Pete Wentz: Emo no mo'

Pete Wentz is now, officially, no longer emo because he's knocking thirty, worth squillions of dollars and a mainstream entertainerhe's cut off his hair.

It's so unfair, Putin...

Apparently, some undefined "authorities" in Russia are drawing up plans to outlaw emo in a document called Government Strategy In The Sphere of Spiritual And Ethical Education Or, to give it its more literal translation, You're Not Going Out Dressed Like That, Young Man:

The document states that emos are aged from 12 to 16, wear black and pink, and have long, black hair which may "cover half the face". Other characteristics identified include black fingernails, black belts with studs and pins, and ear and eyebrow piercings.

Conservatives in Russia believe that a "negative ideology" encourages depression, social withdrawal and suicide, according to The Moscow Times.

We're going to keep an eye on Russian conservatives to see if they start parroting any other Daily Mail viewpoints - house prices, immigrants, that sort of thing - as we're starting to get confused between Paul Dacre and Vladimir Putin and can't recall every having seen them share a room.

The suspicion of black fingernails has already led to the ostracism of several keen but inept woodworkers from Russian towns.

The Daily Mail tries to write about Emo again

They came in their hordes to London town, to demand fair coverage of Emo in the Daily Mail. And, to be fair, the Mail probably thinks its story today about a thirteen year-old who killed himself is somehow sympathetic and a fine example of balance.

After all, the headline suggests that Emo kids can be victims, too:

Boy, 13, 'hanged himself after he was bullied on Bebo for being a fan of Emo music'

But the story underneath doesn't really support that claim. Indeed, the Mail seems confused if this is an 'internet is bad' story or a 'music cult' story, and fails to really offer any conclusive evidence that the suicide was because he was being bullied about his musical tastes, or even that he was an Emo kid in the first place:

Sam was a fan of alternative rock bands such as the Foo Fighters and Slipknot, as well as so-called Emo music championed by bands such as Blink 182 and Good Charlotte.

Blink 182? Admittedly, they had a song called Emo, but they weren't actually an Emo act, were they? And doesn't this make it sound like Sam liked Emo amongst a wider range of Zane Lowe style bands.

And his fashion wasn't quite emo, either:

'He was into his appearance and often wore his black skinny jeans. He was an alternative dresser and I think other teenagers did used to make comments about that.'

"Often wears black jeans" again sounds more like seeking evidence he was an Emo kid rather than a compelling piece of proof.

The tragedy is there's no real need for the paper to find an Emo peg to hang the tale on - an unhappy child has killed himself, it may have been partly because other children were picking on him. Admittedly, had he not had a couple of Good Charlotte records in his collection the Mail would probably not even have mentioned his death at all; something you might feel would have been better from his family's point of view.

And while the Mail tries to look sympathetic at the idea of a child ostracised for his taste in music, it can't resist dropping the 'suicide cult' hint in at the end of the piece:

Sam's death comes a month after the inquest of Hannah Bond, also 13, who also hanged herself from her bunk bed after becoming obsessed with the Emo genre.

The inquest heard Hannah had started cutting her arms and told her parents it was part of an 'Emo initiation' two weeks before her death last September.

It's wrong for children to pick on Emo fans and make them feel like they're weirdos who are not part of the community. It's fine, though, for a national newspaper to do the same.

The Daily Mail responds

Although they've not exactly been shaken to their core, the management team at the Daily Mail have responded to the shuffling fly-by of emo fans with a statement:

"The Daily Mail’s coverage of the 'Emo' movement has been balanced, restrained and above all, in the public interest. Genuine concerns were raised at the inquest earlier this month on 13 year old emo follower Hannah Bond who had been self-harming and then tragically killed herself," they explained in the statement.

"In common with other newspapers we ran an accurate news story recording the Coroner's remarks and the parents' comments. We also published two other articles, one of which explained the background to the Hannah tragedy in calm and un-sensational language.

"The other was a first person opinion piece by a well-known writer, written from the perspective of a mother concerned for her children. We have also run two prominent page lead letters from an emo music fan and from a fan of My Chemical Romance defending their point of view.

"Our music critic admires the music of the band and publicised the band’s UK tour last year. Since this protest was announced a great deal of misinformation has appeared on the internet, much of which confuses what the Daily Mail has actually published with the comments of website readers and 'blogs' over which we have no control and which have stirred up emotions."

Goodness: the poor old Daily Mail being made to look bad by third parties quoting things it published and twisting the way it appears? Who'd ever have thought that could happen in the media, eh? Terrible, that.

The emobeast is angered

Today, the My Chemical Romance army is marching on the Daily Mail, to overthrow their stereotype by complaining how they're so misunderstood and it's not fair. ThrashHits is blogging the event as it happens.

Teenage Suicide: Don't do it

You might have mistaken My Chemical Romance's failure to respond to press coverage blaming them for the death of a teenage suicide as maintaining a dignified silence.

The belated spurting out of a bland press release, though, makes it clear that there's just been a stream of record company lawyers and management PR staff taking their time putting together a brand-defence position:

"We have recently learned of the suicide and tragic loss of Hannah Bond. We'd like to send our condolences to her family during this time of mourning. Our hearts and thoughts are with them."

"My Chemical Romance are and always have been vocally anti-violence and anti-suicide. As a band, we have always made it one of our missions through our actions to provide comfort, support, and solace to our fans."

"The message and theme of our album 'The Black Parade' is hope and courage. Our lyrics are about finding the strength to keep living through pain and hard times. If you or anyone that you know have feelings of depression or suicide, we urge you to find your way and your voice to deal with these feelings positively."

Suicidal? Find your way. Presumably they don't mean Gerard Way, though.

It would have been better if they'd either released this statement back on May 8th, when the earliest reports of the coroner's comments were hitting the web, and an empty 'hearts and thoughts/suicide is bad' message might have looked like a wisely cautious response. But to do nothing for three weeks and then do nothing, but with press, shows just how hollow the band are.

My Chemical Romance fans to lay siege to the Mail

Following the pudgy reporting of one fan's suicide, My Chemical Romance's audience have taken great offence against the Daily Mail. Indeed, they're going to have a protest outside the Mail offices.

Hmmm. Hundreds of angry young people wearing black shirts marching up and down the streets of London. That was the sort of thing that Mail loved back in the 1930s, wasn't it?

So far, organisers have persuaded 300 people to take part - although, obviously, if it's sunny on the 31st May it's unlikely many of them will be venturing outdoors.

It's not entirely clear what the aim of the march will be - we're kind of hoping they'll seize the presses and start printing Emo-tinged editions of the Daily Mail ("House prices fall - it's soooo unfair").

Suicidal mendacities: The Mail gets to grips with emo

It is a story with a horrible and tragic waste of a life at the centre of it: a 13 year-old girl hanging herself. Who can understand the complexities of a mind in so much distress and pain that a person sees death as preferable to living?

The Daily Mail, that's who. It's all My Chemical Romance's fault.

To be fair to the Mail, it's terrible journalism at least has the excuse of a comment from the coroner Roger Sykes to provide some sort of justification for its article:

Recording a verdict of suicide, Mr Sykes said: "The Emo overtones concerning death and associating it with glamour I find very disturbing."

For the Mail, the clincher is the dead girl had been listening to My Chemical Romance. For all of two weeks.

It explains emo to its readers:

The Emo phenomenon began in the U.S. in the 1980s. It is a largely teenage trend and is characterised by depression, self-injury and suicide.

Followers wear tight jeans with studded belts and wristbands. Their hair is dyed black and worn in long fringes to obscure their faces.

Emo - from the word emotional - is a reference to the angst-filled lyrics and melancholy themes of the rock music central to the culture.

One of the foremost of these "suicide cult" bands is My Chemical Romance, from New Jersey.

Watch out for people in tight jeans, then. They're almost certainly going to kill themselves.

There was, by the way, a very similar piece on this morning's Today programme, where the suggestion that Emo is, in some way, sinister of itself (rather than a teenage affectation). Nobody seemed to think it worth even worth raising the Nick Hornby question ("Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"); nor asking how many of the millions of fans who listen to emo don't, actually, kill themselves or do anything more sinister than misuse eyeshadow.

How many years is it since the Judas Priest case? And we're still getting poorly-conceived kneejerk articles like this. A heartbreaking story, yes, but does anyone really believe that owning a copy of The Black Parade really is the cause, rather than a symptom, of the misery at the heart of it?

[Thanks to Mariam for the tip]

Gerard Way appeals for calm

There have been a few incidents reported across South America recently of people being attacked by groups supposedly because they had an "emo" look. Which is a serious business - the kicking to death of a Goth by a bunch of murderous bastards here in the UK shows how this sort of thing can get out of control.

However, we're not quite sure the best response is for Gerard Way to appeal to people's better natures, as he did at a Mexico gig:

I want to say something today before we continue. Recently we’ve been hearing a lot of stuff about some violence here in your country having to do with kids who want to wear black t-shirts…or some kind of bullshit - stuff like that,” Way told the crowd.

“We don’t want to see any fucking violence. We came here for one reason, and that’s to be at the fucking rock show.”

Wonderful sentiments, although an emo singer telling an emo audience at an emo gig that he doesn't want to see any anti-emo violence might just fall into the 'preaching to the converted' category.

I'm not entirely sure, either, that telling off an audience of Mexicans for the actions of a small group of their compatriots is fair. For example, in America in February a fifteen year-old boy was shot and killed by a classmate because of his sexuality, and as far as we can tell no Mexicans felt they should lecture Way on "some homophobic stuff in his country", did they?

Taco Bell food is safe to eat

Taco Bell's plans for expansion don't apparently, extended to repeating their ill-fated British experiment. Instead, they're throwing their advertising money behind pushing Emo bands.

Because nothing says "I hate myself and I wanna die, or at least have people think I do", like a sloppy bean burrito and a cup of Coke.

Wentz confuses 'lookalike', 'self', 'movie', 'real life'

Apparently, Pete Wentz has taken great offence at Tobey Maguire looking a bit like him in the the new SpiderMan movie, Spiderman III: Money For Old Mope.

It seems the trouble is that when Peter Parker paints a picture of pooped-out pecker, he looks a little bit like Pete Wentz. This is only to be expected, since Wentz is a pretty boy who dresses up like he's a fifteen year-old whose family don't understand him, which is probably exactly the stage direction in the Spidey script.

Wentz, though, bless him, isn't the stickiest of webs, and seems to think this is all some sort of elaborate pop at him:

Wentz hasn’t seen the movie yet, but he’s still bemused at the news that a mega- grossing superhero franchise may have stolen his identity. “My nephew, who doesn’t know anything at all, says I was in a movie.” Pete tells Rolling Stone. “I was like, ‘All right…’ I’ve heard about this from so many people.’” And on Tuesday night, right after our conversation, Wentz went onstage in Moline, Illinois, and shouted “Spider-Man 3 sucks."

Let's hope Wentz never finds himself under the oak tree in Milton Keynes mall - he's going to think he's been cloned or something.