Attacks began on 7 March when, according to Wired, “several hundred people went on an emo-beating rampage in Querétaro, a town of 1.5 million about 160 miles north of Mexico City.”
The next week punks and rockabillys harassed emo kids in Mexico City, prompting police protection and a TV news story. Meanwhile the emos have organised anti-violence protests (pictured).
Hat-tip to Alex Willemyns for one of the oddest headlines — but this is for real.
The core issue is a clash between Mexico’s macho culture and emo‘s sexual ambiguity. Yep, it’s just good old-fashioned gay-bashing.
[O]nly in the past year have emos begun to make their presence felt in the streets. In response, many of the established so-called tribus urbanas like punks and metalheads are responding with violence…
[B]y some accounts, the emo subculture is identified with homosexuality in Mexico. As Mexico City youth worker Victor Mendoza told Time.com: “At the core of this is the homophobic issue. The other arguments are just window dressing for that.”
Perhaps not so old-fashioned: we can drag a web 2.0 angle into this…
Many of the attacks have been planned, or at least fomented, on violently anti-emo websites like Movimiento Anti Emosexual, which features videos of physical violence sprinkled liberally with anti-gay sentiment. Last.fm’s Anti Emo Death Squad group has almost 4,000 members.
Weirdly enough, Gustavo Arellano, the author of Ask a Mexican and an editor at OC Weekly, thinks this could all be a positive for Mexico.
“It’s a great clusterfuck for the American mind’s idea of Mexico,” Arellano said. “This teaches the rest of the world that Mexico is not just a bunch of cactuses and sombreros.”
Yeah, Gustavo. It teaches the rest of the world that Mexico is populated by ignorant, medieval fuckwits who are a long, long way from being fit to inhabit the 21st Century.
More at the Intersections blog, and Mexican newspapers La Jornada‘s stories on the original attacks an the follow-up.
[Photo: “Protesta de emos en la ciudad de México el miércoles pasado” from La Jornada. Photographer: MarÃa Meléndrez Parada.]
nose porke people are againts emos…
eyos no nos asen nada solamente son unikos….
yo no soy emo ni nada pero no lo niego ami si me gusta el estilo de los emos…..
Y is evrbody hating emos. They are the best subculture evr. Fuck the Haters
If there’s one thing I love, rather than hate, it’s insightful, well-written socio-political analysis.