"Being skinny without muscles is a big part of it." -- Emo Explained!

"I was at a bar nursing a beer. My nipple was getting quite soggy." - Emo Phillips

"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming...They don't know I'm only using blanks." - Emo Phillips

"At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote." - Emo Phillips

"I'm from Downers Grove, Illinois. We had a blackout there the other day, but fortunately the police made him get back into his car before he got too far." - Emo Phillips

"A friend of mine gave me a Philip Glass record. I listened to it for five hours before I realized it had a scratch on it." - Emo Phillips

"You know what I hate? Indian givers...no, I take that back." - Emo Phillips

If only that worked...

Is this true? Can someone confirm this? It seems too peanuthead.

:((((((((((((

another thing that falls under to much information: "They have a terrible penchant for public displays of affection, listening to Robbie Williams, but also for anal sex—which is more or less the only way men see they can dominate women fully and aggressively.

eerrruugggghhhhhaaaahhhheeeeerrrrmmmnnn

Ha-ha. Wimmen unfamiliar with Steve Ditko's Peter Parker, who most definitely did not, in the slightest, look masculine. He didn't look feminine either. He had almost no gender. He was a pencil-neck with oversize glasses you couldn't even buy when the comic was on sale.

And Petey did not talk about his feelings. He was so stuffed up he had trouble working up the nerve to ask Betty Brant to a movie.

Ahh, if only there were such opportunity for subheds like this in mainstream newspapers.

The article says it's very emo-boy for a movie to need two directors!, but it was written by three women and has additional reporting by two others.

What does that mean?

-- lauren (warmleatherett...) (webmail), July 21st, 2004 1:22 PM. (laurenp) (later) (link)

you mean "a lousy, unsatisfying article on this topic"

"if you mollify that discontent, if you talk about your feelings, if you extinguish the flame of anger that has propelled them, I wondered what it was going to do to the music. And, interestingly, the music is more aggressive than ever."

Of course it is.

i discount these supposed "trends" as a rule.

xpost

any ladies want to corroborate?

dunno. seems more like a dude who's mom used to drive him to the mall. somewhere in the Midwest or West Coast. moved to the city now. credit cards are a problem but the xanax helps. for now. girls get so weird after six months of seeing them. rinse the deoderant off after work so they can smell a bit by later that night, and def. all weekend. troubled mostly by issue of carnivorousness, C/D? excited by prospect of a newfound "political" agency. we really gotta get things changed in this world. but for now blind date is on.

just saying this shit ain't exactly continental

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,334056,00.jpg

http://www.limpbizkit.com/newsite/gsosip/images/limp_duesseldorf/fredsinging3.jpg

i think i'd like to get to know "constance wyndham." 24-yr old art critic you say? which restaurant?

Talking about myself more than I'm really comfortable with has definitely been a result-improving strategy in my totally limited-ass experience...

(I still want an answer to my Robbie question!)

I'm with amateurist on this one... I think most people have extremely low thresholds of tolerance for other people's self-doubt and mood swings.

By the way, here's the Rachel Elder article referenced in the story. It's angrier, more misguided, more OTM, easier to punch holes in, and much funnier.

http://www.blacktable.com/elder040212.htm

but this article is not conflating the two. the point is that the first half of what you say here does not apply. that this isn't a new sensitive man, it's a new self-absorbed man, who wants a pat on the back for being introspective rather than, ya know, doing something. this article is about the guy who, on his first date with a new beau, won't plan an actual DATE, instead having one of those eternal "so what do you wanna do" conversations that immediately peg him as a wishy-washy pussy. some might say: well at least this sexist man is self-aware enough to know what he's doing, but the truth is that he's not! i know so many guys like this, and typically the only thing that rivals their narcissism is a deep-seeded distrust of women that's dressed up in feminist terminology and liking sleater-kinney. the confessing aspect isn't a search for self-fullfillment or socialism of the heart (thank you Billy Bragg) or any of that other bullshit: it's a quest for attention. as for those of you saying, "well, women have done this for years so what's the big deal? why can't men?" well, sirs, this article is about YOU!

I think this is a Dashboard Confessional song

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show.

"I swear on my son Dallas' baby blue eyes I was telling the truth [about our relationship]," said a groggy Durst, who admitted to being out late the night before. Stern and his crew egged him on for salacious details for about a half an hour.

"This [relationship] went on for a little while, that's what's pretty unbelievable about this crap she's saying," Durst said of Spears' recent statements that she barely knows the Limp Bizkit singer.

"It wouldn't have been kiss and tell if I hadn't been responding to my fans," Durst said, discussing posts (now removed) on his band's Web site in which he appeared to be reveling in a blossoming relationship with Spears (see "Durst Furthers Britney-Romance Rumors With Online Post").

After pressure from Stern, Durst claimed that after several nights of working together on tracks for Britney's new album, the singer invited him back to her Los Angeles home along with a group of her family and friends.

When asked if the invitation led to a one-night fling, Durst responded, "That would be uncool for me to answer," though he did say that "what I say in my music is very real" and then quoted the lyrics of a new, unnamed Limp Bizkit song: "Ain't it funny, scared to admit it/ Very first night made the Limp dog hit it."

Durst told Stern the only reason he even acknowledged the relationship was because paparazzi pictures of the two began popping up in tabloids, stirring up Limp Bizkit fans in the chat rooms on the band's site. "Kids start seeing these pictures and asking, 'What's going on?' I had to defend myself to my fans. ... It blew up really big. I started to get upset."

Stern also played part of "Just Drop Dead," a new Limp Bizkit song Durst posted on the band's Web site. The singer said the song isn't specifically about Spears, but that his experience with her helped inspire the track (see "New Limp Bizkit Song Disses Durst's Fizzled Flame").

Though he seemed unwilling to discuss the more personal details of his alleged liaison with Spears, Durst was eventually prodded into offering purported intimate details about Spears' body and their private activities.

"It's sad that he's decided to make up stories, and the situation feels very junior high school," a spokesperson for Spears said.

Durst spared no detail in discussing his professional relationship with Spears, saying that he wrote three songs for her, which he recorded as demos using his voice. "Her management called, and I thought, 'She's pretty hot. I've always had this thing for her. We'll see what happens.' I wrote these songs ... [and] I said, 'Just sing what I sing and I'll mute my voice.' "

Durst said the pair spent two or three days in a studio working on the songs, which he described as trip-hop tracks reminiscent of Portishead and the Sneaker Pimps. "I'm very diverse. I write in a lot of different styles. It was very dark ... too mature for her."

Durst said he told Spears' label he was not going to let her use the songs after Spears began denying their personal relationship in the press. The Spears spokesperson said no final track selection has been made yet for the album, but that it does not appear that the Durst tracks will be included. "She's still recording the bulk of it," the spokesperson said.

this is FRED DURST saying this, folks ...

And Joann Pflug has an official website???

Yancey has been very OTM on this thread.

i'm not surprised ... AND MY HATRED FOR JONSI ET AL IS NOW JUSTIFIED!

i think i probably underestimate the ability of the "bust" readership to enjoy the magazine and still keep a certain critical distance from the the lifestyle it seems (again) set on making a reality.

Yes, I think you do.

anyhow, i was hardly being self-congratulatory as i was placing the blame for my loneliness on my own unwillingness to assume the best in other people (not sure how else to phrase that). i think this comes in part from relative social isolation these past few years.

i really wish i had more to do as i'm looking for a job, i find myself spending too much time here.

See? "I feel." What an emo thing to say.

hold me.

*weeps*

That may not be the cut-and-dried question you imagine it to be.

"glass on the pavement under my shoe
without you is all my life amounts to"

Otherwise, same as amateurists. Though I suspect he didn't answer that he was most likely to go to an action thriller, and I most certainly am. I'll happily go to it alone, though.

I used to go to the house of a girl that I was "friends" with but of course I had a crush on and sit and read Sassy and Seventeen with her. I hate myself.

your reaction to this article (and discussion) clearly shows a lack of confidence in yourself and, more importantly, how you are perceived. just realize, amateurist, that not everyone has to like you. the key to social confidence is assuming that most people WON'T like you, and being content with letting that be. just don't worry, buddy!

Coming this Fall to a newstand near you.

but I feel like the new emo man is more arty

But post-feminist scenario...but I feel like the new emo man is more arty....this new breed of sensitive straight guy is tricky.

newsflash: the only thign new about the new breed (gag) is the tight clothes. the genral fashion sense and sensitive bs is so not a new thing. they used to be called post punks, then hipster , now 'new emo man! ' only the words change, but newspapers and magazines gotta be sell somehow i guess

Ahahahahhahahhaaaa. ("24-year-art critic" = "I work at Pearl Paint.")

relating to bnw's #4, hi yourself!

man that quote really is brilliant. it has to be a put on ("hey connie, i want to quote you. say something. anything, whatever") from blaming feminism, to accusations of being french, to pda, to robbie williams (!?), to buggery... amazing. ("haha was that like, super clueless and bitchy enough? i could say more")

People were called 'post-punks'? Really?

"You know, sometimes I really, like, just want to go to the petting zoo and feed goats, goats are cool, you know?"

"Ever, like, watch the moon? It's crazy, sometimes it's all, like, yellow and big and looks like the end of a cigarette filter."

etc etc

maura, free drinks are always classic!

I don't care of Lloyd Dobler is emo or not, that movie totally fucking sucks.

this all sounds swell. except the "sure, i'm a little cold now" part.

Stuff It, Emo Boy!

by Rachel Donadio, Sheelah Kolhatkar and Anna Schneider-Mayerson

Recently Rebecca Hackemann, a 32-year-old artist, had a distressing third date with a banker type she'd met on Nerve.com. He flipped out when Ms. Hackemann showed up 20 minutes late after some trouble on the subway. "You know, you just can't be late like this," whined the athletic, 42-year-old fellow after she had sat down and apologized profusely. "You don't know what it does to me emotionally," he continued. "It really affects me, and I find it really upsetting. Next time, we're just going to have to make sure you're on time. "It's partly to do with my past," he added after they had placed their orders.

The banker is emblematic of an alarming moment in gender relations here in New York: the rampant spread of the emo man (or perhaps more appropriately, emo boy). Originally referring to a floppy-limbed, "sincere" indie-rock movement, emo gathered speed during the Clinton feel-your-pain era. Now it has landed squarely in the laps of disgusted Manhattan women like Ms. Hackemann.

"If he can't handle me being late, how would he be able to handle something bigger?" she asked of her now-dumped date. "If he broke down emotionally from that, then you assume that this person is very weak."

Emo boy is currently manifested on the big screen in the persona of Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 2 . In the last scene of the movie, Kirsten Dunst, as the long-suffering M.J., says, "Go get him, killer," lovingly giving the hero her blessing to go out and fight more crime rather than consummate their relationship. And she just left another man at the altar! Why won't Spidey just do the deed?

Because Spidey-unlike Superman, Batman and the Terminator-is an emo boy. It's not that he's femmey or secretly gay. He's straight, all right. But this new breed of sensitive straight guy is tricky. He looks masculine enough, in a scruffy, tending-toward-boyish way. But he's vulnerable, emotional, subject to mood swings and fits of self-searching. He talks about his feelings. A lot. His fears and secret aspirations, his family pressures, his anxiety about whether he'll ever make partner, or get that book contract, or head that nonprofit organization-all are comfortable topics for emo boy. He'll sound sensitive. He is sensitive-but often more sensitive to his own emotions than to those of the woman sitting across from him at dinner. She may very well be sipping her pinot noir and wondering why her emo boy is droning on at such length about himself. Could it be that what she thought at first blush was sensitivity turns out to be good old-fashioned self-absorption?

Current celebrity emo boys include Ms. Dunst's real-life boyfriend (as of press time) Jake Gyllenhaal, Garden State director-star Zach Braff and Coldplay front man/Gwyneth Paltrow husband Chris Martin, who celebrated the birth of their daughter Apple by posting a spoof rock video with lyrics written for his newborn. "I'll be there through the thin and the thick," he sings. (Can you imagine Mick Jagger doing such a thing?) "I'm gonna clean up all the poo and the sick."

"It was humiliating for him!" said Schuyler Brown, a trend-spotter for Euro RSCG and a single gal herself.

How, these women are asking, can you dream about snagging a rock star type when even the actual rock stars are behaving this way?

"I'm 30, and the topic of conversation among women my age," Ms. Brown continued, "is: When did men get all the baggage?"

'A Little, Tender, Vulnerable Look'

"I think emo boys are part of a post-feminist scenario, but it's not making women very happy," said Rachel Elder, a freelance writer who gained notoriety in February for posting an online rant against what she called "whimpsters." "They are very fragile-but also ready to explode!" she added.

Constance Wyndham, a 24-year-old art critic who lives in the East Village, also decried the role that women have played in creating the emo-boy type. "All of this falls under the broad category of the collateral damage of feminism," she said.

On some level, though, these women understand that emo boy is caught in difficult situation. He knows it's time to grow up, but he worries that he is somehow not equipped to ever become a full-fledged adult man. Besides, don't women want men to relate more? "There's a fine line these guys are walking, because women have always liked the sensitive man, especially the sensitive-artist type," Ms. Brown said.

But emo boy is not your mother's "sensitive New Age guy." "He's not Alan Alda, who's a little too sappy," as Sharon Graubard, the creative director of ESP Trendlab, a trend-spotting firm, explained. "You could talk to him and he could express feelings, but I feel like the new emo man is more arty, more poetic, has more of an interior life."

Ah, the interior life. What that means, more than anything else, is that he's conflicted-and he needs a woman like M.J. to support him, to help him keep his head on straight and, above all, to listen to him as he goes on and on and on . At least she's this way in the Spider-Man 2 script-written, it must be noted, by a team headed by literary emo boy Michael Chabon.

But here on the ground in Gotham, a different story is emerging, as women flee emos in droves.

"We gave men license to be more openly emotional, and they took it and ran with it," griped Ms. Brown, who said she first discovered emo boys when she was tracking the metrosexual trend. "We were having fun identifying guys who were metrosexual," she said. "At first it was favorable: 'Where do I meet one?' Then one day the tide turned, and all I was hearing from women was how their men were too sensitive." Emo boys, she said, are not exactly the same as metrosexuals: "'Metrosexual' has overtones of vanity, whereas emo boys are wearing their hearts on their sleeves."

That's not all they're wearing. Emo boys are known to favor soft, floppy vintage T-shirts, flip-flops and low-riding women's jeans that display a hint of pubic fuzz. "It's like longer hair and introverted and sensitive," said Ms. Graubard. "Being skinny without muscles is a big part of it."

You can tell an emo boy, according to Ms. Graubard, by the snug fit of his clothing. "They wear a shrunken jacket. It gives them a little tender, boyish, vulnerable look-like they outgrew their clothes," she said.

It's an aesthetic best captured by the photographer Ryan McGinley, 26, who happens to be gay himself, but who has made a nice career out of snapping pictures of his sensitive-looking, boyish but tough Lower East Side friends. His work was displayed at the Whitney last year, and his diminutive book of photos is for sale at agnes b. stores.

Or, of course, the emo-boy aesthetic is on display in the endless proliferation of bands that provide the earnest, searching soundtrack to emo boy's life-Wilco, Bright Eyes, Idlewild, Death Cab for Cutie… the list is inexhaustible.

'I Have a Small Penis'

Women who have dated emo boys report being turned off by unsolicited, uncomfortable disclosures.

When the banker called Ms. Hackemann after their ill-fated third date, he said, "You know, I'm a communicator, and I bring things up."

"It was too much relationship talk too early about nothing," she told The Observer . "It had a feel of him being a little controlling in a way: From now on, if I'm a little bit late, he'll be really hurt. It puts this huge pressure on you. And you want to feel relaxed when you're on a date. That was the worst feeling of it. It made him look so weak and unattractive in my eyes, and maybe a little bit messed up."

Victoria, a spangly-topped bartender at the Village Idiot, rolled her eyes as she recalled her last date with an emo boy: "Before we even went out he said to me, 'I'm really great in relationships, but I have a small penis.'"

"A guy told me during our first date that he had a small penis!" echoed Lorrie, a 35-year-old editor. "Why would you do that? It's bad enough finding out the natural way, but for the love of God! Then he pulled out a notebook on which he had written questions to think of to ask me, and offered to read me poetry and Marx. Afterward he proceeded to push me via e-mail, so I got absolutely rude to him. It was very clear that he kept thinking he could secure a second date by deconstructing my behavior," she continued. "He may have thought it was clever and charming to think that my emotional boundaries are a crude front that I want him to tear down."

Emo man does not believe in holding back. "Another thing that falls under 'too much information,'" said Lorrie, "and yet, tragically, has been said to me by more than one person post-sex is, 'Sorry that took so long-I just masturbated a lot when I was a kid.'"

Another cautionary tale of bedding an emo man occurred on last week's episode of Six Feet Under , when Claire Fisher finally broke out of her shell and invited hottie Jimmy on a date.

"I've got a date with the Matthew Barney of LAC-Arts [her art school], even though I'm so not the Björk of LAC-Arts," she tells her brother.

Back at Jimmy's house, the couple start to make out on his bed. "Tell me what you like," he says, as Claire, on top, nuzzles into his neck.

"I like you," she replies.

"No, tell me what you like me to do," he says.

"Uh, just do whatever you want and I'll let you know how it works out for me," she huffs.

Jimmy starts to get flustered: "Why won't you tell me?"

"Look, I don't have like a checklist I need to go through," she huffs back.

He shifts and hovers over her. "You like to have your nipples played with?"

"Not if we have to talk about it," she says.

"How else am I supposed to know what to do here, Claire?" he pleads.

"You're telling me you don't?" she says.

In a way, Claire is cutting to the heart of the emo-boy issue: Are men capable of being sensitive without coming across as tiresome, passive yet demanding wimps?

Likewise, couldn't Claire be a little more forgiving? Couldn't she read into his honest vulnerability not only inexperience, but some attempt to be the sensitive guy women claim to desire?

'Women Are Somewhat Conflicted.'

The fact is that women seem to have extremely low thresholds of tolerance for men's self-doubt and mood swings.

Dr. Judy Kuriansky, a Manhattan psychologist and the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating , has a kindlier perspective on the emo boy.

"This is the type of man that women have been screaming and begging for for years," she said a bit reprovingly. "I've done innumerable research studies about this: After 20 years of asking what are the top three qualities that women want in a man, what comes out overwhelmingly from women is that they want the more communicative man, the sensitive and romantic man. That is overwhelming. They want the cluster of qualities that goes along with a more communicative man who speaks his feelings more, who is more intimate, more open."

It turns out that's where the problems start. "As a result of all that, women are somewhat conflicted," Dr. Kuriansky said. "And this is what has put men in a tailspin. What I hear from men is: 'You've asked me to be this way, but there is still a group of women who still go for the bad boy.' I find it highly upsetting. I'm empathetic towards men who find it confusing."

But Dr. Anna Fels, an Upper East Side psychiatrist and the author of Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives , comes down more on the ladies' side.

"I would say that historically, and right up through the present, one of the things that defined femininity-especially in the white, middle-class culture-is women listening to men and being their audience, their support system, and really asking for relatively little of that in return," she said. "There's been a really disproportionate share of attention of all kinds that men demand and assume as their due."

As for the rise of the emo boy, "Men have always assumed that they get the lion's share of air time," Dr. Fels said. "It may be that this is the new fashion in how they monopolize the air time: If this is how women want it, I will talk in these terms. But it's the same assumption that they will speak more, be listened to more, be supported more."

If women won't do the listening, there are always therapists. Just ask the heavy-metal band Metallica, currently at the multiplex in the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster , which turns out to be a veritable emo-boy manifesto.

What is one to think, watching the headbanging vomit-rockers gathered around a conference table, eating fruit and saying things like, "It's not about what you say, it's about how I feel "? A strange cognitive dissonance sets in, watching grown men in tight pants and tattoos pay $40,000 a month to a shrink who introduces them to their long-repressed emotions and gives them carte blanche to elucidate every last nuance of their feelings.

"These guys became famous at age 17 for being the icons of macho aggression-completely shut down, not talking about your feelings, just being tough guys. So all these resentments and issues built up beyond the norm for the past 20 years, and as soon as somebody walked into their life who tried to give them the tools to communicate, they sort of gravitated toward it," said Joe Berlinger, the co-director of Some Kind of Monster (very emo-boy for a movie to need two directors!).

"I think they're the best example of the toughest of the tough guys really looking within. It's interesting how it affected them musically," Mr. Berlinger added. "These are tough guys singing hard music about tearing down all the institutions and the establishment around you that pins you down. Basically, that's their message to disaffected youth. I was very interested to see, sitting in there in therapy with these guys, would the icons of macho aggression-a band known for its anti-authoritarian rage, a band fueled by dysfunction, the clash of egos-if you mollify that discontent, if you talk about your feelings, if you extinguish the flame of anger that has propelled them, I wondered what it was going to do to the music. And, interestingly, the music is more aggressive than ever."

Of course it is.

In addition to the music, opening the floodgates has an undeniably positive effect on the band members: They have several teary-eyed confessionals; the hard drinker among them enters detox; their marriages survive-well, at least until the documentary was done filming.

Since March, as Page Six reported Tuesday, drummer Lars Ullrich and his wife, Skylar, have been split.

-additional reporting by Noelle Hancock and Jessica Joffe

This column ran on page 1 in the July 26, 2004 edition of The New York Observer.

"Not if we have to talk about it," she says.

OTM

This graf was good (hey, an interview with an actual source!):

As for the rise of the emo boy, "Men have always assumed that they get the lion's share of air time," Dr. Fels said. "It may be that this is the new fashion in how they monopolize the air time: If this is how women want it, I will talk in these terms. But it's the same assumption that they will speak more, be listened to more, be supported more."

But the rest - horseshit. Don't date cockfarmers. End of story.

"Not if we have to talk about it," she says.