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It’s not a phase, mom. No, really, it isn't.
You might think the emo music that ravaged millennials' earbuds in the 2000s — like Taking Back Sunday's "Cute Without the 'E'" or "Ohio Is For Lovers" by Hawthorne Heights — was born and died within the same decade, but perhaps you just stopped listening. Some of us didn’t. Now it's 2023, and it appears the genre and its accompanying doom-and-gloom beauty aesthetic is having a "comeback." The hill I choose to die on is that emo everything (the music, the look) never actually went away.
With the 2000s rounding back into relevancy (yes, trends are, in fact, cyclical) the staple emo side bangs and chunky colorful streaks first popularized by Myspace models such as Hanna Beth and Audrey Kitching have been reinvented by Gabrielle Union, Cardi B, and Rihanna, among others. And the makeup? Well, that’s just an army of black eyeliner pens and pencils coming to smudge their way across the eyes of celebrities such as Jenna Ortega, Billie Eilish, and Blackpink’s Jisoo, plus runway models at shows by Versace and Rodarte during the most recent New York Fashion Week.
Meanwhile, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and Fall Out Boy — what many fans argue is the true "Emo Holy Trinity" — are about to or have released new music recently and are touring. (It should be noted that all three of these bands have been off and on hiatus since 2009.) So it adds up that these emo-adjacent hair and makeup looks happen to be steadfastly gaining popularity. The dip-dyed orange and gray hair currently worn by Hayley Williams, the frontwoman of Paramore, is just one look I'm waiting to see on a runway.
The first time emo made its mainstream go-round, I called everyone a poser out of protectiveness of the genre (and, you know, being 13). Now, it just fills me with nostalgic glee. As I approach 30 much faster than I would like, the mere mention of any of these bands still makes me foam at the mouth — Fall Out Boy more than any other. I have no shame in loving a band that titles its songs with angsty full sentences like "I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth" because laughing, crying, and shouting along to their lyrics molded me into the person I am. If you think it sounds dramatic, go ahead and think that, but when they released From Under the Cork Tree, the 2005 album that catapulted them to stardom, I was a pre-teen with lots of pent-up rage and no idea of who I was or what I liked independent of other people. Ask any 20-something on the street wearing checkered slip-on Vans and they'll likely tell you the same.
I certainly had a closet full of band tees, studded belts, and skinny jeans, but that wasn't emo's greatest influence on me. Before beauty YouTubers dominated the Internet, my primary sources of #inspo were Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz's perpetually smudged black "guyliner," the intricate face paintings of Panic! At the Disco guitarist Ryan Ross, and My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way's signature wash of rusty red eye shadow. I'd tear their pictures from magazine pages and study their faces for hours. That was mostly because they were — gasp! — cute boys, but I was also endlessly fascinated by the idea of men unashamedly wearing edgy makeup looks I had previously never even thought to attempt. At that point in pop culture, glitter-clad, glam-rock icons like David Bowie, Prince, and KISS has already had their big moment, and the men I often saw on screen all donned the same hyper-masculine California-prep uniform (The O.C., The Hills, etc.). Emo makeup at that time wasn't just defiant to me; it was a sign of bravery. And I wanted nothing more at that time than to feel brave.
Dudes in emo bands shattered the floodgates for my interest in makeup. Before I knew it, the single black kohl pencil in my bathroom had turned into a full collection of eyeliners and eye shadows, like the yellow Covergirl eye shadow I bought specifically to emulate a look worn once or twice by Panic! At the Disco's Brendon Urie. Even as the 2000s melted into the 2020s and the emo look became a faux pas, I refused to part with my bold black eye makeup. I traded smudged lashlines for sharp cat-eyes, which I wore any time I left the house in high school, college, and throughout my young adulthood.
Fast-forward to now, and I’ve still got entire drawers dedicated to black eyeliner and listen to songs from From Under the Cork Tree every single day. What's evolved is that my interest in makeup has grown to the point that I now have a career almost entirely dedicated to it.
And that’s a career I might not have without emo's influence on my hair as well. Like any emo or scene kid worth their salt in 2008, I had the deepest of all side parts, the eye-shrouding side bangs to match, and, most notably, poorly box-dyed red hair. It was inspired by Williams's but looked nothing like hers due to my lack of knowledge about bleaching. That was the first time I had ever dyed my own hair, and from that point onward, my bathroom and bedsheets remained perpetually stained by vibrant dyes (sorry, mom), more often than not in colors similar to those worn by Williams. For years, I tirelessly researched how to make my hair look more like hers.
It started with boxed burgundies, auburns, and blacks (to veil mistakes I'd made with other dyes) I bought while grocery shopping with my mom. Once I got my driver's license, that evolved to weekly trips to Sally Beauty, where I'd stockpile on lightening powders, developers, and semi-permanent dyes from Manic Panic that I'd use to turn my hair blonde, turquoise, lavender, silver, pink, green, or any other color that happened to tickle my fancy that day. After experimenting so much on myself, I eventually became somewhat of an amateur colorist for my friends who couldn't afford salons in my young adulthood, another facet of knowledge that contributed to my becoming a beauty journalist.
My inclination toward brightly colored hair has never faltered, either; at the time I’m writing this story, I’ve got vivid copper-orange hair courtesy of (you guessed it) Hayley Williams and Good Dye Young, the hair color brand she cofounded with colorist Brian O’Connor in 2016. The brand carries a range of temporary and semi-permanent dyes that are mostly modeled after colors Williams has worn in the past. The dye I used for my most recent refresh, Biz, is a neon orange based on the hair she wore for the "Misery Business" music video that solidified the band's place in emo history in 2007.
The genre has had a decades-long impact on generations, and those who call emo just another 2023 beauty trend are overlooking this. Emo's penchant for somber lyrics set to vibrant theatrics remains reflected in the hair and makeup tastes of those it hit deepest the first time around. I know this because I am one of those people.
My closest friends, the people I interact with online, the people I encounter at concerts for bands that wouldn't exist were it not for mid-2000s emo — we're all a mixing bowl of edgy hair and piercings and skinny jeans we have yet to feel too old for. We are all very much alive, and so is the emo lifestyle that never died. When our knees and backs start aching halfway through a sold-out My Chemical Romance arena show, maybe, just maybe we will change. But even if we do, it won't diminish the fact that this music and aesthetic of our lives was never a trend or, as the cliché goes, a phase. Emo is an unapologetic reflection of who we are.
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More on modern beauty trends:
- We're Calling It: "Naked Disco" Nails Will Be Spring's Biggest Manicure Trend
- How Fiona Stiles The 7 Biggest Ear Piercing Trends of 2022 Her Kit to the Pandemic
- Experimental Eyebrow Makeup Is Taking Over Instagram. Here's How to Get in on the Trend
Now, see TWICE break down their best music video looks:
