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Within the past few years the musical subgenre known as "emo" has become a popular style of music and culture for many young people, becoming the subculture of choice right now for a lot of disaffected youth. While "emo" is more popular than ever right now it has also been a lightning rod for much criticism both on its musical and cultural grounds. What is it about "emo" that has become such a polarizing factor in much of the world? Why do people react so vehemently to emo one way or the other to it? It is these questions that need to be answered to understand the role "emo" plays today,

When many people think of "emo" music, a set template comes to mind. A four or five piece band driven by power chord guitars and some synthesizer (or piano) is one of the main group formats. Sonically there might be a punk rock influence but the songs have an abundance of pop leanings when it comes to hooks and production. Lyrically, mainstream emo tends to lean towards personal songs with allegedly sensitive lyrics. Offshoots of emo music include "screamo" (a slightly heavier type of emo music based on screamed vocals, hence the name) as well as emotronic (a blend of emo and electronic music) among others. Emo has been popularized by bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Hawthorne Heights in the last few years, giving rise to a youth culture that shares the name of the musical genre.

In terms of style, those into emo may seem relatively easy to spot, but looks can be deceiving. Relatively asymmetrical hairdos, men wearing skinny jeans, hooded sweatshirts and the like have become part of the style some emo kids have adopted. However, it isn't all cut and dried as some women followers of emo may share some of this look or appear as "normal" as a Midwestern sorority girl (I've seen more of the latter lately). In addition some fashions adopted by emo kids (such as hooded sweatshirts) are also worn by people outside of emo such as punk rockers and metal kids. So, while there are some people into emo that you can obviously tell are into it from their appearance, the suburban nature of the subculture makes outward categorization a little more difficult than some would think.

Which leads us to my criticism of emo music and the culture surrounding it. I'd like to say before we go any further that I don't necessarily hate emo as a whole; I understand and respect that young people like to seek a subculture (or counterculture) of their own and create from there. However,

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