Marching For Emo
The suicide of 13-year-old Hannah Bond was a tragedy, but emo music is not to blame. And tomorrow, an estimated thousand music fans will march on the offices of a U.K. newspaper in an attempt to point that out.
Emo music, and My Chemical Romance in particular, have been under an unpleasant spotlight in the U.K. this month since a depressed teenager from Kent took her own life. And the fact that she was a fan of the genre has been blamed.
The scapegoating of alternative music in the press is nothing new. But what's all the more disturbing about this case is that the coroner singled out the emo genre as playing a part in Hannah's death. Roger Sykes said, "The emo overtones concerning death and associating it with glamour I find very disturbing."
This was all the Daily Mail newspaper needed to revive their crusade against a culture that actually has much more to do with uniting people and sending a message of hope. Nevertheless, they whipped up another editorial about this apparent "suicide cult" designed to panic parents, even going as far as to make inaccurate claims that MCR's "Black Parade" is "a place where all emos believe they go when they die."
http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/36468
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-566481/Why-child-safe-sinister-cult-emo.html
My Chemical Romance spoke up because they had to, sending condolences to Hannah's family, but pointing out that: "My Chemical Romance are and always have been vocally anti-violence and anti-suicide. As a band, we have always made it 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. The last song on our album states, 'I am not afraid to keep on living'--a sentiment that embodies the band's position on hardships we all face as human beings."
The Daily Mail whipping up fear and misunderstanding is nothing new either, but the fans who feel this music has helped them through their problems, not exacerbated them, are not standing for it.
Tomorrow, an estimated thousand fans will march upon the newspaper's London offices, in a show of solidarity, and respect for Hannah. Organizer Anni Smith told NME.com: "The [Daily Mail 's] words 'suicide cult' really stand out for me, because it's just so far from the truth. As a fanbase it's such an insult because we fight so hard and so many of us suffer from depression, and we fight every day to ward it off.
"The way [many teenagers are] fighting it is with My Chemical Romance's help and it's just such an insult to tell us that the last thing we have to hold on to and the last thing that's keeping us alive is killing us, because it's not."
NME.com will be at the march tomorrow.
http://www.nme.com/news/my-chemical-romance/36848
It is not the music that is to blame, it is that sometimes kids do not know how to deal with their problems. It was her parents responsibility to seek help, not blame a band/music when when things went extremely wrong.
there a pop band
THEIR MUSIC HELPS US DEAL WITH LIFES UP'S AND DOWNS BETTER.
THAT WHY WE LISTEN TO IT AND BELEVE IN IT SOOO MUCH.
I read the reviews back in 2006 when the black parade was released and and it got nothing but positive feedback from fans all over the world and that what made me believe that there is hope for this genre that they saved.
I was lucky enough to see them in concert twice and THEY ALWAYS SAY NO TO VIOLENCE AND THEY TELL US TO MOSH SAFELY AND PICK UP OUR FELLOW MEN IF THEY FALL INTO THE MOSH PIT.
So it's purely not their fault that she died.
Please don't blame this tragedy on them they did nothing wrong all they do is HELP US and thats the only crime they are guilty of is HELPING US GET THROUGH LIFE ALVIE.
mcr is a band that, while they may be trying help "save people's lives", are still very troubled and instable.
it's hard enough to try to do something so personal when you don't know a person personally, but i think it's even harder for mcr to offer any positive advice because they have become such cynical and bitter people growing up.
because of it, their lyrics, though empathetic and supposedly pro-living, are written, naturally, in a confusing way and centered around morbid topics.
they force you to think of suicide, because they talk about it all the time, and to dwell on your problems instead of trying to see any kind of good in the world.
FIND A LINE WITHOUT A SARCASTIC, ANGRY, OR SAD TONE, AND WITHOUT THE UNDERTONE OR IMAGERY OF BLOOD, DEATH, OR SHARP OBJECTS. they are few and far appart.
i'm not a parent or adult. i'm a teenager who listened to mcr during a bad time thinking they could help. i got so wrapped up in the "black parade" and the emo lifestyle because i wanted something to fit into and to find strength in. in the end i realized i just had to pull myself out, and now i'm very happy.
I HOPE THIS HELPED SOMEBODY.
The death of this young woman is a tragedy and not something for a newspaper to use to sell papers and stir up a phony controversy. Instead, they should be asking why teens feel so hopeless -- why they have no place to turn to when depressed. They should be pushing for funding to set up more hotlines and free counseling services -- to train teachers and parents to look for warning signs -- to encourage adults to reach out to kids and let them know that someone cares. As other people have noted, music is sometimes the one thing that keeps a person going on in times of trouble. To condemn a type of music as a causative factor in suicide is just ridiculous.
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