literature

How to be an Emo

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How to be an Emo

Perhaps you’ve seen them crying at Dunkin Donuts or writing poetry in the moonlight. Perhaps you were intrigued by the downright tragedy they displayed. Or most likely, living in Naperville, you’ve realized that you’ll be a total loser if you miss out on the latest trend and you’re thinking, “I wish I could be an emo!” Well, here’s your lucky chance! Follow these seven basic guidelines and you’ll be crying your broken heart away in no time.

1.) For starters, you’ll need the correct wardrobe to be emo. Invest in jeans that are too small. You need this to show off your skinny, malnourished, and overall pathetic legs. If you have a 12-year-old sister, her closet might be a good place to start. Be sure the jeans are tattered, faded, or ripped. This represents your tattered, broken heart. As far as shirts go, you can only wear t-shirts from whiny bands with names like “September Prozac Reject” that sing about suicide and getting dumped and are probably from the suburbs. Wear black. Lots of black. This includes an essential pair of black glasses with thick rims.
2.) Along with the glasses, there are several other accessories you’ll have to add to your emo closet. These include, but are not limited to, checkered belts, wristbands with little stars, or buttons with more “September Prozac Reject” logos. For shoes, you’re only allowed to wear Converse All-Stars. They don’t give any support to the arches in your feet, making them very uncomfortable, and representing all the inner pain in your life. They are also good to write song lyrics on about your will to die. If you have pierced ears (you’ll need like four holes in each ear), put odd things in your piercings, such as safety pins and paperclips, because if you’re emo, you’re obviously too poor and sad to put real earrings in your ears. In fact, you’re probably so emo that you had to pierce your ears yourself. It probably hurt a lot. You probably cried and wrote a song about the pain.
3.) Your hair will need some adjusting if you wish to be truly emo. Dye it black (like your dead heart, of course). No matter what your complexion may be, emos only look good with black hair (Well, not really good; you’ll cry at night when you look in the mirror because you think you’re ugly). Have an emo friend cut your hair so that it covers one eye. That way, you can cry out of that eye 24/7 and nobody will know. To finish off your emo look, apply some really deep and emotional makeup. Make your face as pale as can be; a tan would imply that you have seen sunlight at some point in your life, and there is never sunshine on your bleak existence. Wear a lot of eyeliner, even if you’re male. This draws emphasis to your eyes and will show off how sad, dark, and empty they look. Plus, eyeliner looks really cool as it runs down your face with your tears. You can even use eyeliner to draw little teardrop shapes by your eyes. This visually represents that you’re eternally crying, and that you’ve simply run out of tears to cry.

By this point, you look completely emo. You’re probably starting to feel devastated already. But in order for the full-scale depression to hit, you’re going to have to act like one as well.

4.) Listen to sad music exclusively. You’ll most likely listen to it on your iPod (that cost all the money you made from your summer job at Hot Topic, so now you can cry about how broke you are). Refrain from talking to real people who might be happy. Retreat to your emo ear buds instead. If you start to feel slight happiness, it’s probably too good to be true, so listen to something depressing to bring you down to earth. If you’re feeling sad, which you usually will be, listen to sad music anyways. After all, nobody understands your pain, except for “Mourning Morning”, the sobbing garage band whose music you downloaded.
5.) Write poetry. Morbid poetry. Poetry that makes you cry just thinking about it. Poetry that gives you suicidal thoughts just at its mention. In fact, the idea of the terrible words you might write could drive you insane. Just to be safe, you should make an appointment at either the funeral home or the insane asylum. Right now, before you even think of poetry. Now that you’ve braced yourself, you can begin. Always write in a dark, uncomfortable place, and just let the saddest thoughts consume you and flow from your pen. You will probably leave little wet spots on your paper from your tears; it may even be too wet to write on. Worst of all, the tears from your eyes could smudge your ink and you could lose your tragic words forever. That’s pretty hard-core. Just get new paper, find your emotional center, and once again try to force your trauma into words. Big flowery words. Gargantuan words. Some really cool, dramatic ones you should use are “shattered,” “abyss,” and “rivulets.” The last word is usually in reference to your makeup dripping down your face. It’s important to utilize these words to sound tragically smart. Emo poetry can be about anything really. Basically everything in life is sad through your eyes – so just elaborate on the tragedies of daily life. Be sure to mention your ex-girlfriend who broke your already trampled heart. Best of all, you can set your poetry to some chords and call it a song. You can play your songs on street corners on your out of tune guitar and ask for nickels. Nobody will pay you. They’ll laugh at you.
6.) You’re almost there! You’re nearly an emo by now; all you need to do is pick up a few little quirks, and the world will pity your emoness in no time. One bit of extra oomph you can add to the new emo you is being “straight-edge .” You can write straight-edge symbols on your hand or wrist and nonchalantly wave it around. This is really easy to do, especially since you’re probably not even 18 years old, so you couldn’t drink or smoke, even if you wanted to. (And nobody would ever consider casual sex with you either.) But being straight-edge definitely makes you look sadder, and that’s impressive. Another emo quirk to pick up on would be to take insane amounts of pictures of yourself. However, they must be artsy (and they’ll suck and you’ll know that, but you’ll be totally offended if anyone agrees). These pictures can only be taken from weird angles and in weird lighting. We probably won’t even know it’s you in these pictures (which is just what you want, because you obviously think you’re so ugly that you don’t want anyone to see your face). Post these pictures all over your MySpace site, where you secretly hope that someone will fall in love with you, but they’ll all mock you and you will have no friends.
7.) The final step in achieving emoness is to meet other emos just like you. Misery loves company! The best places to meet other emos would be Dunkin Donuts (for eating away your sorrows), really pathetic park benches (for iPods and crying and writing), and best of all, at really pretentious concerts for bands like “Mourning Morning.” It is essential for you to only hang out with other emo kids (who tease you, and you’ll probably cry about how mean they are). You’ll need to pick up a girlfriend or boyfriend who will dump you. You’ll be so depressed afterwards, but you will produce copious amounts of crappy poetry, so it’s definitely worth it.

Are you sobbing? Do you feel like dying? Do you hate your family, friends, and yourself? Do you hate your life? And most of all, do you feel like writing a song about it? If you answered yes to these questions, then you’ve succeeded in becoming an emo!

Well, not really succeeded, because being an emo makes you so miserable that you pretty much fail at life.
______________________________


To conclude, we present a… um, TRAGIC EMOTIONAL song that’s pretty deep.

Orange-Flavored Strife
I pressed the diet peach iced tea button
And it gave me orange juice
Now I'm going to kill myself
My boyfriend left me
I'm all alone
With the orange juice

(Chorus) And the juice was made from concentrate!
It mocks me and my loneliness!
I cry in my room
Tears of ORANGE-FLAVORED STRIFE!

My friends think I suck
If I had friends, that is
I have no depth perception
That really blows!
My tears drop slowly
Into the JUICE OF FATE!!

And the juice was made from concentrate!
It mocks me and my loneliness!
I cry in my room
Tears of ORANGE-FLAVORED STRIFE!
yeah, i'm still alive... i haven't had much time for artsy stuff lately... been busy with theatre and everything taking over my life.
so this is the paper i wrote for the non-fiction unit in my creative writing class.
i like to make fun of emos. cause they're lame.
note that the song at the end was actually cowritten by me and kate ( :icon acidtearsx: ) so that explains why it's so fricking awesome. haha.
uh yeah. oh and that emo on the bench in the picture is TOTALLY me haha. from when me and my sister went on an "emoventure" and took emo pictures. haha. we're winners.

my soul is a dark abyss!
© 2005 - 2024 Ranko-baka
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polishedpieceofdirt's avatar
Haha.
Okay,technically,I am an 'emo kid',and that is by personal choice and self labeling,buuuuuuuut I can take a joke.This is pretty funny actually,and the 'Orange Flavored Strife' cracked me up.Well done,you random person you.