his post “Emos on the television: Noooo!! [es]” However, what had added to the controversy was the discovery that part of the program was made with emos especially created for the occasion. This is what El Blog de Cayo [es] said on his post “False Panelists… False Emos [es]“:

Once again evidence of how this is a worldwide problem.


MTV continue their examination of Emo attacks with some interesting research. Glad to see there are some true punks in Mexico.:

Behind The Emo Attacks: We Head To Mexico City
MTV.com

So why does the threat of violence persist? And why are these different classes of kids — punks, goths, metalheads and emos — at war with one another? Well, according to Josh Kun, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications and the author of "Audiotopia: Music, Race and America" (which had a chapter dedicated to Mexican rock), the issue at the heart of all this is one of identity. In very simple terms, Mexican youth cling to the essence of what it means to be a punk or a metalhead — and they will fight to the bitter end to protect that identity from any and all infringement.

"In Mexico, rock culture has always been this super outlawed thing. ... Kids there attach themselves to a countercultural movement because it's about survival — it's an intensity we're not used to here in the States," he said. "In the '60s, rock was outlawed — you would be arrested if you were playing rock music in public, and your hair would be cut by the cops — and so there's always been this aura of it being 'rebel' music, and kids are drawn to that. To extremes.

"Punk has not been commoditized and mainstreamed to the extent it has here in the U.S., where something like 'emo' is in it's third or fourth wave, and there's nothing particularly 'alternative' about it," Kun continued. "In Mexico, it's still an underground identity, and it's taken to extremes. ... It's really striking how overly sexualized it is. Emo kids are so-called 'emo-sexuals' and punks are super-macho and straight. So when they fight, it's about identities."

And despite the rather glum predictions of those in the scene, Kun says there are already signs that emo kids are beginning to be accepted. He points to an instance in Tijuana, one of the sites of the original violence, where rather than attack emos, punkeros decided to embrace them, because it was the punk-rock thing to do.

"Basically, the punk leaders there came together and told all the other punks that violence was not the 'punk' thing to do," he explained. "They said that if you were a true punk, you'd learn to accept the emo kids, because they're different just like we are."

MCR denounce attacks in Mexico

When My Chemical Romance took the stage in Mexico City (this past Saturday at Zero Fest), Gerard Way spoke to the crowd:

“I want to say something today before we continue. Recently we’ve been hearing a lot of stuff about some violence here in your country having to do with kids who want to wear black t-shirts…or some kind of bulls— stuff like that. We don’t want to see any f—ing violence! We came here for one reason, and that’s to be at the f—ing rock show!”

My Chemical Romance Speak Out Against Anti-Emo Violence
MTV.com

My Chemical Romance have consitantly promoted an an anti-self harm and anti suicide message. Of course there is a massive debate whether their music is emo or not, the band and many of their fans deny it, but we cannot really go into that here.

More reports provide some interesting background:

Subculture clash among Mexico youth
USA Today - Apr 14, 2008
But in other parts of Mexico, a spate of attacks by punks and other groups on the emos has thrown a spotlight on the rapid growth of these "urban tribes"

In Mexico, emo music fans face many who hate them to the core
Chicago Tribune, United States - Apr 14, 2008
Whatever the case, the dramatic dress style of urban music followers known as "emos" has struck a nerve in Mexico's macho society.


This following report highlights something we have talked about often not noted elsewhere :

Although nothing of this magnitude has been reported in North Dakota or the United States, there is evidence of disliking for the people that are known as "emos." On the MTV news Web site alone, there are several comments on the article threatening "emos" in America with an 800-person riot of their own.

Beyond the comments about the article, propaganda featuring anti-emo messages and imagery can be found on any popular Web site including YouTube and Facebook. Almost anyone can gain access to examples of anti-emo images from videos of "emo" kids being assaulted to a popular Facebook bumper sticker featuring Adolph Hitler sporting a thick earring, eye-liner, and hair covering one eye and the words "the original emo kid."

Although the intention of some of these images is for comedic purpose, but when a violent tone begins to surround a group of people it is anything but funny. One can't help but blame the origin of such hatred, which could possibly be the hardly comical videos and photos so popularly displayed on the internet.

Discrimination: Let's see how far we've come
UND The Dakota Student, ND


At the end of the day no-one has died in Mexico yet so its a bit hypocritical of people elsewhere not to bear that in mind when they criticis Mexican society specially if they are just over the border. But then it looks like Brian Denke who died in 1997 in Texas is forgotten by the popular press.

Latest anti-Emo news

'Emo,' goth subcultures thriving in Mexico
Arizona Republic, AZ
This article focuss on class issues. Lots of comments mostly anti-Mexican and Anti-Emo.


Good article which points out the violence is ongoing and explores earlier conflicts:

Although the Mexican public has been taken aback by the violence against Emo fans, Adam Gonzalez, a hardcore promoter in the Valley, said that conflicts between genres are common. Music used to have clear divisions, he said. But now music is melding together, pulling influences from different genres.

Hardcore is mixing with emo. There are hardcore bands with metal influence. And as genre's mix, fans mix too.

"There could be a hardcore that ends up going to a metal show," he said. "We end up going and it's different styles of music, different styles of thinking. Of course it's going to clash."

In the RGV, where there has always been a strong metal following, conflicts arose as hardcore tried to establish itself. "There were a couple of fights," he said. But in the past few years hardcore has found its niche the conflicts have subsided.

Why Mexico wants emo dead
Monitor, TX - 11 Apr 2008

Meanwhile this article reveals some authorities in Mexico want Emos removed from public spaces. Sounds familar.

MEXICO: "Emos" Under Attack
By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Apr 8 (IPS) - "We are a komplex organisation, kapable of eliminating EMOS in this world, if you want to kontact us, our email is (…)" On-line messages like this one have been fanning a wave of intolerance against one of the lesser-known young counterculture groups in Mexico.

Over the past month, Mexico has seen several incidents of anti-emo bashings and harassment by members of other subcultures like metal heads, skaters, punks and Goths, as well as ordinary working-class adolescents.

Emo (short for "emotional hardcore") describes a counterculture that has its roots in punk fashion and music, with touches of gothic subculture and styles.

A typical emo look involves shaggy hair dyed jet black (sometimes with brightly coloured highlights) that sweeps over the forehead and sometimes part of the face, horn-rimmed or other "nerd" glasses, and usually black clothing including tight pants, overly small vintage t-shirts, studded belts, converse tennis shoes, eyeliner and dark nail polish.

The emo subculture is typically associated with depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts, with emo kids celebrating teenage angst and generally drawn to pop-punk, hardcore punk and indie rock.

"Hello culeros (a derogatory Mexican term for gays), the Anti-Christ greets you….who are the emos, those abnormal asexual ones, the ones whose balls haven't dropped down, those fags who cry like girls…?" says the voice-over on a video posted on the YouTube video sharing site, which shows images of Mexican emos.

Although these different youth subcultures do not generally share interests and even detest each other’s fashions or music, in the past there has been little intolerance and clashes were rare.

But on Mar. 7, several emos were beaten by a huge crowd in a downtown public square in the central Mexican city of Querétaro, where emos hang out. The attackers chanted homophobic insults.

Youngsters describing themselves as "anti-emo" had previously circulated anonymous emails inviting people to "take back the square" from the emos, who they said were "gay" because they wear makeup and dress effeminately.

A week later, in Mexico City, emo demonstrators protesting the violence were the target of attacks, and the police had to intervene.

In the capital and other cities, the police have stepped up security in certain hang-out spots to protect emos, because the harassment and threatening email and Internet campaigns have continued.

The emos tend to come from a comfortable middle-class background and many attend private schools. Most of them are 15 or 16 years old.

By contrast, anthropologist Paulina Leipen told IPS, members of the other counterculture groups like metal heads and punks are often kids from poor barrios who have come together seeking mutual protection and a shared sense of identity and belonging.

"The recent expressions of intolerance are a sign of the increasing breakdown of the social fabric and growing marginalisation, which is why attention from the state is needed," said Leipen, who works with street children.

The anthropologist said that like other so-called "urban tribes", the emo subculture has spilled over into Mexico from the United States and Europe.

A few of the bands popular among emos today are My Chemical Romance -- whose debut album, released in 2002, was "I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love" -- Fall Out Boy, Escape the Fate, Paramore, Glassjaw, The Used and Funeral For a Friend.

"Emos describe themselves as melancholic and searching for solitude. But I see it as more of a fad, and in that sense it shouldn't be surprising that the group is also full of contented people," said Leipen.

Fausto Pretelín, a researcher of social issues at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, said "the ornaments of unhappiness form part of the emo aesthetic, which is complemented with styles and other elements that give them a Hollywood special effects look."

There are no reliable estimates of the number of emos in Mexico. But like other subcultures, the group is a minority, and many people were not even aware of its existence until video footage of the early March beating of three skinny emo kids in Querétaro was broadcast on TV newcasts.

Officials in different cities have called for tolerance, and have even organised meetings between different social tribes in an attempt to combat the wave of hatred

But some officials have taken a different stance. Mayor Gerardo Hernández in Celeya, a city in the state of Guanajuato, said emos should be removed from downtown public squares.

"We wouldn't want them to be in the city centre," said Hernández, who belongs to the conservative governing National Action Party (PAN). "They hurt our image and set a bad example. They should congregate elsewhere, where they don't hurt the city’s image."

The governmental National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination called for an investigation of intolerant statements and measures by officials, and an in-depth probe into the origins of the anti-emo threats.

The chairman of the Council, Gilberto Rincón, said that "a small, eccentric, easily identifiable group is an easy target of stigmatisation and discrimination," and urged the authorities and society as a whole to show tolerance and take legal action when necessary and appropriate. (END/2008)

Of course in the UK we shouldn't fel too smug. Look at this comment in the paper on Leeds corn Exchange which as we pointed out earlier was recreated to deliberately exclude emos, goths etc.

Everyone's got an opinion on the transformation of the Corn Exchange into a food emporium.

When I popped in the other day it seemed most of the dozen or so people in there were gazing wistfully at the rows of empty units as if imagining how it used to be.

As I stood there I overheard a man explain to his companion that the shopping centre had suffered because of youths hanging around outside. He was referring to the Emo kids – easily confused with Goths as they all dress in black and live by the rule that you can never wear too much black eyeliner.

So I almost fell over laughing when he added: "Yeah, you know the sort – those emu kids"!

"Emu" kids really would have got the security team in a flap.

Help! I think I'm turning into Cat Woman
Yorkshire Evening Post, UK - 8 Apr 2008

Russia Mexico coverage

More on emos in Mexico:

Experts point to intolerance when violence against teens jumps ...
Houston Chronicle, United States 6 Apr 2008

Meanwhile in Russia violence flares when Anti fascist punks organise a demonstration about being targeted by neo Nazis (check out numerous earlier posts about Russian Neo Nazis):

Anti-Fascists Chased by Police

Friday, March 28, 2008

Sergey Chernov / The St. Petersburg Times Anti-fascist protestors participating in an unsanctioned march along Nevsky Prospekt on Tuesday evening.

A large group of anti-Nazi youth activists walked down Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, in an unsanctioned march protesting neo-Nazi violence in memory of a murdered activist this week. Twenty six were detained by the police soon afterwards.

More than 150 young men and women belonging to unaffiliated the Antifa (militant “anti-fascism”) movement, most with faces covered with scarves and carrying flares and banners, marched 1.5 kilometers from Alexander Nevsky Ploshchad to Ploshchad Vosstaniya during a heavy snowstorm at around 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

The protesters carried two large red banners reading “Make Nazism History” and “Trash Nationalism” and chanted slogans, such as “Antifa,” “Go into the Street and Take the City Back,” “The World is Multi-Colored, Not Brown” and “No to Nazis of Any Kind — from the Street to the Authorities.”

The march was held to mark nine days since the death of Alexei Krylov, a 21-year-old anti-Nazi activist who was stabbed to death by an estimated 15 neo-Nazis on March 16 as he was heading to a punk concert near the club Art Garbage in Moscow.

It was reported that the attack was planned using a website for fans of the Moscow Premier League soccer team Spartak. Three days later an anti-Nazi march that reportedly drew 300 activists was held in the center of Moscow.

Anti-Nazi activist and punk musician Timur Kacharava, 20, was killed in a similar attack in St. Petersburg in November 2005.

In St. Petersburg, the marchers distributed leaflets about Krylov’s murder and asking for financial help for his mother and two younger sisters. Another leaflet described the ideology of “Autonomous Antifascism” and called for street-level resistance against neo-Nazism.

“Antifascists went down to the demonstration to state that they are not going to tolerate neo-Nazi violence, which has become an acute problem in Russia. Reports about attacks on foreign students and killings of migrants have ceased to shock anyone. They have become routine,” said the Antifa group in a statement on website www.piter.indymedia.ru.

“Attacks are also committed on representatives of countercultural youths who try to resist neo-Nazis. Over the past 2 1/2 years, five anti-fascists from different cities were killed for their convictions, St. Petersburg musician Timur Kacharava among them.

“The whole history of the anti-fascist movement shows that it can only be a success if it uses all available tactics of resistance (not excluding direct physical counteraction).”

The police, which has disrupted most demonstrations with no official permission issued by the authorities in recent years — even though the Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly — were not aware of the march, which had been organized in secret, and only reacted when the march was almost finished, as protesters reached Ploshchad Vosstaniya.

Apparently taken by surprise, several policemen tried to stop the marchers from crossing Ligovsky Prospekt, and when they failed, blocked the entrance to Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro, so the group went down Ulitsa Vosstaniya and then turned in the direction of Ulitsa Mayakovskogo.

Arrests started near the Novotel hotel where a policeman attacked a straggler, pushing him to the ground. The protesters’ leader, who gave commands through a megaphone during the march, was detained soon after, along with other activists who tried to run away through courtyards but found themselves trapped.

After reaching Ulitsa Zhukovskogo, the main group ran away in an organized fashion. The police failed to catch them.

“Twenty six citizens were detained, but five of them turned out to be minors and were immediately released and turned over to their parents,” said Vyacheslav Stepchenko, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry in St. Petersburg, by phone on Thursday. According to Antifa’s statement, the minors were only released after 11 p.m.

According to Stepchenko, the activists were detained according to two clauses of the Administrative Code, Article 19.3 Part I (“Failure to Follow a Policeman’s Lawful Orders”) and Article 20.2 (“Violation of the Regulations of Conducting Meetings, Marches, Demonstrations and Pickets”).

The rest of the detained activists were released on Wednesday afternoon, when the court ruled to send their cases to their local courts. Failure to follow a policeman’s lawful orders is the gravest offence of the two and can lead to up to 15 days in custody.

“We didn’t inform the authorities about the march because they wouldn’t have permitted it anyway,” said a participant, who asked that his name be withheld, by phone on Thursday.

“We also didn’t need to advertize it because we can gather that many people without any publicity.”

This year has seen a rise in racially-motivated violence in Russia, with St. Petersburg following Moscow in the rate of incidents reported.

An Uzbek man and a woman either from Yakutia or Buryatiya, were reported to have been stabbed to death in St. Petersburg this week, in addition to three other racially-motivated killings and a number of beatings this month.

For a change someone is doing something positive in the States:
Students talk acceptance and friendship at summit
Greeley Tribune, CO - 4 Apr 2008
But I see people in school going, 'oh, they're emos,' or 'they're gangsters' and stuff."

a:

More on Mexico

Beatings and abuse give Mexico's emo teens plenty to feel ...
The Observer, UK - 21 hours ago
Burgeoning anti-emo sentiment exploded here last month when hundreds of young people in the central city of Querétaro heeded a call to rid the central ...

Why Are Emo Kids Getting Attacked In Mexico?
MTV.com - Apr 4, 2008
They shoved the three against a wall and began kicking and punching, shouting, "Kill the emos!" and filming the incident on their cell phones.

This article tells the usual unfounded lies about goth/emo. How about considering whether the parent in this case bears any responsibilty for the actions of his children rather blaming music.

Knowing what teens are into helps parents stay step ahead
Winston-Salem Journal, NC - Apr 2, 2008

“Unlike the Goth subculture of teen angst and disenchantment with society, emo is a cult of self-loathing,” he wrote in a recent e-mail, referring to kids who favor the forbidding “Goth” look of black clothing and dyed black hair. “Emo turns the malcontent a Goth may have towards the world unto the self. A disturbing aspect of emo is the use of self-mutilation to extract revenge for perceived slights from family and friends.”

Palmer Edwards, a Winston-Salem psychiatrist who works with adolescents, is familiar with emo and the acts described by Gene.

“The term has been around for several years,” Edwards said. “Basically it means emotional.… Emo kids are thought to be very emotional and down on themselves.”

Calling every kid who wears dark clothing and combs his (or her) hair down over the eyes “emo” would be a vast overgeneralization, but any sudden change in a kid’s behavior is certainly worthy of parental inquiry and investigation.

“Goth is so common that there’s a store in Hanes Mall that caters to the look,” Edwards said. “I’m not sure how rebellious something is if it has its own store in the mall. However, there could be some depression going on. It can range from the mild end that would require a period of adjustment to super severe in which a psychiatrist may be needed.”

Gene and Edwards agree that not every kid in dark clothes is considering suicide or self-mutilation.

“Parents should be leery and may want to speak with their kids about it,” Gene said.

Slash hates Emos? Mxico anti-emo row still going on

A classic case of irresponsible reporting.

Slash and Perez Hilton Split Votes On Emo
Exclaim!, Canada - 31 Mar 2008

And if things weren’t bad enough, guitar-master extraordinaire, Slash, has now stepped up to fuel the fire. In a recent interview with the Daily Star, the former Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist weighed into emo, and modern rock in general. “Rock ’n’ roll is so diluted in this millennium, you just don’t hear good solos. And I hate emo,” Slash said. “With the exception of Jack White —who is great — the new breed of bands aren’t bringing out decent guitarists.” So it’s official: Slash hates emo.

Look again:

A - Slash wasn't talking about Mexico
B - Or assaulting emos

He was stating he hates emo music. A fair comment. What is not fair is to report that hating emo music and hating emos is the same thing and that Slash wants riots to happen. It is not a question of taking sides on whether emo music is any good. The question is whether it is right to physically beat some one because they listen to a certain type of music or dress in a certain way. If you advocate that you are arguing against the freedom of speech and expression which is at the heart of democracy, and you are on the same side as both the Taliban and the Nazis.

You might think anti-emo riots are funny if it was attacks against Jews or blacks would you be laughing?

"At the core of this is the homophobic issue," Victor Mendoza, a youth worker in Mexico City, told Time magazine. "The other arguments are just window dressing for that. This is not a battle between music styles at all. It is the conservative side of Mexican society fighting against something different."

Conspiracy theories meanwhile are rife:
Mexico’s media spotlight youth subcultures
Daily O'Collegian, OK - 31 Mar 2008

More important posts from Daniel Hernandez. Now an academic is arguing emos are not a bonafide 'tribu urbana' because they don't have a political ideology. >

The specialist in urban groups Héctor Castillo Berthier indicated that to consider the emos an urban tribe is incorrect, as they do not adhere to the characteristics necessary to be one, and they only represent a fad.

The article "also quotes someone who says 40 percent of emos are suicidal." Once again the typical lies are trotted out. I have yet to find any academic article which shows emos are more more likely to kill themselves than other groups.

Great so its ok to beat them up if they are sucidal or part of a "fad" then? Emos are a "fad" really - the man is a fool - the original Emo music was almost thirty years ago. Emo subculture in its modern form developed in the late nineties. It might be newish in Mexico but so was punk and goth once, both of which had popular "fad" periods in the UK and elsewhere. The main anti emo site in Mexico dates from 2006 alone which means emo must have been around for a few years before that.

Emo Wars - Update

Problems spread to just south of the Texas border.

Police raise vigilance after 'emos' incident
El Paso Times, TX - 27 Mar 2008
By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

A confrontation in the upscale Las Misiones mall between teenage cliques of "emos" and "punks" on Wednesday night has Juárez police officials stepping in and asking for tolerance.

The mall incident, which police said might have been sparked by an exchange of words, might have been a copycat of highly publicized attacks on emos by mobs in Queretaro and Mexico City.

Juárez public safety secretary Guillermo Prieto Quintana in a news statement on Thursday said the police anti-gang unit would increase patrols at teen hangouts to discourage problems.

Prieto Quintana said that Mexico's northern border has traditionally been tolerant of all types of expressions, and he urged teens to respect others' right to self-expression.

The emo is a style and musical offshoot of punk music. Emos often sport dark hair covering part of their faces, dark clothing and an emotional outlook that has been described by some as effeminate, which might have fueled the mob attacks in the macho culture of Mexico.

The attacks on emos in Mexico have gained international attention, with television news airing videos filmed by the punch-throwing mobs chanting, "Kill the emos." On Thursday, Time magazine's Web site had a report titled "Mexico's Emo-Bashing Problem."

Latest from Daniel Hernandez:

It was supposed to have been a multi-tribe peaceful march for tolerance for the emos, from the Glorieta de Insurgentes to the one-and-only El Chopo street market, where for 25 years nearly every branch of alternative youth culture in Mexico City has gathered on Saturdays. Nevermind. It failed.

On a hot and rainy day here, emos arrived to El Chopo and were received with nasty resistance from some punks, skinheads, and darketos. It should have been expected. At the start of the march, I barely saw a single sympathetic member of any another tribu urbana.

In Mexico, violence against a youth subculture known as the emos ...
Los Angeles Times, CA - 28 Mar 2008

The YouTube Generation gets violent; “emos” shaking in their Chucks
Michigan Daily, MI - 27 Mar 2008

Even Perez Hilton has covered it:

And The Attacks Continue

Just Leave The Little Emo Kids Alone!

A number of online sources seem to blame the conservative feelings of Mexicans (with a thinly veiled feelings of racial prejudice) for the attacks. That indeed may be part of the problem but what sparked it off ultimately is in fact anti-emo trends which originated outside Mexico which have been documented on this site.

Meanwhile in Australia emos are abusing scene kids.

Inside the clash of the teen subcultures
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 29 Mar 2008
Because the movement is still young, emos and Scene kids often find themselves battling for territory. EJ said she, Kirra and Eliza received abuse from emos

Anti- Emo violence spreads to Chile

More coverage of this major problem.

Emo kids attacked in Mexico and Chile
NME.com, UK -

Pokemon are not the same as emo from what I make out. Similar but not identical.

Mexico's Emo-Bashing Problem
TIME -

Daniel Hernandez's blog, Intersections, which has extensively covered the incidents:

The spark came first in Queretaro on March 7. An estimated 800 young people poured into the city's Centro Historico hunting for emos to beat the crap out of. They found some. The next weekend it spread to Mexico City, where emos faced off against punks and rockabillies at the Glorieta de Insurgents, the epicenter of emo social space in the capital. There's also been reports of anti-emo violence in Durango, Colima, and elsewhere...

Emos under attack in Mexico - rumours of cruxifiction

Sounds like there are some serious problems in Mexico:

Emos under attack
Austin American-Statesman, TX 20 Mar 2008

In the last couple of weeks, a particular subculture of Mexican youths, who dub themselves “emos,” have come under violent attack throughout the country. Two weeks ago in the otherwise quiet colonial capital of Queretaro, mobs of kids attacked the emos in an attempt to force them out of the city’s main plaza. A week later, the violence arrived in Mexico City, when emos who hang out at the Insurgentes Metro stop were attacked by gangs of punks and soccer fans. Rumors of more attacks in Mexico City and the northern state of Durango are floating around the Internet.

So who are these emos, and why so much hate? Emos here in Mexico are bound by a specific fashion style (black clothes, tight jeans, huge bangs, black eye makeup) and ideology: according to several Internet sources, a strong chord of sadness, depression and sense of being misunderstood by the larger society runs through emo thought. Bands like Good Charlotte are emo favorites. And self mutilation is apparently common among kids heavily into the emo scene.

Anger against the emos has come from many quarters: punks and goths who think emos are ripping off their culture, homophobes who don’t find emos masculine enough, and those who simply seem threatened by a group that is so different than the mainstream.

In Mexico, attacks on ‘emo’ teens raise tolerance concerns
Sierra Vista Herald, AZ March 23rd

Published on Sunday, March 23, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Ever since he first discovered “emo” music five years ago, 17-year-old Emmanuel Huerta has been making regular two-hour trips from his home in the sprawling suburbs outside Mexico City to the capital’s Glorieta Insurgentes, a concrete plaza and transportation hub on the southern fringe of the free-thinking Zona Rosa neighborhood.

There, he hangs out with other teens who dress in black, peg their jeans tightly to their legs, comb their bangs down over their eyes and listen to emo-core, an offshoot of punk rock that emphasizes powerful emotions like love, rejection and depression rather than punk’s traditional expressions of political and social discontent.

Emmanuel Huerta, right, stands with his friends Antonio Garcia, center, and Oscar Medina at the Glorieta Insurgentes, a popular meeting place for “emo” teens, on Friday. (Jonathan Clark-Special to the Herald/Review)

“We share our feelings, talk about bands we like, and just hang out together and have fun, like any other kids,” Huerta said of his days at the plaza.

But lately, life at Glorieta Insurgentes hasn’t been so much fun for the “emos,” as Huerta and his friends are called. Other teens have been posting messages to Internet blogs that ridicule the emos for their sentimentality, many accusing them of being gay. Videos filled with homophobic language and violent imagery have popped up on YouTube with Spanish titles that translate as “How to kill an emo” and “We declare war on you, emos.”

Then, on March 8, in an apparent response to a call to arms circulated on the Internet, an estimated 200 teens descended on a square in the central city of Querétaro and pummeled a group of emos with pipes and sticks....

On Wednesday, acting under orders from Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City Police Chief Joel Ortega announced he was instructing his officers to be more sensitive to the emos, and he called on the city’s punks and Goths to be more accepting as well.

“We are making a call for tolerance with this group of emos, even if they are a minority, because there are other kids who, because of their ideals, are also in the process of forming splinter groups,” he told reporters.


The day after Ortega’s announcement, rumors began to circulate of an attack on the emos planned for Good Friday at the Glorieta Insurgentes.

According to media reports, someone had been posting solicitations to come “crucify” the emos that day at 3 p.m., the same time that Jesus died on the cross at Calvary.

Ortega responded by dispatching hundreds of police to the plaza to stand guard over the few dozen kids, including Emmanuel Huerta, who decided to brave the threat.

Mexican news report This is one of many videos on the subject on you tube:

Kill All Emos?
antiMUSIC.com, CA - 13 Mar 2008



It is sad to think these attacks span out of the sort of stupid anti emo prejudice found online a problem pointed out here a while ago.

Thread here at Bizarre...