High school was all about labels. Labels on clothes (for ex: the moose). Labels on friends (was she a BFF or just an F?). And of course, labels on people. As Janis famously said in Mean Girls, you had your preps, JV jocks, asian nerds, cool asians, varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don’t eat anything, desperate wannabes… the list goes on and is completely 100% accurate.
The list below is about those who didn’t quite have a label. They were confused. They wore Abercrombie, but they also liked angry music. They smiled all the time and loved their lives, but also had a fascination with depressing song lyrics by “punk” bands. They were emo preps. Or preppy emo kids. Or something along those lines. To this day, the label is still unknown. But, if you were one of these “emo on the inside maybe kind of, but also very happy” kids, this list is for you.
1. Your clothing totally did not match the music you listened to. Basically, you loved the color pink and you also loved music that talked about slitting your wrists. It made no sense. But, like, what were you going to do? Wear Hot Topic? Umm, no thanks.
2. You listened to certain emo songs and then immediately shut them off when they got to the “screaming” part. Why were these people so angry?
3. You took selfies before selfies were selfies. Your digital camera may or may not have been your best friend. This was simply because you loved yourself and thought you were kind of really pretty, even though you were soooo emo. MIRROR SELFIES FOREVER. With peace signs.
4. You loved Fall Out Boy before everyone else started to like Fall Out Boy. High school early 2000s hipsters know Grand Theft Autumn was the best song ever, especially the acoustic version.
5. You had a Live Journal. And in it, you wrote about your busy weekdays filled with school and extracurricular activities. You sometimes told dramatic stories about fights taking place amongst your friends and acquaintances. Sometimes you even talked about how depressed you were because your mom wouldn’t buy you that new sweatshirt you wanted from Abercrombie. Your Live Journal was certainly not as depressing as the emo kids who wore Hot Topic, but whatever. You liked Dashboard Confessional. It was fine.
6. You also had a MySpace and it was your second life. Your page was always decked out to the nines. You used fun MySpace themes to show your personality, sometimes even putting in your own HTML (#girlswhocode). You put in quotes that really showed how HARD your teenage life was. You listed allllll your fave bands, which obv included Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, and Death Cab. And your profile wasn’t complete without an angst-y song that really showed how cool and into music you were — which you mistook for “emo” but whatever.
7. When Taking Back Sunday came out with their new CD in high school, you were sooooo excited. So many new lyrics for your AIM prof.
8. Your first time at a club was at an 18+ concert in your nearest city. And you always seemed to feel out of place at these shows. After, you would often try to “catch the band” by waiting by the tour bus outside after the concert. There was nothing better to you than a signed set list. So much meaning. So much emotion.
9. You traveled near and far to scope out Battle of the Bands. And then you found the bands you liked on MySpace and downloaded their music to your computer ASAP. So NOT mainstream = So cool.
10. You found a second home in Hollister because it was dark, preppy, and played really good music. Basically, Hollister was you.
11. This list makes you cringe because WTF was wrong with your teenage self?
