I agree. They essentially are the “weird” kids. They really don’t bother anyone (at least at my son’s school). They normally socialize only with each other. I guess at that age, everyone wants to belong to some sort of “group”. If they don’t fit in the others, they can dye their hair, get a black wardrobe and “fit” in with the emo group. (thank goodness we are beyond THOSE years!!)
Emos > Jugaloos > Muslims
Though it was really hard deciding on that last inequality.
It is difficult on a kid not being accepted by the “in” crowd. Back in my day, there was a girls’ social club in our school called, unfortunately and shortsightedly, “The Gay Teens”. Of course, us poor kids from the country grammar schools came down to the consolidated high school, and the majority of us weren’t invited to join “The Gay Teens”. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Heaven help us if we dared get “out of our place”, too. Husband was in the “gay teen club” crowd, so doesn’t understand my struggles to deal with that whole scenario, even where it intrudes on my psyche in a teeny-weeny way to this day. (I don’t like to go back for “reunions”; his favorite thing in the whole world.)
None of our 3 teens are emo, thank God. At our local rural high school there is some emo overlap with the other teenage labelling...the jocks, the nerdy & geeky brains, the preppies all seem to overlap their social circles. Our youngest is a real artist and I see many in the arts and music groups who lean towards emo in dress but they don’t listen to mostly emo music.
I see the emo mentality broadly as another function of the current age of broken marriages and general societal dysfunction - prime example: democrats,lol, though here they are just kids who went to the mall, kids of rural working class families that are pretty much good people with limited education. The tend to grow out of it by the end of senior year.