I have a 16-year old daughter so I know her and will be standing outside DirecTV Arena later in the year when she plays here and my daughter goes in.
She speaks directly to teenagers (mostly girls) who have taken EMO culture and mixed it with pop culture. It's for a generation that thinks its cool to be depressed and if you don't have "something wrong with you" then you don't fit in. These days, fitting in is not fitting in.
I suspect she (Eilish) is much more corporate than her general act would suggest. Either way, the music is as calculated as Britney Spears was 20 years ago, it's just fits more in what teenagers want in 2019/2020.
I spend a lot of time around teenagers (also have a 14 year old boy) and I cannot stress enough that this generation of kids are the weakest, easily offended, most childish generation of young people there has ever been. Billie is a teenager, so.
By the way, that makes it seem like I hate her and the music. I don't, but neither do I care.
I had to look up EMO culture and came up with this:
'Easily offended' hits the nail on the head and although I don't mix with teenagers, I do live in the same house as a 23 year old lad. He's not immature, but he does have difficulty with confrontational discussions about gender politics for example, which people of our age, not being woke, find either amusing or hard to get to grips with. Very often our comments are waved away as boomer attitudes and other such labels.
And yes, labels are de riguer nowadays.
One wonders how much sympathy you can pile onto an EMO, if at all.
Before getting to sympathy on EMO and the general direction of teen culture, it is worth pointing out what happened with EMO.
EMO as you pointed out was a punk or more closely a post-punk music movement and it was a legitimate subculture. By the mid 2000s it had been bastardized and fully adopted by teens and the music transformed too. The classic moping teen is the very definition of EMO once that transformation happened. Mid-2000s EMO basically amounts to moaning. What's interesting is that EMO seemed to have largely died down around 8 years ago. However, it seems that is not the case and it simply shed its skin (dark gothic look) and bled into general teen culture.
I am sure there is still a committed EMO subculture but there's little doubt many of the EMO ideals were adopted widescale by this generation of young people. For example, the general move towards malaise, moaning about everything, feeling that the world sucks (even if it doesn't).
Obviously, depression is a real thing and many teens do suffer from it. I am failry forgiving about the clear growth in diagnosed depression in teens. It can be explained by a general opening of discourse that allows mental illness to be discussed and many cases of depression were previously overlooked.
Despite that, the growth in teen depression has given other teens a free pass. Now it's cool to be depressed and is worn as a badge, whether the person is actually depressed or not.
Looking at what you said about young people being afraid to tackle confrontational subjects, it's very true. Worse than that is the fact teens will now get their stance from social media, apply no critical thinking to it, and think they are enlightened. That's fine and in many ways teens have always been like that (minus the social media). However, now there is definately a basis of being uninformed and discussing topics like they are reading flash cards provided to them by someone else. In this regard, it's an offshoot of the celebrity thread.
By the way, I am not pulling all of this out of my ass, althougn some is obviously opinion. I am generally informed because I am only 35 myself, I was a young person during the EMO shift 15 years ago and again I have teenage children now. Basically I have lived the teen experience on and off directly and through osmosis for around 20 years.
Make no mistake, in general teens today lack nuance and emotional intelligence. It's ironic because their projections would have you believe they are willing to be more adult than previous generations would have been during their teen years. The reality is they are more misguided and childish than those previous generations.
Looking at what you said about young people being afraid to tackle confrontational subjects, it's very true. Worse than that is the fact teens will now get their stance from social media, apply no critical thinking to it, and think they are enlightened. That's fine and in many ways teens have always been like that (minus the social media). However, now there is definitely a basis of being uninformed and discussing topics like they are reading flash cards provided to them by someone else. In this regard, it's an offshoot of the celebrity thread.
This is very true and when I ask for a backup argument, there is none. Or 'Where did you read that?' and they can't remember.
We do, however, agree that the new gender neutral speech is an aberration, so that's progress.
Very interesting, Semigoodlooking . And informative as well. In the future, I will remind myself not to be so quick to dismiss teen angst. You seem to have a lot of knowledge/experience with teenagers' inner feelings. I really do not have a lot of patience for self-pity, given the very concrete problems faced by people - including teens - in miserable circumstances all over the world. But I do understand that emotional obstacles do arise from within, and even people who are not clinically depressed can feel hopeless whether living on the street in India or in Buckingham Palace.
For me, EMO is a downer. Just listening to a steady diet of it would have had me moaning. As for Billie Eilish, I suspect you are right about the corporate nature of her garage-produced music, but who ever knows showbiz hype from truth. I know that she is singing for and to teens and not the likes of me, but I find her music, well, boring and lacking in anything remotely entertaining. I was surprised that she swept the Grammy Awards, but more power to her for reading the mood of the age. For what is pop culture if not commercialism?
I find myself less and less interested in pop culture, not just what's hot and what's not, but even caring what it is I'm turning my back on. By definition, it exists for the under-30's demographic, because they are its largest consumers. I remember being a teenager and really caring about the latest fads, music, clothing. I'm glad that teens now allow themselves to be supercilious enough to care about those things too, because life will soon enough demand more seriousness from them.
Very interesting, Semigoodlooking . And informative as well. In the future, I will remind myself not to be so quick to dismiss teen angst. You seem to have a lot of knowledge/experience with teenagers' inner feelings. I really do not have a lot of patience for self-pity, given the very concrete problems faced by people - including teens - in miserable circumstances all over the world. But I do understand that emotional obstacles do arise from within, and even people who are not clinically depressed can feel hopeless whether living on the street in India or in Buckingham Palace.
For me, EMO is a downer. Just listening to a steady diet of it would have had me moaning. As for Billie Eilish, I suspect you are right about the corporate nature of her garage-produced music, but who ever knows showbiz hype from truth. I know that she is singing for and to teens and not the likes of me, but I find her music, well, boring and lacking in anything remotely entertaining. I was surprised that she swept the Grammy Awards, but more power to her for reading the mood of the age. For what is pop culture if not commercialism?
I find myself less and less interested in pop culture, not just what's hot and what's not, but even caring what it is I'm turning my back on. By definition, it exists for the under-30's demographic, because they are its largest consumers. I remember being a teenager and really caring about the latest fads, music, clothing. I'm glad that teens now allow themselves to be supercilious enough to care about those things too, because life will soon enough demand more seriousness from them.
That's part of the problem, deciding what is whining teens or depressed teens is becoming increasingly hard to judge (without therapy) because it has become cool to be depressed, or at least pretend to be.
Regarding Eilish, I agree. There have been plenty to artists through the years that appeal to a demographic that I am not part of or interested in that I have found merit in. She is not one of them, I think considering the production value, style, and her appeal to teens, I find her music remarkably without substance.
I just had a little laugh to myself though because I am sure kids would have it no other way. Look at us moaning on an internet forum about an 18-year-old singing songs for 14-year-old kids. There's some irony there.
Great point!
I’ve never met a man who wasn’t smitten with Stevie Nicks!
Like Stieve Nicks and Tom Petty "Stop Dragging My Heart Around"
Great vocals by both. ZERO chemistry between them! It is as though they taped this without the other person present.
Great vocals by both. ZERO chemistry between them! It is as though they taped this without the other person present.
You may be right, but I still love the song!!! My Wife love's to hear me play along with my guitar!!!
I like the song too! I’ve just never seen the video before, and was surprised that they didn’t even smile at each other. Keep strumming!
The real chemistry she had was with Lindsey Buckingham, her true love.
They were very good together!!!!
