Life looks better in PINK!!!!

Here is a transcript of the Kerrang! article about tabloid scaremongering over EMO


'HOW EMO BECAME A TABLOID SCARE STORY
SELF HARM? VESPAS? THE PRESS HAVE FOUND A NEW WAY TO DEMONISE ROCK FANS. SHAME THEY GOT IT COMPLETELY FUCKING WRONG...

On Sunday, August 27, My Chemical Romance took to the stage at the Reading Festival and started a ferocious, arena-wide chant of: 'Fuck the Daily Mail!'
Gerard Way and his bandmates were responding to an article written in the tabloid, titled 'Emo Cult Warning for Parents', that has been doing the rounds on the internet ever since its publication before the festival.
The poorly-researched feature claimed that the emo genre encouraged both self-harm and siucide (as well as Vespa riding!); pointed the finger at My Chemical Romance and - confusingly, despite having nothing to do with the genre - Green Day; attempted to explain to parents how to recognise if their child was 'an emo'; saying that fans refuse to open their curtains', that 'their world is dark and airless', and that they indulge in 'self-pity, introspection', and 'self-dramatisation'. Parents are also advised to be on the look out for 'small T-shirts and black hair'.
Thgis isn't the first time the mainstream press has touched on the genre - The Times also explored emo with their July story 'Emotionally Challenged', but came to the logical conclusion that there was 'no relationship between emo and depression, or cutting, or suicidal tendencies' and that 'emo kids are just more open about it'. It concluded that the real concern should be why more kids in general are experiencing these things', not the music those kids are listening to.
Sarah Sands, who wrote the Daily Mial article, denies the paper was scaremongering. 'Statistically,' she says, 'teenagers are extremely vunerable to self pity and to self harm and the Daily Mail would not be behaving responsibly towards parents if it did not point this out. To you, 'she continues, 'emo may be a fashion statement, but teachers and some parents are deeply uneasy about the associated cult of self-harm.'
But as one reader, Louie from Manchester, points out on the @Mail's website , 'The link between emo and self-harm is unfair. I am yet to meet an 'emo' who self-harms or has any reason to self-harm, in all honesty. Self-harm is a serious issue, not a trend.'
Fat Wreck Chords rising stars Love Equals Death were also mentioned in the piece; Sands claiminng they were part of a genre called 'Death Pop', which is, according to the Mail, 'popular in Germany'.
Bassist for the Bay Area punk quartet, Dominic Davi, is amused: 'I find this so damn funny, I can hardly contain myself,' he laughs. 'Death Pop is a totally ficticious genre; a term that has been tossed around a few times as a joke. If we are the head of a huge cult forming in Germany someone didn't send us the memo.'
'Honestly though,' Davi continues, 'as funny as I would like to think this is, and as much as I would like to dismiss this garbage, I am sure there are parents who will take this far too seriously, look at their children's style od dress and their CD collections and assume the worst about their own child. The Daily Mail should be more responsible.'
Indeed it should. Sands - who claims in her article (without providing any source for the accusation) that 'emos exchange competetive messages on their teenage websites about the scars on their wrists and how best to display them' - and was, back in 1995, criticised as a sensationalist when a memo she had wrote to a colleague at the Daily Telegraph was leaked to the public.
In it she stated that 'The Mail gets the best out of people through fear' and that 'The Telegraph should 'sell stories hard, but just stop short of distortion'. 'We should be freindly and fair-minded,' she stated, 'but then take people aback with ferocious militia-style attacks.'
Clearly Sands still favours this style of journalism, but the consequences of writing in this manner are far-reaching and dangerous.
'Children who cut themselves need honest help and understanding,' concludes Dominic Davi, 'and targeting their choices of fashion and music and labelling it a possible cult just misinforms those who are in a position to help them.
And that,' he emphasises, 'is what's really sad and alarming.'


Sorry about the typos but I was getting kinda riled as I typed.
Thank you Kerrang!
And to all of you out there whose parents read the Daily Mail and the like, I'm feeling really sorry for you right now!