the one where emo is fascist johhny ryan ^ *haha. get it? haha* ^ EMO IS FASCISM Random Thought of the Week by J. Bennett (A potentially unadvisable but moderately humorous dissertation on a particularly reprehensible sphere of popular music; or, Chris Carrabba is a total fucking brownshirt.) I was on the blower the other day with a friend of mine who made an offhand comment about emo bands being "fascist." I've been thinking about it a lot lately--especially in the last 10 minutes--and it occurred to me that he might just be right. So instead of sitting down and mapping my thesis out rationally like any normal reactionary asshole, I drew up a pie chart (sort of) and set about writing a journalistically irresponsible editorial. Just think of this page as the Sunday Sun with better teeth, or whatever. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but these equations seem to make sense to me. Saves the Day = Aryan Youth Thursday = Hitler Youth Dashboard Confessional = A young Führer What do all these whiny, incredibly good-looking, inexplicably successful trust-fund kids have in common? Well, first off, they're all white boys, pre-sumably of European origin. But, then again, so are Motörhead, and no one's accusing Lemmy of being a Nazi, right? I mean, are we gonna split hairs? Second, they're all pretty boys (well, most of 'em--but I already pointed that out). Third, they all sport that ubiquitous emo uniform--perfectly imperfect haircut, shoes from Urban Outfitters, size-too-small T-shirt, and of course, women's jeans. I can't prove anything about Germanic descent (that would require actual research), but so far, this is at least reasonably philosophically in step with Hitler's vision for a blond, blue-eyed master race. The uniform, I mean--not women's jeans. So, is emo the Final Solution? At this point it seems prudent to address the subject of Chris Carrabba, AKA Dashboard Confessional. He falls into our established emo/fascist archetype, but complements it with the generous addition of fully sleeved (tattooed, that is) arms. He'd no doubt like us to believe this adds an element of "street cred" to his milquetoast image, music, and demeanor, but in reality, it makes dudes in real rock bands want to have their shit lasered off, posthaste. I can picture Chris riding around on one of those old BMW motorcycles with the sidecar, wearing a spiked helmet in the video for his next single. Yeah, that would be totally sweet. Not to mention appropriate. Now before you get your haircut all out of whack, humor me for a second. I'm not trying to imply that any of these overly sensitive nancy-boys hold anti-Semitic views--nor am I trying to paint them as white supremacists. In fact, I'm not trying to make a point about anything, really. I'm merely shedding light on a previously unacknowledged correlation between the general aesthetics of a particular genre of music and those of, uh, National Socialism. Nevertheless, some scholastically stringent power-clown will doubtless be quick to point out the flaws in my argument, starting with the assertion that the tenets of fascism and Nazism are not the same thing. They'll probably cite the "vast" differences (despite the inherent sameness) of the respective political agendas of Hitler and Mussolini--not to mention a bunch of other historical bullshit pertinent to the original Axis of Evil--but I really can't be bothered with minutiae. This is an opinion piece, man. However, I'll concede the fact that just about any genre of popular music you'd care to name has an element of social control to it. I mean, everybody knows that hair metal was the result of a particularly ingenious brainstorming session over at Aqua Net. The fact that Jon Bon Jovi still has a career, however, proves that ultimately, the joke is on the hair shellac companies. Another relevant point: It's my understanding that Hitler was big on fight songs and, like, national anthems. A real proponent of school spirit, if you will, even though he was technically from Austria. This only further bolsters my theory by adding the musical element. Do I have to spell this out for you? As usual, nobody can prove anything about anybody, but I think we all see the writing on the wall here. I'm talking to you, Chris. I mean, c'mon dude--it's like, move to France already.