‘Generic Misery Music’? Emo and the Problem of Contemporary Youth Culture

Abstract

This article examines the Australian newspaper coverage of the Emo youth cultural movement in relation to two incidents that contributed to its growing inclusion in mainstream media discourse: the February 2007 murder of 15-year-old Carly Ryan and the April 2007 suicides of 16-year-old friends Jodie Gater and Stephanie Gestier. The deaths of the three young women were frequently linked to their apparent involvement in the Emo movement, which was described as a dangerous and worrying development in youth culture. However, specific concerns about Emo were frequently subsumed into broader anxieties about young people more generally, particularly in relation to concerns associated with self-harm, unsupervised internet use and school bullying. The disinclination among participants of this movements to identify as Emo or to challenge the media's framing of Emo culture has contributed much to the media's redefinition of Emo as a characteristic of ‘kids today’ rather than a specific subcultural affiliation.