Emo Subculture

The Sensitive Subculture A skinny white boy dressed with long black hair, a tight-fitting vintage t-shirt, a pair of torn black skinny jeans and checkerboard converse sneakers walks on stage, strums his skull-covered guitar and sings. Emo is a subculture that heavily relies on emotion, mostly sadness and depression, and takes the emotions to an extreme; emo is short for emotional hardcore. The people in the emo subculture focus on emotion because they do not want to conform to the laid-back popular culture.They express their emotion through a unique music genre, fashion, and a melodramatic attitude in order to distance themselves from the common pop culture. The emo subculture originated from a style of music that mainly focuses on expressing man’s emotions through lyrics about love, anger, and hurt. The music genre conveys women as sexual muses, victimizing the man. While the music of the pop culture welcomes and encourages women sexuality, emo music has made women the origin of emotional pain for men, depicting them as â€Å"heartbreakers. † The music also creates messages about emos feeling isolated.For instance, the image of the album cover for the emo band, silverstein, shows a boy with long hair, wearing tight jeans, sitting alone, and weeping. In their album, Silverstein sings about, love, anger, hurt, and isolation, so the album cover reflects what the music in the album is about. Along with love, anger and hurt, emo music also sings about violence. Blood, kill, dead, hate, and pain are some common lyrics that are used in emo music and are usually directly related to women. The lyrics suggest that women cause pain for men; however, in the common pop culture, men are the ones who are inflicting pain on women.The emo subculture breaks away from this by reversing it. This rebellion is expressed through the emotional music and lyrics of the emo subculture. Along with music, the emo subculture expresses their emotion through a unique recessive fashion. The typical emo fashion consists of skinny jeans, tight t-shirts, zip-up hooded jackets, studded belts, converse or skate shoes, black nail polish, eye liner on both genders, and the notorious emo hairstyle. The typical hairstyle is comprised of long, straightened, black bangs brushed to one side of the face covering one or both eyes.In the second image, the boy’s thick black hair is covering both of his eyes completely. The way his hair covers his eyes, shared with the black shirt signifies how he wants to be secluded, and concealed in the dark. He does not want to see others and does not want others to see him. While the dress of pop culture is very brand driven, baggier, and represents how the culture is open, the slim fitted clothing the emos wear shows how they keep to themselves, focus on themselves, and worry about themselves in order to remain distant from the mainstream fashion.One cannot identify someone as being in a subculture just because of his or her f ashion or musical tastes; the attitude of a person must also be considered. The attitude of the emo subculture can be described as shy, quiet, sensitive, glum, mysterious, self-pitying, and introverted. A typical emo teenager in high school usually sits alone in the corner of the class, keeps to himself, and almost always looks depressed; If he is found with other people, it will usually be with other emos. The subculture has a unique attitude towards life as well.Emos feel that no one accepts them, so they outcast themselves, and view the world around them in a more emotional way. For example, if a common teenager was rejected by a group of people playing basketball because there was already even teams, he would pay casually accept it, and go on with his day. But, if an emo teenager was rejected, he would he would take it personally by assuming it was because they do not socially accept him. Emos tend to over exaggerate the emotions that one might usually feel.They express these em otions through the attitude they have towards life and everyday experiences in order to break away from the pop culture. The emo subculture uses intense emotion to rebel against the common pop culture by over exaggerating the simple emotions one feels in everyday life, showing how they want to be recluse by the way they dress, and singing lyrics of strong emotion. On the stage, the vocalist cries as he sings lyrics of how the woman he loved has left him feeling heartbroken and isolated. Emo Subculture The Emo subculture consists of two distinct groups. The Emo Subculture The term â€Å"Emo† that is now applied to individuals originated as short hand for â€Å"Emotional music† Traditional Emo Sub-Culture This â€Å"emotional music† draws from a broad range of contemporary genres linked with the common consistent themes of emotionally vivid views often associated with adolescence. For many youths of the mid-80s this music functioned as a safe-haven for emotional expression.Over time a subculture was formed around this mutual appreciation and in turn became a safe-haven where youths could freely express themselves while facilitating social interactions and identity formation for these introspective people. From this sprang the Emo subculture that rejected the mainstream in favor of independent performances. Additionally this culture allowed individuals to express their societal views with like minded people, creating the activist stance they are known for today.A s the popularity of the Emo movement grew it became much more accessible to the mainstream industry. Modern Emo Subculture As a result a re-invention of the music and culture was spawned and became the Modern Emo Subculture. While sharing many traits with the traditional Emo this new subculture embraced the mainstream direction of the Emo-music. In time the modern Emo would drift further from it's origins and the previously extreme individualism and non-conformist outlook was replaced with the familiar features of a Trend.This change in outlook paved the way for the signature style Emos are known for today as fans of popular Emo bands began to emulate their idols in both dress and style. The modern day Emo has ironically become heavily influenced by mainstream media and popular figures Emo Influences The Seven P's Marketing to Emos The product we are offering is a clothing range suited to the Emo culture.Product Our product will be differentiated from our competitors in a variety of ways. Our primary method of differentiation will be through the careful establishment of specific product affiliation to key Emo cultural figures and rallying points. We have targeted our approach in this manner to make efficient use of the insular nature of this subculture, making endorsements and sponsorships significantly more effective then those of more traditional consumer bases.The products we offer will also be recognised and differentiated by design. Our products will incorporate patches and logos with popular political, socio-economic and human interest messages much in the same way that many other clothing lines promote bands and groups. It is our belief that the Emo subculture will respond well to the clothing styles with which they are familiar, coupled with the opportunity to express their beliefs and individualism.The price management of the product will be integral to the success of this project Price Entering the Market Place We plan to enter the market in a less t raditional manner in order to take advantage of The Emo's specific traits In the initial stages of our entry to the market we will be undertaking projects to distribute our products at Indie rock music festivals. In particular targeting specific â€Å"up and coming† independent bands and groups Through this we believe we will be able to achieve some portion of the fans devotion to these groups securing customer loyalty while simultaneously achieving our primary goal of brand affiliation.In tandem with this approach we will be selling our products in our own online stores Only after completing our initial placement will our products be offered in retail stores We make this decision with the belief that this approach will generate a sense of exclusivity and hype within the Emo subculture to appeal to the individual nature of our consumer base We are confident that this can be facilitated through the use of social networking sites, in which the Emo subculture is highly active.Pr omotion is one of the cornerstones of our product implementation plan Promotion In addition to this our clothing range will not be separated into the traditional men's and women's categories. Instead we will offer a single androgynous clothing line to match the style and needs of our consumer base. To further facilitate the individuality of the Emo subculture our online stores will allow customers semi-custom design of their purchase through a set selection of logos and logo locations.Allowing customers to choose which message is displayed on what part of their clothing. E. g. A customer may choose to display a pro-vegan logo on the left shoulder or the right breast pocket. We shall be undertaking a number of promotional activities in order to achieve our brand recognition and product affiliation goals. As mentioned in previous sections it is our primary goal to affiliate our products with popular Emo bands and figures, such as Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance, as well as w ith key concepts and issues important to the Emo subculture.We can achieve this through advertisement at popular concerts either including the acts directly or through banners and posters Additionally we will be hosting giveaway events at concerts with free t-shirts, jackets and other clothing in order to further promote our brand image within the Emo subculture It is also our intention to host sales stalls at charity events with partial proceeds of these sales being donated to the charity in question.Many charity events are popular within the Emo subculture and this is an important opportunity for our corporation to further its image of sharing the same fundamental values as our consumer base. Of course we will also be implementing advertisement activities though social media such as Facebook and Blogging sites. The Emo culture has an active presence on these sites and it represents a cost effective process of engaging our target market.In our dealings with a characteristically exp ressive consumer base it is important to ensure enjoyable interactions People By distributing our products through popular Emo retail stores such as we will be ensuring that the staff will be able to relate to the customer This is important within the Emo culture as fashion is treated as a social statement As we will also be selling our products at concerts, music festivals and charity events, it is imperative we employ staff that can understand and relate to the Emo culture.This has the added benefit of requiring less training for these low level retail positions It is important to make the purchasing process an enjoyable experience Process This is especially true when dealing with such a close-knit and outspoken community. With such specialist products word of mouth could make or break.In order to achieve this we will be focusing on our employees being capable of rapport with the customer and individual opinion on choices as well as the implementation of our online customisation o ptions Emos are characterised as creative and expressive, it is our belief that these customisation options and the ability to discuss their choices with like minded individuals will greatly enhance their experience.Depending upon the success of the customisation function we may implement a custom order system for the independent retailers Physical Evidence Cost plus pricing strategy will be used to target segment with high disposable income Through analysis of the physical evidence we will be able to determine the suitability of our product range Joey Keifouz Ronald Mills Peter Whitehead The Emo Tribe Factors which increase subculture influence Emos and the Macro-environment Demographic environment †¢Increasing diversity: the population in Australia s becoming more ethnically diverse, which increases international exposure through personal relationships. Economic environment †¢Increases in consumer spending: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 2. 5% over the previous yea r, which translates to an increase in total spending of the same amount. Natural environment †¢Environmental sustainability: Our product will be developed using environmentally sustainable resources.Technological environment †¢Manufacturing innovation: technology is constantly increasing manufacturing capabilities and reducing production costs †¢Social media: The advent of social media has increased advertising exposure for many subcultures including Emo. Political and social environment †¢Increased ethical and social responsibility: product designs are politically influenced and promote messages of responsibility.Factors which decrease subculture influence Emos and the Macro-environment Cultural environment †¢View of nature: the increasing amount of the population which believes in natural responsibility will increase the popularity of our product range. Demographic environment †¢Changing age structure: the average age of the Australian population is s lowly increasing. The Emo subculture is traditionally comprised of older teens and young adults. This will decrease the available market. Demographic environment (cont. ) †¢Geographical population shifts: populations are moving away from capital cities.This not only decreases exposure to Emo subculture, but also decreases advertising effectiveness. Demographic environment (cont. ) †¢More professional population: The rise of professionalism is likely to reduce the popularity of Emo subculture. Economic environment †¢Changes in consumer spending patterns: retail sales have decreased for 2012, eg. From June sales have dropped by 0. 8% Natural environment †¢Environmental disasters: There is always possibilities of natural disasters such as fire and flood which could damage manufacturing capabilities.Political and social environment †¢Changes in legislation: increasing legal restrictions may influence our products. Eg, legislation which bans public political stat ements would cause a sharp decrease in sales. Sales data will be collected from retail and online stores Analysis also reveals success rate of marketing strategies towards Emo segment Online â€Å"secret shopper† to obtain consumer perspective on our product range As a subculture based upon a musical genre the â€Å"non-conformist† Emo may indeed be more heavily influenced then thers Influences upon the Modern Day Emo are not limited to that of high profile bands and celebrities In today's society the Emo is easily recognised by their dark fitted clothing, distinctive hairstyles and overall androgynous approach to fashion. Due to the interconnection of the subculture Emos receive significant influence from their peers resulting in partial feedback causing core issues to self maintain within the society Of this group of peers some Emos have themselves achieved semi-celebrity status as bloggers and rallying points for the Emo subculture