Emo is a style of rock music typically characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement of Washington, D.C., where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace. As the style was echoed by contemporary American punk bands, its sound and meaning shifted and changed, blending with pop punk and indie rock and encapsulated in the early 1990s by groups such as Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate. By the mid 1990s numerous emo acts emerged from the Midwestern and Central United States, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the style.
Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional and the emergence of the more aggressive subgenre "screamo". In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts such as Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and disparate groups such as Coheed and Cambria and Panic at the Disco.
In addition to music, "emo" is often used more generally to signify a particular relationship between fans and artists, and to describe related aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior.
Today emo is commonly tied to both music and fashion as well as the emo subculture. Usually among teens, the term "emo" is stereotyped with wearing skinny jeans, sometimes in bright colors, and tight t-shirts (usually short-sleeved) which often bear the names of emo bands. Studded belts and black wristbands are common accessories in emo fashion. Black Converse sneakers and skate shoes, such as Vans, are popularly worn among people of the emo fashion. Some emo guys also wear thick, black horn-rimmed glasses
The emo fashion is also recognized for its hairstyles. Popular looks include long side-swept bangs, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Also popular is hair that is straightened and dyed black. Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles. Short, choppy layers of hair are also common. This fashion has at times been characterized as a fad.Early on, emo fashion was associated with a clean cut look but as the style spread to younger teenagers, the style has become darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the color black replacing sweater vests.
In recent years emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angst-ridden. It has also been associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide.
Many emo songs both admit sadness and revel in it, exhibiting a phobia of women that seems to celebrate a perpetual adolescence "The singers may pretend to hang themselves out to dry by copping to crying and being sad at night, but in the heightened emo environment, where broken hearts are badges of honor, it's a hollow boast. Their scars are a sign of pride—you're the one onstage bragging about how upset you are—but there's no attempt at actual conversation or relationship building. Some emo bands' lyrics go so far as to disguise violent anti-women sentiments in a veneer of pop music. Greenwald cites Chris Conley of Saves the Day, whose metaphors of bodily pain are sometimes used to describe bitter revenge fantasies directed at mistreating females, and Glassjaw's Daryl Palumbo, whose has sometimes used explicitly violent fantasies in his lyrics. However, despite emo's frequent portrayal of women as powerless victims, fans of the style are almost evenly split between genders and some acts have even greater popularity with women than with men. One explanation for this is that the unifying appeal of emo, its expression of emotional devastation, can be appreciated equally by both sexes regardless of the songs' specific subjects.