Mawkish Teens Deserve Deserve Disdain and Yawn, Not This

Though it's a couple of weeks old at this point, I feel like this Daily Mail piece on the dangers of emo culture -- EMO cult warning for parents -- is worth sharing. I'm incapable of adequately describing what a horribly written and unresearched piece of alarmist trash "writer" Sarah Sands has come up with. So I'll quote liberally from what may be the worst article to appear in a newspaper this year.

Fashion acknowledges those of us who lived through it first time round - Elder Goths, as opposed to Baby Bats, who are the under-30s.

It even nods to a working population, permitting Corporate Goths, who wear black trouser suits.

There is a also a term which is new to me and amounts to a much more dangerous teenage cult.

The Emos - short for Emotional - regard themselves as a cool, young sub-set of the Goths.

Although the look is similar, the point of distinction, frightening for schools and parents, is a celebration of self harm.

Emos exchange competitive messages on their teenage websites about the scars on their wrists and how best to display them. Girls' secondary schools have for some time been concerned about the increase in self harm.

Wait a minute... I thought it was the Goths who were the self-harmers?

Tom Dooley at the Music Week Blog very capably bashed Sands's piece shortly after it came out.