Emo online: networks of sociality/networks of exclusion

Rosemary Overell
2011 Perfect Beat  
Emo online: networks of sociality/networks of exclusion Rosemary Overell is currently in the second year of her PhD research. Her thesis concerns masculinities and transnationality in grindcore music scenes in Melbourne and Osaka. School of Culture and Communication Abstract This article examines Australian emo subcultural practices and new media technologies. I use subcultural studies to analyse whether emo is, indeed, a subculture. I respond to framings of emo as an 'Other' (sub)culture, in
more » ... instream Australian media and Australian alternative music scenes. I interrogate whether, as dominant media claims, emo subculturalists' internet usage inevitably leads to 'social alienation' . First, I present a case study of a mediatized moral panic concerning the so-called 'emo suicides' of Jodie Gater and Stephanie Gestier in 2007. Media reports positioned emo adherents as non-normative 'dark' users of new technologies, particularly the internet. I counter this representation with a textual analysis of emo micro-media, in the form of MySpace homepages, which demonstrate emo sociality online. However, in my nal section I look at how such sociality is limited by gate-keeping practices mobilizing discourses of subcultural capital.
doi:10.1558/prbt.v11i2.141 fatcat:elvmdb5u3rcv5amppxxfxpf7zm