Since that last post went up I've been in discussion with a few people, whom I'll classify loosely into two groups, the whingers who like an acapella seem to sing to one line [I thought I was your friend?], and those who just thought I was/am emo. An Asian emo....get the fuck out. Well alright I've got the shit hair and thick glasses down pat, like I'd ever stoop so low. I'll admit this much though, the ending of that last post does need a little clarification, hence this segue before I begin the current post in earnest. The previous post was written with a healthy dose of realism, and think what you may, it's a truth that cannot be denied. In uni you are expected and manipulated by the system to compete, much as we have little or no choice in the matter. It doesn't just happen in uni, it happens from school life onwards, it's just that in school the system in operation is a little laxed. You don't get three hundred people fighting over four or five honours positions, everybody graduates from primary to high school to college or whatever it is that awaits people.

I'll probably sound like a prat for stating this, but I could actually consider the few friends I have left from high school, and perhaps most of the friends from Foundation and first year, truer friends than the ones I made in second year uni. There was at worst inconsequential competition between us, and our friendship operated with the idea that there was nothing holding us back from continuing for as long as possible. In uni major, everyone's fighting for essentially the same thing, that is to get the one up on everybody else, and even the best performers might not even get rewarded. It sounds begrudging and resentful to allow academic rivalry to compromise a friendship, but readers, please, wake up and be dreadfully honest with yourself, could you ever totally forgive the person who's going to run you out on your sorry ass even though you know you tried your best and were probably equally deserving? Probably not. It's the same reason why you wouldn't make friends with the boss who fired you, sure you worked together for ten years, and the relationship was amicable enough, but it only lasted until you were deemed redundant and you ended up unemployed with your shit ruined. I recognise the concept of causality and that everything that occurs is partially my own doing, that is why rather than chomping down in the hippy-pie that is lurvy-durvy friendship, I'll be content making sure I can single-mindedly aim for academic excellence whilst maintaining what is at best collegial relationships with everyone else in second year. Sure there'll be a hell of a lot of guilt involved, but hey, c'est la vie. At least I know, unlike having to euthanise my pet dog, I'll be getting somewhere without having any emotional bonds being severed, and unlike those soppy tight-clad prats who woke up one morning and realised just what shit was coming down on them, I won't don eighteen layers of mascara and cry into it.

Which brings me to the main topic of this post: emos and Goths. Dare I give this subhuman bunch of charlatans any undeserved attention? Well lately I've been rather more exposed to this pseudo-subculture than any well-meaning person with a life would ever deem necessary, so I'll choose to vent my spleen here. For those not in the know, Goths and emos can be readily recognised from other people by one big distinguishing characteristic: they're patronising pieces of shit. The difference is in the plumage, both dress somewhat similarly except Goths manage to look impressive as only turkeys can, whilst emos just look like they need a kicking. Nadia Comaneci would be kicking herself [and knowing her, probably effortlessly in the back of her head] if she saw what people in tights were up to these days.

There is no real definition of a Goth, on physical stereotype they wear thick black coats, even in midsummer [Goths stink in more ways than one], plaster their faces with layer upon layer of acne-concealing make-up and eye-shadow so thick you'd half expect it to cake up and fall off their faces, dislodging a few eyes in the process from the weight, all in an attempt to quite literally look like walking corpses. The whole concept of being a Goth, in fact, seems to be centred around morbidity, incorporating other such tacky fashions as fishnet stockings with holes ripped in them, bourgeois Tudorian gowns which I'll admit is long overdue a return to everyday fashion, basically anything which helps them project the image that they're in touch with the gloomy/dead side of life and wish to look the part. Emos on the other hand look like lame prepped up versions of Goths, usually dressed in tight shirts and pants labeled with some band they consider fashionable, and hairstyles which would result in Martian invaders looking to subjugate intelligent life for their nefarious purposes being forced to look elsewhere. Tacky accessories include black-and-white striped armbands and socks, black[inevitable]-painted fingernails, and duffel bags anointed with more little badges than anyone who's actually rushing off to do something important would ever care for. The fact that many members of either group seem to find these characteristics interchangeable, and that none can ever come up with a single universal definition, serves to illustrate the shallow idiocy of the concepts.

Both groups are essentially musical subcultures, emos more so than Goths, which seem to prefer to connotate themselves to anything dead. The ridiculosity of that first idea is facilitated by the plain idiocy of the music, which essentially can be boiled down to incessant whingeing about the most banal issues whilst conveying the impression that it's somehow encountered something profound. Boohoo my cat died, I've stared death in the face, I'm somehow enlightened to the fact the world is a sorry loveless and tragic place, sod the people who do not accept this understanding, because they know nothing, especially my parents and/or the girl/guy who dumped me because they're not in touch with my feelings, no one understands how deeply I feel, and are merely affirming my stance about there being no love in the world. This why I wear what I do, because I want to outwardly project the fact that I'm dying within.

Here's my message to all Goths and emos: fuck you. As a matter of fact, it's true, no one does give a shit about you, because while you're too busy aggregrating yourself in a musical subculture, slapping on dead-face make-up and lamenting your non-lives, sensible people caught the clue train and either made do with what they had, or worked towards somehow bettering the situation. Sitting and whingeing whilst simultaneously looking dead makes pussies out of society, and benefits no one. Someone barely sensible will probably comment and write 'We're just voices that want to be heard.' Oh really? Well here's a tip, shut the fuck up. Stop trying to 'get heard' and start doing something. If you haven't lost your entire family in a firestorm, aren't stuck in a country where the terrorist militia only come knocking every second Wednesday and there's been famine for thirty years, or been rendered redundant by an economic system which fed your soul to some billionaire fatcat, you've got no right to complain. Everyone's going to encounter some form of negativity in their lives, deal with it.

The only thing that holds up your fragile network is the music you listen to. How anybody can form an entire supposed subculture out of any genre of music, let alone this piss-poor excuse for strung-together crotchets and quavers is beyond my sensibility. The main excuse I hear is that people feel they associate with the music and can see a deeper meaning. For all those emos and Goths out there, grow some cognitive skills. There is NO deeper meaning. A band sings about antagonism and sadness and suddenly everybody's a philosophy professor. Emo music is just every negative-connotating word strung together in a CAFG chord-progression sung by ambiguougly gay frat boys who failed both sports and science whose voices have yet to break at the age of 32 trying to pass it off as mainstream-rejecting punk. Association with the music? Well I'll name one important group of people who aren't feeling particularly associated with the music: the musicians. Whilst spoonfeeding impressionable young minds like you sopshits with their negative lyrics and stanzas of 'heart-written' dark poetry which makes it look and sound like they care, they're siphoning off millions of dollars and doing what none of you idiots have ever managed to do: move up in the world. That's right, they're moving on up, content taking all your money from merchandise sales [and I've seen the prices for emo CDs. LUDICROUS!] and concerts so they can continue their mindless brainwash campaign and participate in seizure-and-nosebleed-inducing shows such as MTV's Trippin' [having seen an episode I can agree with Maddox that this is the most patronising, mind-numbing piece of shit to have ever graced television, and considering it comes from MTV that says a lot]. The only redeeming factor of emo music is it rejects rap and hip-hop, and judging from the impressionability of these asswipes it wouldn't be beyond someone to introduce something along those lines [emo-hop?].

The point is, how can anyone make a sub-culture out of any form of music? I can safely say you don't see shit like that coming from the classical world. You don't see classical lovers dressing up as Bach or von Suppe every weekend and invading public spaces, or locking themselves in their rooms crying to Albinoni. Hell I'd like to see what sort of shit might happen when a military piece comes on, perhaps the Royal Society of Strauss Enthusiasts might invade Munich to the tune of the Radetskymarsch. Anyone who affiliates themselves to a clique the way emos and Goths do, purely based on a genre of music alone, is probably clingy, dependent, and self-insecure. If you like your music, share it by all means, enlighten the crowd, don't go looking for some deeper meaning in it like you've got some professorial understanding of the human psyche. Or better yet, toughen the fuck up, stop catering to these 'musicians', and see to your own shit, and stop trying to lean on the backs of all the similarly parasitic spineless dimwits like yourself to gain self-assurance and simultaneously pass yourself off as profound.

Every weekend I pass through the CBD of Brisbane, and it's full of emos and Goths on ludicrous dress parade [Note: you don't often see the Goths. They're lurking behind the trees in one of Brisbane's spacious well-foliated parklands. Goths are mysterious.], hundreds of mainstream-rejecting [oh the irony] soulless people who block up the plazas and walkways with their gatherings in which they indulge in such mind-provoking activities as water balloon fights and discussing their epiphanies on the deeper meanings of life, as only a 14-year old high school student who's barely started involuntarily bleeding from her crotch can. They come from far and wide, I once was on a train to Cleveland [look it up] and managed to trace an emo all the way back to Ormiston, meaning this pink-streaked lump of pork fat had caught a one-hour train ride just to look for self-assurance. Apparently an outgoing lifestyle for a teen these days amounts to dressing up like a twat and meeting in the city to sit around and whinge about teachers. The fact that parents are willing to allow their children to behave in this manner is beyond sensible comprehension. Parents, know this, your kids are whingeing spineless puussies, shoot them. Since that's unfortunately illegal, beat the crap out of them and send them for psychiatric brainwashing and wash the turds out of their skulls, afterwards propagate them on a diet of Strauss and Mendelssohn so that they can finally affiliate themselves with a musical genre that is actually a culture. Then afterwards beat yourselves for allowing yourself to even dare encourage such idiocy. Be an emo? I'd rather fuck Paris Hilton.