this aint a scene, it's a goddamn marketplace

Emo takes the mall-kids, American parents wring hands in fear.

This month’s J14 magazine features nine pictures of Pete Wentz. On the cover and in side-bars; slotted between High School Musical 2 previews and cute back-to-school make-up tips, the Fall Out Boy bassist is the latest tween dream heartthrob—skinny denim and all. For a publication whose target audience maxes out at thirteen, a full-page feature on guyliner and the hotties who wear it (Brendan Urie! Gerard Way!) isn’t just a way to fill space in their super summer issue, it’s a declaration of emo’s transformation. What once was the soundtrack to sincere guitar-strumming boys, and then loner disaffection has been reinvented yet again as a merch-orientated, socially networked, mainstream phenomenon—with Wentz as the ultimate poster-boy.

A trip through MySpace playlists and top 40 radio quickly shows that the days when emo referred to Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional (let alone Lifetime) are long gone. After bubbling away as a musically diverse—but generally overlooked—subculture for the first part of the century, breakthrough albums in ‘05 and ‘06 by Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco and My Chemical Romance harnessed web 2.0 buzz to whip record-buyers into a chart-topping frenzy and take emo out of its gloomy shadows. In part due to a poppier, more accessible sound, MCR’s dramatic third album ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ was a surprise chart hit on both sides of the Atlantic, while FOB’s ‘Infinity On High’ married their wry, meta-narrative lyrics with slick production and stadium-worthy choruses. With the bands suddenly starring on magazine covers and MTV specials, the public face of the genre was set: musical theatrics and a penchant for Maybelline Great Wear liner replaced sincere introversion as the heart of the emo brand.

With a style to emulate and merch to buy, it’s little wonder that America’s teens have taken emo to their broken, misunderstood bosoms—to the horror of concerned parents everywhere. Teen angst has always sought an identity and community in which middle-class ennui can flourish, and emo offers not just breathtakingly self-absorbed lyrics, but a full-service style guide as well. As the reactionary—and hilarious—local newscasts filtering through from across the country will tell you, emo’s wear black clothing and make-up, and (gasp!) many write poetry as well. But that’s not all. An ABC news report on the dangerous elements of this “so-called emo culture” focuses sternly on emo links to the perennial teen favorite, self-harming, while WDAZ refers with all sincerity to a points system that grades how emo you are based on clothing, hair and beverage selection . While cutting is an extreme component of some emo—make that teen—identities, those concerned parents should perhaps be more worried by a more omnipresent problem: the thinly-veiled misogyny pervading emo. Jessica Hopper has already pointed out that the uniform parade of break-up moping presents a twisted and bitter view of women , but more than that, emo is remarkably male-dominated. Save the flame-haired Paramore front-girl (who still sings about other girls as whores), emo is a mass of XY chromosomes with their side-swipe bangs; girls exist to be romantically objectified or swoon over the pull-out posters, and by the sales figures racked up in the past few years, they’re doing plenty of both, turning moody frontmen into the J-14 cover-stars they are today.

Few have driven emo's shift to the mainstream with as much determination or acumen as the pin-up himself, twenty-eight year-old Pete Wentz. Rather than reject corporate strategy as selling out like so many of his predecessors, Wentz is a self-confessed mogul-in-the-making who names Jay-Z as his idol and aims for nothing less than an emo empire. When he recommended band ‘The Academy Is…’ to label Fueled By Ramen, and then didn’t receive a cut of their revenue, Wentz founded his own imprint Decaydance to reap the rewards of his A&R skills. Now home to Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship and Panic! At The Disco, Decaydance bundles acts for group tours and relentlessly cross-promotes new artists through the Wentz-helmed social networking site, Friends or Enemies. A MySpace-like world devoted solely to emo, FOE now boasts over half a million members who enjoy VIP blogs from their favorite bands, fan journals to express their devotion, and most importantly, merchandise.

From sincerity and authenticity to merch dollars: the transformation of emo is nowhere more apparent than the marketplace. Bands have always made a share of their revenue from shirts and hoodies, but with online stores and a young, allowance-rich audience, emo merchandising is bigger business than ever. Wentz’s own brand, Clandestine Industries, brings in over $100,000 a month (of which Wentz apparently takes a third - Forbes) with designer clothing, jewellery and bags that are frequently modeled by his label’s bands and peddled at Honda-sponsored tours. But such enthusiastic embrace of consumerism doesn’t sit easily with emo’s original conception: the girl in a $300 ebayed Clandestine hoodie singing along to ‘The Take’s Over…’ as she flicks through Seventeen magazine is a long way from the roots of the genre, valuing authenticity and emotional connection.

Of course, any and every scene will ultimately be packaged and sold in neat, Hot Topic-friendly portions. As with grunge and punk before it, emo has fallen prey to blinking dollar signs, but this time, it’s the bands themselves cashing in. Realizing their status as fashion trendsetters, or maybe just looking for a steady income as record sales continue to fall, musicians like Wentz aren’t just performers anymore, but living brand ambassadors, ready to put their names to movies, bars and books—anything with enough cred to delay the potential fan alienation. Not for them Gap endorsements or Starbucks deals, but be it Cobra Starship parading through the closing credits of ‘Snakes On A Plane’, or Fall Out Boy videos starring product placement from TAG, Nokia and Chevy, emo is far divorced from its old roots; long may it profit.

abby

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