You know that whole thing with the square/rectangle business that you learned in geometry? Where every square is a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square? In my days, I have found a phenomenon oddly similar to this. I present the Pipeline theory. It goes like this:
Every LGBTQ kid had an emo phase, but not every person who had an emo phase is LGBTQ.
If you’re queer, I assume you just read that and went “Hey, who showed you those photos of me with dyed hair in a Panic at the Disco! shirt?!” I know these things, because I too, am a retired emo kid who now kisses women! So, today we will be discovering the specifics of the Emo-Kid-to-Queer-Pipeline.
First, let’s define the word “emo.” The style of music is described as “a rock music genre characterized by an emphasis on emotional expression, sometimes through confessional lyrics” and can also be considered a subculture of punk, AKA ‘pop-punk.’ Those ‘confessional lyrics’ often shared themes of depression, loneliness, lost or unrequited love, self-harm, and rebellion. Emo music also had a rich online and community presence, rife with young teenagers obsessed with these bands and their music.
Personally, I was a Fall Out Boy kid. You could find me any day in school with a sleeve of bracelets from Hot Topic, short and colored hair, and dirty Converse All-Stars. I liked them because their music was catchy, the themes related to my personal life, and I was struggling with myself. I started listening to them around the same time I started questioning everything about myself. Why did I blush around my best girl friend? Why did I press my chest flat every day? Why did I feel out of place in nearly every group and community until I found this music?
Surprise, young Taylor, it’s because you are gay.
Now, of course I didn’t know this at the time. I was lost, I was confused, and the only place I could find solace was in the scream-yelled words of a man in his mid-thirties who never shampooed his hair. (I say this with love.) Why? Because I felt like they knew what I was going through. For example, one of my favorite Fall Out Boy songs was titled “G.I.N.A.S.F.S.” which stood for “Gay Is Not A Synonym For Shitty” and was about a gay couple’s break up and how they still loved one another. Finally, I felt like they could see and sing what I was feeling.
Now, a reminder. These bands came before we got Troye Sivan and Hayley Kiyoko and King Princess. Young queer people did not have many bands/singeres to look up to, and these musicians openly spoke out their support for the LGBTQ community, some even being a part of it. (And, as much as it pains me to mention, the fanfiction that plagued all of these “bandoms” were primarily MLM and WLW pairings. If you had Wattpad, you know what I mean.) Most of their loyal followers shared this view, making these communities feel like the safest place for young queer kids who were scared and felt alone.
Middle school is a turbulent time, no what who you are. And for kids in the LGBTQ community, it’s a time that can be extra terrifying and confusing. Finding a niche to burrow in that actually makes you feel safe and accepted is crucial to surviving. Approximately 40% of LGBTQ youth have considered or attempted suicide, which can be exasberated if the teenager also has a mental illness. This music was their escape, something to hold onto and to live for. And I say that from experience.
Now, maybe this was just a me thing. Maybe baby lesbian Taylor was just a black sheep and this pipeline is actually an anomaly that I came up with to comfort myself. But, I can say, with confidence, that every single queer person I’ve ever met had an emo phase. Literally. I have yet to find one who never rocked out to some Pierce the Veil. In order to test my theory, I spoke to a few of my queer friends in order to understand their experiences.
Test Subject #1: My Girlfriend
Q: What do you identify as today?
A: Lesbian.
Q: From what ages did you consider yourself emo?
A: Oh, god, okay. Seventh grade, I was 12… I would say 12 to 16.
Q: Do you feel like the culture that you submerged in affected your coming out in any way or do you think that LGBTQ kids are just drawn to that scene?
A: I think that it was more like I was kind of struggling with myself so I felt… I was drawn to music that like, resonated with what I was going through. Kids are more drawn to music that they can resonate with.
Q: What was your favorite band?
A: MCR.
Q: Do you still listen to that music today?
A: I do still…. Just the good stuff. It’s a guilty pleasure. Like, I don’t listen to Pierce the Veil anymore, but I used to. Like, a lot.
Q: Do you feel like the community that listened to that kind of music was more accepting than the regular population?
A: At the time, there were a lot of straight people that I was friends with that liked that kind of music, so at the time, no. When I grew up with those same people, they ended up being the same people who were most accepting of me.
Q: So, you said that you felt out of place, and that you were struggling with yourself and used this subculture as an escape. Would you agree that many of your LGBTQ friends experienced the same thing and may have coped with it similarly?
A: Yes, absolutely. Especially with the way we all group up, we grew up similar and tried to find escapes from our lives.
Test Subject #2: A Hot Girl With Stomach Issues
Q: What do you identify as today?
A: A straight woman! Just kidding, she/her and bisexual.
Q: Would you consider yourself ‘emo’ in your past? If so, when?
A: Yeah, I was emo from 5th to 8th grade. Yeah, I was emo for a while.
Q: Why do you feel like you personally were drawn to that community/subculture?
A: Because when I was a kid, that is what my older siblings listened to. I also made friends within the community as well. It started with the music and ended up with a community.
Q: Did any of the friends you made who also listened to this kind of music end up queer?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you feel like this music and subculture was an escape for you?
A: Um, yeah I guess. When I would listen to that music, I would sit alone in my bedroom and just listen to like Pierce the Veil and feel everything.
Test Subject #3: Actual Person Who Went To Middle School With Emo Taylor
“As a black girl, I kind of felt like being an “emo kid” was a quiet rebellion against what society always told me a black girl should be. I don’t know if I was even aware of my sexuality until after I was already in the subculture. Emo kids were just in general more accepting of the LGBT community than any of the other kids at school so I think it was less that I was drawn towards the music because of my sexuality and more that I just felt comfortable exploring my sexuality because I was surrounded by people who were accepting.”
So there you have it. There could be a slew of reasons why we end up this way, or why we were drawn to this community. Whether it’s dependent on how accepting the ‘emo kids’ were, or whether it was the music itself, or even some genetic material in our gay veins that influence us to lean towards the subculture, this phenomenon and my theory hold true.
If there is one thing that’s for sure, though, is that the emo thing may have been a phase, but being queer never will be.
