The suicide of a schoolgirl who had apparently become obsessed with 'emo' culture has, once again, drawn attention to the movement and its teen followers. Recording a verdict of suicide after Hannah Bond, 13, had hanged herself, the coroner noted that she had "become an aficionado of the emo fad."
Emo has deep and spreading roots, which few who are close to it regard with much alarm. What began as narrowly defined musical genre more than two decades ago has since broadened into an attitude, a lifestyle and a fashion statement that has found a spiritual home on the internet.
The movement sprang from Washington DC's energetic mid-Eighties punk scene, picking up its name when the music was described, perhaps dismissively, as 'emotional' or 'emotive'. After falling in and out of favour over the next decade or so, the bands and their followers migrated onto the web, where lyrical veneration of pain, loneliness and depression combined with a largely teenage fan base to create an extensive online culture.
View: 
39 Comments - Add comment