Why is Emo popular again? (this is why it died)

Why is emo popular again? Why is Gen Z embracing bands like My Chemical Romance, Pierce The Veil, and Green Day? I talk about the role of TikTok in the emo revival, When We Were Young festival, and the "death of the monoculture."
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0:00 Intro
3:09 My Chemical Romance
7:23 "New music sucks"
10:36 The death of the monoculture
15:08 The role of TikTok

[nikolasschulz]

Emo and pop punk never died, we just have jobs now

[landmarkcreations]

Thing about MCR is, it’s not like they are super old. I mean they are older but can still perform at a high level. A lot of younger people don’t look at them as “old” but just a great band that they can relate to (which is awesome)

[lithiumwhiskey]

Emo will never truly die, the music is full of classics and there will always be sad people who relate to the music. It’s not something that just goes away.

[octoberlaylow]

I was born in 2007 and look !!!! I am so glad this style of music is coming back !! We’ve got the new all time low and ptv and fall out boy albums, new paramore, MCR is still here and banging!!!! These guys are my inspirations (I want to go into a career in music production). Im so glad I get to live in a generation with them alive and honestly??? 2023 has been the best year for music. i get to go through high school with these bands playing in my ears and I just think that’s the coolest thing.

[oops]

Boy, let me tell you, nothing gets the Karaoke bar more riled up than singing Panic, FOB, My Chem, or Paramore. Every time without fail.

[martinalther]

Contrary to popular myth, I think a lot of young people appreciate older music. When I was in middle and high school, I had classmates who listened to bands like Queen and Aerosmith. I’ve seen plenty of young people ever since embracing The Beatles, etc. I think the whole “young person dismissing his parents’ music as ‘for old geezers’” is more a thing in cheesy sitcoms from the 70’s and 80’s than in real life.

[briansnc]

I’m hoping rock makes it way back to the mainstream already. It’s overdue to hear rock on the radio. All types of rock

[jasonswearingen]

As far as the woman crying during MCR, I can feel that. I'm not the biggest MCR fan in the world but the Mall Screamo years was such a beautiful time to be a teenager. We were so passionate about the music, & so proud to be a part of the scene. I was there for the whole thing, I was 16 in 2002, & 22 in 2008. It was depressing when we started to age out of it because it will always be who we are deep down. It was really hard to let go. If I went to one of these shows today I'd probably get emotional too lol. It was more than just a phase. It will always live on in the hearts of those who lived it.

[tpags]

I’m confident that Emo never died, it just exited the public conscious after like 2009 and retreated back to the punk and hc scenes it came from with a lot of the revival bands of the 2010’s like the hotelier and snowing. Even now there’s a lot of kids and bands making incredible and forward thinking emo in the 5th wave

[Rullehjem]

I can't believe I'm so old that MCR is now classic rock.

[alexandrac]

As an elder millennial reflecting on high school, I can assure you that there were always a few kids around who made their devotion to the Beatles a core part of their personality (with some of that "there's no good music anymore!" snobbery). And always, always a few kids who were jazz-only people with similar patterns. It's an ancient tradition.

[ILoveJohnnyGat]

I'm a gen z emo and i am so envious of elder emos, i wish i could have been a teen back then since yes on tiktok you'll see a lot of gen z emos but in real life they're so rare 😭

I feel the 2000s was the best time, other than the problematic stuff. But it was the start of the internet yk and people still went out. Things were more colorful, creative. the fashion was silly but good in a way and expressive. I feel that the music today does suck tbh. Emo stuff today is occasionally good but I mean other genres.

[tyrantla]

I never stopped being emo.. im just old and emo now. I still listen to the same bands today.. Saved the Day, Silverstein, Thursday, Atreyu, The Used, From Autumn to Ashes.. etc..

[megaascension]

As a member of older Gen Z (who I guess has been part of this?) I can explain. This started earlier than the past few years, this started nearly ten years ago with a lot of the tumblr core where there was a lot of people sharing their emotions and difficulties and angst. This ended up driving teens to listen to MCR, Fall Out Boy, and Panic, along with adjacent artists like Twenty One Pilots. 2015-16 saw Twenty One Pilots blow up, a big career renaissance for Fall Out Boy and Panic, and widespread hype over the MCRX trailer. While some left, others stayed and found other popular 2000s bands (Linkin Park and Muse) and more modern counterparts (Yungblud, Bring Me The Horizon). Then the pop-punk revival happened, and the combination of the state of our world, mental health deterioration from isolation, and increased openness of mental health, and more led to young people actively seeking out emotionally and socially relatable music, so the emo revival makes sense. Not to mention the less "typical" aesthetic many of these bands had. Not to mention the years of access to any music with the click of a few buttons through streaming.

A lot of these bands still end up being relevant to Gen Z due to it just being good music, a dearth of popular rock bands today, and it reflecting the mental state of a lot of people our age. I see more modern bands getting popular in the next few years with their own own sound with these same people.

[CALISPEC]

Emo will NEVER die because it was never just industry music, it was written for us by us, the kids who grew up in broken homes, with divorced parents who couldn’t get along or were afterthoughts to their parents or who had a parent in prison or even the kids that just felt like an outsider. Emo kids love Emo music because Emo kids wrote the songs 🤟

[MiyaBhika]

I’m gen Z (23) but I was in the tumblr emo scene and that’s what got me into it back when I was 11/12 and only when I turned 18 I had enough money to go to gigs😅

[seastarbutterfly]

100% My Chemical Romance. They left, it died off. They came back, It resurges. All the parents have been playing their songs to their kids in the car. Natural progression.

[robwalsh]

I think it's common for a lot of kids to reject the music that their parents liked until a certain age when they realize those songs were imprinted into their memory and they grow to love them. I rolled my eyes as a kid when my parents broke out into singing along with Elton John in the car, now I find myself loudly singing Yellow Brick Road in the shower(poorly).

[akositayut]

told you mom... it's not a phase.

[lullaboo]

As an "early gen z", I'm 23 and when these bands started being super popular I was too young for them to interest me (i was 6 when The Black Parade came out), maybe except for Avril Lavigne who I remember listening when I was around 9. I started listening to emo music when I was 14, in 2014, when emo was apparently dead, because I was entering teenagehood and everything was so fucked but these songs made me feel understood. To a shy, queer and weird kid, it couldn't make more sense to be into bands that talked about feelings in a deep and kinda dark way and that were considered dead. Now I'm an adult and still love these bands, but I listen to their music differently and it's cool to witness them becoming popular again!