Spread the good word, it’s time for your father to take you to the city to see the marching band. My Chemical Romance is far from making a return—but the emo/scene subculture is sure is.
At least, that’s what the folks from Paper are hoping for. They thought of this theory when they posed the question: What can make 2019 different from last year’s train wreck? Weirdly enough, their solution was to make America (or the world) emo again.
“Trump is still president, news headlines are consistently terrifying as ever and global warming is definitely responsible for the fact I’m sweating out on the street in January. If we are to avoid re-living recent mistakes, the culture requires a radical shift, and that shift can only move backward, to a more innocent time,” the article reads.
The New York-based publication got the idea of 20nineSCENE from comedian Drew Kaufman’s rather bold tweet. On New Year’s Day, he claimed that it’s time for emo and scene kids to rise from pop culture’s obscurity. Well, we’ll surely “rAwR xD” to that.
2019 is going to be twenty-nine-scene so get those flat irons ready because we all gotta start dressing like manga villains and listening to the Blood Brothers again. pic.twitter.com/htOjnpLsBL
— Two Minutes To Late Night (@2M2LN) December 31, 2018
From us here at SCOUT Magazine, we have more proof that 2019 might hail the comeback of eyeliner and studded belt warriors. The alt-rock/emo band All American Rejects teased the release of a new album on Twitter last New Year’s Day. And the iconic lead singer of this subculture’s era, Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, announced that he’s releasing more tracks this year. So we guess 20nineSCENE might definitely push through.
Happy 2019 Rejects! Looks like something might be coming this year… pic.twitter.com/JoySoXfmCN
— THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS (@therejects) January 1, 2019
Hold on, let’s be real for five seconds. Making 20nineSCENE happen isn’t the obvious solution for world peace. And if traveling back to 2007 is the solution, let’s face the facts, the year wasn’t that great either. Bush was president and that’s the year we said goodbye to Harry Potter, among other things. But hey, it’s a rather radical coping mechanism to consider. Maybe we do need to cope by going back to a simpler time in our lives.
So why not break out the razor necklaces and Nightmare Before Christmas merch? Start listening to Secondhand Serenade’s “Fall for You” or FM Static’s “Tonight” to your heart’s content. Revive Friendster (I hope we could) and ponder if you should still write that testi for them. Write your feelings about Duterte’s dickery on your beaten up converse too. Let’s make nostalgia a weapon for the anxiety that our socio-political climate is giving us.
Wear that studded belt all you want and wear your skull hoodies loose. Just remember that fighting the oppressive system is still the solution to ending all of the bullcrap. I quote the great Gerard Way from MCR’s Life on the Murder Scene documentary, “Some motherfuckers will try to use you for their doomsday device. Do you know what to say to them? You say: you cannot destroy me.”
Art by Marx Fidel