Needs Help: Emo Teen

Emo Teen is meant to be a certain style, but it's used for any teenager seen as mopey or whiney.

According to my Wick Check 26/50 (52%) are zero context, 14/50 (28%) are just moody or angsty, and 10/50 (20%) have the Goth style.

Seems to be a workable solution

Edited by randomtroper89 on Mar 14th 2024 at 2:05:02 PM

Unlocking.

What's the suggestion?

Maybe disambiguate between Emo, Goth and Teen Rebellion? Or rework into Teens Are Angsty?

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 13th 2024 at 9:42:07 PM

Emo itself looks like it needs its own thread here: it's not on the No On-Page Examples page, but it has just one on-page example.

Edited by FSharp on Mar 13th 2024 at 2:52:46 PM

That's not a TRS reason, it just means people never bothered to Crosswick the 424 wicks. Nor is it really relevant.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 13th 2024 at 9:58:27 PM

It's semi-relevant because, looking at the archived discussion, it looks like the existence of Emo Teen was used to justify removing the examples that existed. Also, it doesn't seem to be sure (or at least I'm not sure) whether it's describing the music genre (we have Emo Music), the real-life subculture (which might be material for a Useful Note), or the stereotype (we have Emo Teen). At minimum, it would be a good idea to perform a usage check to see if it fills a space distinct from other related pages.

Of course, if Emo Teen is being too rampantly misused, we could just move examples of the stereotype over to Emo. But we'd need to make the description less long-winded and rambly, and I'm not convinced the misuse wouldn't simply move there, considering for a lot of people, "emo" means "mopey and whiny" without any further context. So put me down as being tentatively behind a Teens Are Angsty rework.

Edited by MorganWick on Mar 14th 2024 at 1:50:22 AM

If someone wick-checks Emo, we may discuss what to do with it here as well.

Working on it: Emo Wick Check

Edited by randomtroper89 on Mar 14th 2024 at 12:29:10 PM

I could see disambiguating between Emo, Goth (these two might need to get reworked into Useful Notes pages, maybe?), Goths Have It Hard, Teen Rebellion, Troubled Teen, Broken Bird, Troubled, but Cute, Wangst, and maybe Dark and Troubled Past, Teens Are Monsters, Former Teen Rebel, Teen Drama, Teen Horror, and Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb. Not sold on the necessity of Teens Are Angsty, since it's a smidge redundant with Troubled Teen and Goths Have It Hard.

Might I also propose Teens Are Whiny as an additional trope though? Sometimes Emo Teen is used for non-Goth/Emo teens who just like complaining a lot, and I could totally see playing into the stereotype that teens complain a lot as a trope. It also steps on less toes of the aforementioned tropes since it's less about fashion and more about In-Universe Wangst. It would probably also take up the proposed Teens Are Angsty examples that don't have it hard enough to count as Troubled Teen.

I kinda don't see a difference between "angsty" and "whiny", so if we decide to split and if it's not up just left at yard I'm fine with whatever.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 14th 2024 at 9:21:02 PM

I'm fine with the split/disambig, unless we have better suggestions

For Emo Wick Check I have singled out Wicks that are about Emo being a musical genre but I don't know what to do with the rest of them.

EDIT: I finished sorting, and the results are 40% personality or subculture, 18% musical genre, and 2% other examples (a girl who is called emo because she is emotional in a very different way).

Edited by randomtroper89 on Mar 21st 2024 at 2:33:29 PM

I am going to bump so that we can decide how to disambiguate. Should we make separate tropes for emo as in personality and emo as in the musical genre?

Sorry I didn't notice that.

Edited by randomtroper89 on Mar 26th 2024 at 7:20:49 AM

We already have Emo Music, so it would also make sense to have a page for Emo Subculture as well (with teens being associated with angst being another separate trope).

Emo Teen was apparently launched in 2007, around the time that the backlash against emo was getting strong enough for Emo to start falling out of the mainstream by the end of the year, to the point of "emo" becoming kind of a derogatory term for anything whiny/mopey (which is probably why My Chemical Romance did not appreciate being perceived as the face of emo). Sometime within the tail end of the 2010s, especially by the time MCR announced their reunion, the backlash against emo had apparently cooled off enough for emo to be associated primarily with Emo Music and emo subculture again. Hopefully this means a trope about emo kids won't be as much of a complaining magnet as it apparently was in the past.

Yeah, I suspect at the time the trope was meant to be more of a potshot towards these teen characters, any teen who complained a lot got the label even if they weren't in the subculture.

I'm coming around to the idea of "Teens Are Angsty", for what it's worth. I think the index-ification of the main Emo Teen page + splitting the examples between Emo (for the actual scene kids) and Teens Are Angsty (for the ones that are just whiny) seems like the best option.

Teens Are Angsty sounds like an excellent idea. As in, I'm astounded that we don't have that one already.

What does "index-ification" mean for Emo Teen?

Turn it into an index, I assume

But with what tropes? There aren't enough even by the description.

Here's my list of suggestions...

• The Aloner
• Broken Bird
• Bully Magnet
• Dark and Troubled Past
• Delinquents
• Emo (about the actual subculture)
• Former Teen Rebel
• Goth (also about the subculture)
• Goths Have It Hard
• Perpetual Frowner
• Self-Harm
• Teen Drama
• Teen Horror
• Teen Rebellion
• Teens Are Angsty (if this gets yarded)
• Teens Are Monsters
• There Are No Therapists
• Tragic Dropout (maybe?)
• Troubled, but Cute
• Troubled Teen
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid
• Wangst
• Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb

Possibly mention it's related to This Index Has Had a Hard Life and Abuse Tropes?

I saw that this has been inactive for a while (and the last post before this one was made not long before I got sick, hence my own lack of activity, though I got better recently), but that turning this into an index was suggested (which could possibly also be accompanied by a rename). Do we have any other options?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 23rd 2024 at 9:58:11 AM

We could disambiguate between the tropes suggested by Miss Conduct.

I think the list is long enough for it to be an index instead of a disambiguation page. Previously, a decision to disambiguate Adult Fear was revised to turning that page into an index after it got long.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 23rd 2024 at 12:12:45 PM

I think we can narrow it down to:

• Emo

• Goth

• Goths Have It Hard

• Teens Are Angsty (if it gets made)

• Troubled Teen

It’s not an index; we only need to account for what the trope is currently used as.

Edited by jandn2014 on Apr 23rd 2024 at 2:15:50 PM

Right. Adding everything under the sun isn't necessary

Disambiguating between existing indexes that way instead of making a separate index sounds fine.