“Real Emo” and Looking Towards a Genreless Future

Ava Lazazzera ‘26

If you’re at all attuned to chronically online music discourse like I am, you may have noticed that the definition of “emo” varies drastically depending on who you ask. When I was in middle school (in 2014-2015), the “emo trinity” was the bands My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco (Author’s note: I cannot confidently claim this is true among today’s emo middle schoolers, as I don’t know any I can ask — which is probably for the best). Now, try touting these bands as emo in front of the most annoying music guy you know and be prepared to get hit with a “well, actually,” and pointed in the direction of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, American Football and Modern Baseball (and if you try to argue with me about the examples I provide here, you may be that annoying music guy). And as for the middle-aged coworker that I had when I worked at a cafe, “that emo crap” was simply anything down-tempo that she didn’t want to listen to. Do not ask my coworkers at that job if you can trust me with the aux.

This debate of semantics has become so overplayed at this point that it has spawned the infamous “real emo” copypasta, which makes fun of the strict genre delineations put in place by music nerds: 

"Real Emo" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Emo" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Romance are not real emo, while saying that Sunny Day Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake emo as My Chemical Romance (plus the pretentiousness). Real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL EMO are Pg 99, Rites of Spring, Cap n Jazz (the only real emo band from the midwest scene) and Loma Prieta. Some examples of FAKE EMO are American Football, My Chemical Romance and Mineral EMO BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE 

When the in-group arguing has become so prevalent that there is a copypasta making fun of it, that’s when you’ve made it. Despite the long raging dispute, however, there is still no common consensus on the true definition of emo. This is all well and good — every subculture has to have a little infighting, otherwise it can hardly be counted as a subculture. But here’s my problem with the entire debate. When the so-called “incorrect” definition of emo is so popular that the term “midwest emo” (most of which does not even come from the midwest) was coined in order to differentiate it from the public idea of the genre, is it really incorrect at all? Who has the power to define a genre: should it be reserved for only the most pedantic among us, or should we place that power in the hands of the masses who may possess a less critical eye? 

This struggle to define what belongs in a specific genre isn’t a quandary that solely belongs to emo music, either. As I’ve sought to learn more about goth music, I find more people talking about what isn’t goth music as opposed to what is: arguing about which of The Cure’s albums are truly goth and making sure that people know that even though they play at goth clubs, Depeche Mode and The Smiths are NOT goth! It’s not even that I necessarily disagree with them — I’m definitely not calling The Smiths goth, but this focus on exclusion does seem to take away from the point of a subculture defined by its music.

I don’t believe that genre is completely useless in the grand scheme of things. It is helpful in defining general subcultures and giving the listener a broad idea of what an album might sound like. But when genres start looking more like micro labels where one has to scrape the furthest corners of Spotify to find albums that even qualify, things get too restrictive. At the risk of sounding trite, nothing exists in a vacuum. Putting up these barriers in terms of boxing music in by genre takes away from the unique perspective that each artist brings to the table. All music is influenced by other music, and some of the best creative expressions are the result of artists borrowing from unconventional places to create something entirely unique. The insistence of being able to neatly categorize albums, songs or artists into their own boxes is a very human urge to be sure, but in the words of Oscar Wilde, “to define is to limit”.