It’s not a phase, mom…no, it’s not really.
You might think that the emo music that devastated millennial earphones in the 2000s, like Take Back Sunday’s “Cute Without the ‘E'” and Hawthorne Heights’ “Ohio Is For Lovers,” was born and died within the same decade, but maybe you just stopped listening. Some did not. Fast forward to 2025, and the genre and its accompanying aesthetic of doom and gloom seem to be making a comeback in earnest. But the hill I chose to die on is that emo (music, looks, all of it) never really went away.
Returning to relevance in the 2000s (yes, trends really are cyclical), the staple emo side parts and chunky colorful stripes first popularized by Myspace models like Hannah Beth and Audrey Kitching have been reinvented on runways and red carpets in recent years, and moody black eyeliner has also regained its place as a staple there, albeit in a much more subtle way.
Considering how thriving this music genre is right now, it’s no surprise that this kind of emo-adjacent hair and makeup just happens to be popular again. Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and Fall Out Boy (claimed by many fans to be the true “Emo Holy Trinity”) have all played multiple sold-out stadium tours in recent years after making triumphant returns from indefinite hiatus. There are many other defunct emo bands like The Academy Is…, Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything, Panic!, and many more. At the Disco – have reunited or plan to reunite in 2025 to release new music or perform special live performances of their most beloved works. Emo-centric comeback in 2023 When We Were Young Music Festivalthe band is still going strong and offers the perfect place to do it among the genre’s most ardent fans.
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When emo first made its way into mainstream pop culture, I called everyone a poseur in my defense of the genre (and you know, I was 13 years old). Now it fills me with nostalgic joy and a much-needed sense of connection. Even now that I’m in my early 30s, just hearing the names of these bands makes me think, still Makes me foam at the mouth – I like Fall Out Boy more than any other boy. There’s no shame in loving bands whose song titles are full-on angry phrases like, “There’s a dark alley and there’s a bad idea that you should keep your mouth shut.” Because laughing, crying, and screaming along to their lyrics shaped me. until they release from under the cork treethe 2005 album that shot them to stardom, I was just a preteen with a lot of pent-up anger and no idea who I was or what I liked independent of anyone else. If you think that sounds dramatic, go ahead and think so. After all, emo is all about drama. Ask any 20-something in checkered slip-on Vans on the street and they’ll likely tell you the same thing.
Sure, I had band T-shirts, studded belts, and skinny jeans, but that wasn’t emo’s biggest influence on me. Before beauty YouTubers took over the internet, my main source of #inspo was Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz’s ever-dirty blackness. ”Guyliner”, a complicated facial painting of the guitarist from Panic! At the Disco. ryan rossfrontman of My Chemical Romance gerard way‘s signature rusty red eyeshadow wash. I would tear up their pictures from the pages of magazines and study their faces for hours. Mainly because they were – gasp – cute boys, but I was also endlessly fascinated by the idea of men shamelessly wearing edgy makeup that I’d never thought of trying before. In pop culture at the time, glittery glam rock icons like David Bowie, Prince, and Kiss seemed like mere relics of a bygone era, and the men we saw on screen often wore the same hypermasculine California Prep uniforms.O.C., The Hillsetc.). Emo makeup back then wasn’t just a rebellious thing for me. It was a sign of courage. And as an awkward teenage girl who had just moved to a new city with no friends, I wanted nothing more than to feel brave at the time.
Source: Allure – www.allure.com
