“Emo” means a whole lot of things in a whole lot of contexts. It’s a musical genre. It’s a style, with distinctive clothes and hair. It’s a type of poetry, type of drawing, type of dance. There is even an emo cow.
While I’m as guilty as the next person for snarking on diagonal-cut bangs (how do you see??), I’m concerned that at the core of the “emo” label is a judgment of both the validity and the presentation of another person’s strong emotional expression. These judgments echo some of the ways that people with mental illness, especially mood disorders such as depression or bipolar, find their emotions critiqued and dismissed by others. Also, because the vast majority of bands classified as “emo” are made up of males and have male vocalists, this is an especially easy way to police men’s emotional expression. This is particularly problematic as men are already significantly less likely to seek assistance for mental health problems, so these ideas may encourage them to continue to suppress or conceal problematic emotions.
this is the emo piece i was working on when i asked what the word meant to you - thanks very much to everyone who contributed, it was very helpful in clarifying my thinking.
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Theory: “Hardcore gamers are the ones who spend hours and hours mastering a game.”
But my Mom spent hours and hours mastering Lemmings. She saved so many little green-haired dudes that those lemmings should have been building shrines to her as their hero. Is my mother a hardcore gamer?
Theory: “Hardcore gamers play games that require excellent hand eye coordination, like first person shooters”
World of Goo requires coordination. Slinging goo balls takes skill — ask any kid with an especially large booger attached to a finger and ready to flick. But I don’t hear many people saying that they’re hardcore because they got the Obsessive Completion Distinction (OCD) flags in World of Goo.
I had this great conversation with a student the other day. I asked him what he felt defined hardcore gamers:
Him: “Oh, people who play lots of different types of games”
Me: “Oh, I play a bunch of different genres.”
Him: “Yeah, but a hardcore gamer has to spend hours mastering them.”
Me: “Do you *know* how many hours I logged on WoW?”
Him: “But WoW isn’t a game for hardcore gamers…”
I find it fascinating that as we drill down further to the definition of a hardcore gamer, it feels a little like the core answer is “not you.”
But my Mom spent hours and hours mastering Lemmings. She saved so many little green-haired dudes that those lemmings should have been building shrines to her as their hero. Is my mother a hardcore gamer?
Theory: “Hardcore gamers play games that require excellent hand eye coordination, like first person shooters”
World of Goo requires coordination. Slinging goo balls takes skill — ask any kid with an especially large booger attached to a finger and ready to flick. But I don’t hear many people saying that they’re hardcore because they got the Obsessive Completion Distinction (OCD) flags in World of Goo.
I had this great conversation with a student the other day. I asked him what he felt defined hardcore gamers:
Him: “Oh, people who play lots of different types of games”
Me: “Oh, I play a bunch of different genres.”
Him: “Yeah, but a hardcore gamer has to spend hours mastering them.”
Me: “Do you *know* how many hours I logged on WoW?”
Him: “But WoW isn’t a game for hardcore gamers…”
I find it fascinating that as we drill down further to the definition of a hardcore gamer, it feels a little like the core answer is “not you.”
