A MOB of Emus and a BLOB of Ranting
During a short to chat with The Lady a few moments ago, the subject of Emo kids came up (an ugly thing I know, but relationships often face hardships and they should be dealt with directly). She mentioned that Emos are rather prolific in Portland, a place we're considering as our next home.
Online data link Emo's orgins to a 1980's DC Punk subculture... for those of you who are temporally impaired like me, I checked and the 80's happened awhile back. Finding out that Emo might be the (d)evolution of 80's Punk is like finding out that the greatest snack in daycare is graham crackers.
That means the Emo, like fungus in a pair of Converse All-Stars, are well entrenched in our culture and most likely, very nearly impossible to extricate.
The idea of hordes of Emo, clogging the streets of Portland like plaid bamboo, reminded me of the group of Hipster-Emo teens we, (ladykinbote, forgottenwoods and I ) saw pouring from a compact car at Fellini's, Saturday afternoon. It was a disturbing spectacle, all those bandy arms and legs, wrapped tight in Urban Outfitters' finest thrift-store rip-offs, their carefully hack-slashed hairstyles giving them the appearance of test dummies at a beauty school for the blind. And somehow, even though they looked chaotically patch-worked, they had all managed to match.
That offends my sense of subversive diversity the most.
In 1989, after the culture shock of re-entering society had worn off, I acclimated to the fashion mimicry of preps, jocks, goths and all the rest, they're stylized genres (they thought I was 'Grunge' because my work-camp/woodsie wardrobe consisted largely of flannels and work boots, required by the school I attended). But to me, Punk was all about Fugg'you Fashion®!
Tank Girl would rip yer... would tear... oh hell...(I completely understand the NEW LOOK that Ashley Wood and Alan Martin have found for Rebecca... you didn't know her name was Rebecca? Rebecca Buck to be precise; Don't tell her I told you.)
With only a quick application of pressure to the gas peddle I could have easily harvested the lot, like a game of Emo nine-pins, but fortunately for my passengers, I was hindered by years of training in how Not to run over humans.... and, all arguments aside, Emos are humans, and perhaps that is what makes it all so tragic.
I suppose I'll come to terms with this watered down, hip version of Punk. Perhaps I can even learn to love them (once I get past the 'I'm-making-fun-of-them' stage). But the first step required for me to accept them is to understand them. For this I must sate my quasi-scientific side which is inspired to set up some sort of casual nomenclature through which we can better sort and deal with them.
Thinking back to the group I saw slanking around my front bumper, what would a group be called? Really?
What would you call a group of Emos?
Indulge me.
For inspiration, consider the following names for Animal Collectives:
a COLONY of Ants
a DROVE of Asses
a CULTURE of Bacteria
a DRIFT of Bees
a CLOWDER of Cats
a KINDLE of Kittens
a MURDER of Crows
and get this... OH MY...
a MOB of EMUS!!!!
Let's not forget the wonderful SHUFFLE of ZOMBIES, coined by mightywombat.
You get the idea... So I present you now with:
Poll Subcultural Group Classification
Online data link Emo's orgins to a 1980's DC Punk subculture... for those of you who are temporally impaired like me, I checked and the 80's happened awhile back. Finding out that Emo might be the (d)evolution of 80's Punk is like finding out that the greatest snack in daycare is graham crackers.
That means the Emo, like fungus in a pair of Converse All-Stars, are well entrenched in our culture and most likely, very nearly impossible to extricate.
The idea of hordes of Emo, clogging the streets of Portland like plaid bamboo, reminded me of the group of Hipster-Emo teens we, (ladykinbote, forgottenwoods and I ) saw pouring from a compact car at Fellini's, Saturday afternoon. It was a disturbing spectacle, all those bandy arms and legs, wrapped tight in Urban Outfitters' finest thrift-store rip-offs, their carefully hack-slashed hairstyles giving them the appearance of test dummies at a beauty school for the blind. And somehow, even though they looked chaotically patch-worked, they had all managed to match.
That offends my sense of subversive diversity the most.
In 1989, after the culture shock of re-entering society had worn off, I acclimated to the fashion mimicry of preps, jocks, goths and all the rest, they're stylized genres (they thought I was 'Grunge' because my work-camp/woodsie wardrobe consisted largely of flannels and work boots, required by the school I attended). But to me, Punk was all about Fugg'you Fashion®!
Tank Girl would rip yer... would tear... oh hell...(I completely understand the NEW LOOK that Ashley Wood and Alan Martin have found for Rebecca... you didn't know her name was Rebecca? Rebecca Buck to be precise; Don't tell her I told you.)
With only a quick application of pressure to the gas peddle I could have easily harvested the lot, like a game of Emo nine-pins, but fortunately for my passengers, I was hindered by years of training in how Not to run over humans.... and, all arguments aside, Emos are humans, and perhaps that is what makes it all so tragic.
I suppose I'll come to terms with this watered down, hip version of Punk. Perhaps I can even learn to love them (once I get past the 'I'm-making-fun-of-them' stage). But the first step required for me to accept them is to understand them. For this I must sate my quasi-scientific side which is inspired to set up some sort of casual nomenclature through which we can better sort and deal with them.
Thinking back to the group I saw slanking around my front bumper, what would a group be called? Really?
What would you call a group of Emos?
Indulge me.
For inspiration, consider the following names for Animal Collectives:
and get this... OH MY...
Let's not forget the wonderful SHUFFLE of ZOMBIES, coined by mightywombat.
You get the idea... So I present you now with:
Poll Subcultural Group Classification