A couple of days ago, a 12 years old girl jumped out the window while her mother was there with her and, of course, died. She left a good bye note, sign she was determined to do this and it was not a spontaneous act. The girl was an “emo kid” and fan of Tokyo Hotel band.

OK. I see them on the streets every day, with their dark, rebel hair, with a strong and black makeup, with dark clothes and that semi-goth look. At first I smiled, it must be a trend. I remember me fighting with my mom over my long hair and scattered jeans, over my skull t-shirts and metal music. Ah, yes, and I won’t tell you how hard it was to wear ear rings. At first 1, then 2 large ones. I was cool with my red and black leather jacket, long hair and ear rings. I was I guess 19-20 years old and loved metal!

But I didn’t jump, and most of all, I have never thought about anything like this. I even remember telling my friends once that if by any reason they will find anything like this about me, they know I DIDN’T DO IT MYSELF! I love life! I loved it there too. I loved life in every single aspect of it. I loved rock music, distorted electric guitars, long hair, screwing everybody who was pointing at me for one reason or another!

2 days ago it was this late night TV show here caused by this 12 yo kid who jumped. There was a psychologist invited, a rock music critic, 2 emo kids and others that I don’t remember. The theme was clear: why did she jump?

I watched a part of the show then, the next morning I have seen a news in an e-newspaper and I followed a link there to a site that preaches emo culture.

I can tell you I had an impression of a large gap. A gap between me and these kids. I am 31 yo, remember? I am not that far away. I can not imagine how would it be to be 55 yo and to face such a situation. If you are 55 yo, then you probably feel the gap even worse than me and you probably couldn’t understand it either, the way I do it now.

These kids are not 12, these kids there look, feel and act like 20 yo. They look sad. I haven’t seen a single smile on their faces on that site. How could you not smile?!! How could you be sad at 12?!! WTF is wrong with you, emo kids?

I read on that site that is the site of emo community in Romania, as they say:

Man, could this be right? I don’t believe in censorship, I believe in freedom of expression, but CAN YOU POSSIBLY write on a web site that leads the flag of a community of teenagers that the teenagers that are part of that particular community hate themselves?! You can not grow inside them the feeling of inferiority and most of all you can not tell them, yes, man, you have suicidal tendencies, pay attention, we all here have it, well, it’s not that bad, if you think about it!

Am I crazy? Have I lost it or what? Shouldn’t we grow inside kids and teenagers the feeling of security, trust, the feeling of being on the right way, to make them feel good with themselves? Is this emo culture an anti-social one or what?

They were speaking about Tokyo Hotel as being one of the musical leaders of this emo culture and they were accusing one song, named Don’t jump as being part of the problem, being the favorite video of that girl who jumped. The psychologist said that the message in the video is understood exactly the other way by a listener. Don’t jump!! Now you get it the other way, if you want!

I must admit I was not familiar with Tokyo Hotel and their music so I tried a couple of songs. I can tell you that the music was not that bad, don’t blame me for that appreciation, a part of me likes this style. It is that crying music that has roots in punk, alternative, etc. They say it’s new. The rock critic invited to that show was pissed off for this and I understood him why. I watched him a lot of times on TV, he had a late night rock show, metal oriented, man, I loved it, his name used to be associated to late nigh metal.

So, he spoke a bit about this music and I also listened it the next morning. How could it be new!? Listen closely! Remember Radiohead’s Creep?! Creep has the same idea, it is released in 1993 and it is alternative. Nothing new on this earth right? Also, how about Nirvana?! People should ask Tokyo Hotel’s composers where do they get their inspiration from. Nirvana must be one of the sources, in my opinion.

So, people listened this music long before emo kids were around, nothing new. Then, why this suicidal ideas? Where is it coming from? Tokyo Hotel is a produced band, has composers hired just for them, the look, the songs, they are all “artificially produced”. While I don’t argue that in music it is a marketing way of doing it, like for ex the T.A.T.U. thing. Here it was big, 2 Russian girls with lesbian image singing in semi-erotic outfits. Who cared about the music?!! It faded away…

It is the same thing now with emo, IMO. Somebody created this culture from scratch, gave the leading lines and said let it grow and spread. Then, we’ll sell things like music and clothes to them…