Emo and Gender Interview

I spoke to Anit, a 22 year old male originally from Ohio, who is a fan of bands such as Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, the Cab, and Paramore. We discussed his experience as a fan of emo and his perceptions of the scene. He helped me articulate the fact that the scene is vast and varied - the term "emo" is used to describe so many things that are on very different parts of the musical and stylistic spectrum.

He described how many gendered differences in the emo scene are born of the fact that some bands have become massively popular, much more pop music, arena rock than smaller bands more similar to emo's musical cousins in hardcore and punk. He felt that the larger, pop-rock, emo bands attracted a fan base that was dominated by younger girls, such as those fans of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. But in his experience in the more "underground" emo scenes and shows females were less visible, not because they were not present, but because when you take away the younger female fan base, there are fewer women left, but they are represented.

I cut the interview into three parts for loading purposes, but I transcribe from the third part since we discuss Paramore, a female-fronted band.

Discussing the differences between male and female-fronted bands, we spoke about Anit’s experiences with and views of the band Paramore. I asked whether he noticed anything different about Paramore, which is fronted by Hayley Williams, and their shows in comparison to other shows and other emo shows.

Anit: "No not really. I mean, are you talking about if she was a dude would it have been different? Probably not. They were just like made of…it’s also like hard…I dunno this might be the Brown kid in me, but like...sorta not being able to separate people’s like parts of their identities out. Like I just think that like, she just owned herself in a way that was like unique to her and I don't know if it was like obviously like her being a girl was a significant part of that self but it wasn't like you can't disaggregate and think if she was a guy because she wasn't. I mean maybe...it would have been different but I don’t think so."

"I don't know. It's just like... cuz when you see it you're surprised at how they come off as like this pop-rock act that knows rock. Like they're just doing flips and stuff and their just really into sort of throwing the rock, the arena rock vibe in your face. Like in a way that's sorta cool and interesting and unexpected. So like that's their show, and if I was to tell you that that was a girl-fronted band or a guy fronted band you wouldn't have known. Like it's just like, I think that she owns what she is better than most. And you can't be like, yeah that's what a girl would do that's what a guy would do."

"Like did she shake her hips or something at some point? Maybe. I don't know. Did she talk about something girly probably but I don't know but ...yeah cuz at one point she talked about how great Urban Outfitters was, but like I'm not that concerned about it."

I then asked how he would describe Paramore's content in comparison to all-male emo bands. Was the content also about significant others, people of the opposite sex, and high school-type drama?

Anit: "Yeah I don't know. It is, it's also more off, I don't know, this is me roughly thinking about it now because you said it. She also writes a lot of lyrics about like their more introspective than most guy lyrics. Like most guy lyrics are about incidences, like they talk about things that happened. Like I remember when I talked to Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy but yeah no really! He was talking about how like Take This To Your Grave their first record, well their second record depending on how fan-boy you are, um was like really reactionary. And that was his word he said it was like really reactionary. That they were like picking, like he picked instances and like talked about them and talked about individual people and scenes that had happened in his life. I dunno, like if you listen to Paramore I think it's less that. Cuz like I think she like, Like I Caught Myself is a song where like she, or We Are Broken, they're just like introspective songs about how they feel. And I might just be cherry picking to fit stereotypes too cuz I'm sure I could find FOB lyrics that were like completely internal but I think that if you really think about it probably more introspective than a guy. But like who knows, it also depends on the person cuz also like Misery Business their big hit single is about her being like literally fighting over a dude with another girl. Which is about as emo like contestation like “opposite sex is an object” as you can get. So, God knows."