Chicago TV “News” Report Flogs Emo’s Dead Horse

kater | January 25, 2008 11:45 am
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If there’s one thing that could make a local TV news “trend” report even more pitiful, it’s crappy college emo, and Chicago’s Fox affiliate has produced a segment on the emo lifestyle and its hidden dangers to prove this very point. And in the grand tradition of local TV news, this report is heavy on the melodramatic voiceover and about five years behind the curve.

The report includes: a goofy, vaguely sarcastic delivery of the word emotional (“emotional“); a helpful definition of the emo genre from some pasty suburban milquetoasts; some home video of a schoolyard emo beatdown (a result of “the emo backlash”); a not-so-veiled assertion by the reporter that emo is “just too wimpy”; an acoustic jam session in a tastefully decorated recreation nook; and, of course, emo-kid YouTube videos. The producers also tragically lump Blink 182 and Green Day in with the genre, apparently oblivious to the hardly subtle difference between scatologically inclined pop punk bands and the quavering outburst that is Dashboard Confessional. But then, local news has never been famous for nuance.

Featured local band Addison Park has a lineup of stereotypes: there’s the guy with a beanie cap, the dude in a plaid shirt, the hoodie-wearing keyboardist, and the sensitive lead singer in tight sweater. And their music is a few clicks south of mediocre to boot. If anything, the report is a terrifying warning against the dangers of the Chicago suburbs, a place where “emo music thrives.”

Emo Music Thrives In Chicago [myfoxchicago.com, via AbsolutePunk.net]