...What the hell. What is London's problem? Do they underdtand how stupid they sound?

Well, it is the London Lite. It's not exactly a paragon of journalistic value or integrity.

...not that that makes the story any less fucked up or the scapegoating any less ridiculous. *headdesk*

Ah, well, as I'm not from London I didn't know that it's basically a tabloid.

Seriously, though. I could say some really mean things about this story, the parents, anyone involved, and the girl herself. I won't, because I do have some brain-mouth filter.

...because the "the music made them do it" argument went over so well when it was Judas Priest as the scapegoat?

*headdesk*

FROWN.

it makes me really sad that one of the bands teenagers actually hold up as helping them deal is being framed like that. yes, everyone, let's take away any and all coping mechanisms. THAT WILL HELP, SURELY.

Oh gosh. So... "I am not afraid to keep on living"... that's of no worth at all now? The stories (IF YOU DO YOUR JOURNALISTIC RESEARCH THANK YOU *seethe*) of people in the band (and by people I mostly mean the Ways, but Frank's obscurely hinted a time or two at having a darker side of his own) being close to suicide and getting HELP for it have no worth either?

What bothers me the most I think is that these are guys that are so against that. And try to do their best to actually *help* people. But there's only so much a band can do. Why don't people turn around and ask who the fuck was in this girl's own personal life that wasn't paying attention and doing their job of helping her. Like, say, her parents?

british journalists just LOVE scaremongering. idk. i'm in the most shock over the idea that people seriously have some sort of initiation to the 'emo fashion style' by cutting. does it enhance your outfit? does it prove you're sad? my mind can not .... understand that at ALL. i can't process it.

I can almost process it if I picture it being said in full-on sarcastic, eyerolling 13-year-old fashion, the kind of thing you say for shock value and because you already know the person you're talking to wouldn't listen if you told them the real reason anyway.

...but it's easier on the parents to blame it on those nasty outside influences, you know! No soul-searching required!

it if I picture it being said in full-on sarcastic, eyerolling 13-year-old fashion
That was EXACTLY what I was picturing, and I actually kind of could not believe the audacity of those parents¹ in reporting it to the media. "She -- she said she didn't love me! And that maybe purple was my favorite color but it wasn't hers and NEVER HAD BEEN."



1   although as i imagine immediately post-suicide of your 13yo daughter is not the most composed time of your life, i'll forgive them :(

Yeah, I could actually give the parents a tiny bit of a pass, but that's just shoddy, shoddy journalism all around.

...this whole thing made even more ironic by the fact that my work playlist gave me, not too long ago, "Famous Last Words" (I am not afraid to keep on living) followed by the "Skylines and Turnstiles" demo* (you're not in this alone.) GAH. I'm not actually sure if there's a less appropriate band to try and pin this on.


--
*and the change in G.Way's voice between those two tracks made me literally go WHOA. WHOA WHAT. but that is a separate issue.

I know from [rather hilarious] personal experience that the parents of young teens WILL, in fact, go "but he has on eyeliner and black clothing and uses naughty language! ... no, it doesn't MATTER that he says not to kill yourself; he says not to FUCKING kill yourself and he's very angry about it! very angry! bad influence!"

that's. wow. forest for the trees, parents! forest for the trees!

in retrospect, I was so fucking lucky with my parents, because "bad language" was using anything that might shock my elderly grandparents in front of them, and their attitude on "fashion statements" was that I was the one who was going to have to look back at the pictures and wonder what the hell I was thinking.

...which I do, frequently, omg.

Hahaha well, fortunately the worst my parents did was occasionally 'disappear' clothing they didn't find appropriate; my BFF's little sister is the one who got the "Gerard Way's anti-suicide diatribes are too full of bad words to be appropriate" speech.

yeah, my bff's folks tried something similar to keep her from listening to Nirvana and so on. I made her an awful lot of cassette dubs labelled things like "kenny g" and "amy grant." Headphones cover many sins.

So lucky. So lucky.

....... I really liked Amy Grant >_>

she was on the "acceptable" list, though, so her name showed up a lot.

Amy Grant (I liked her, too): fundie Christian pop. I'm glad I never bought any of her music.

I want to go over there and physically tie that journalist to a chair and make him watch the "Don't piss your life away on suicide!" scene from LotMS. ARGH IDIOTS!

"where emo fans believe they will go when they die."

I think we should make up Emo facts, like chuck norris facts.

"Emo fans subsist entirely on water, and the flesh of endangered animals."

"Emo fans worship a 'Dark Lord' known as Tom Riddle."

"Emo fans regularly engage in the drinking of the blood, the ravishing of the virgins and the pulling out of the heart and eating it"

This is crap. Not only is it promoting a stereotype, it's also fear mongering.

I remember when if you listened to Black Sabbath you were going to hell when you died because they promoted Satan Worship. That was crap too.

If this girl hung herself two weeks after completely changing her clothing style and music choices, perhaps you should look for whatever stimulus in her environment caused the rapid dramatic personality shift and not blame the music she listened to.

It's sad, and I feel sorry for her friends and family, but this article is irresponsible shit stirring. Taking note of the girls sudden adoption of the culture is fine. They should instead be asking what prompted the sudden fixation on the imagery presented by the bands, which granted can be viewed as fairly dark, instead of blaming the bands and culture itself.

The symptoms of a problem are not, in fact, the problem themselves.

Oh bloody HELL! Can't they just suck it up and DEAL with their own lack of involvement in the kids lives? Enough with the scapegoating efforts already.

Do these people even know what the song is ABOUT or how it relates to the rest of the concept album?

...Ironically enough, I'm actually writing a paper RIGHT NOW about Self-Harm versus Self-Expression for my Medical Ethics class. It skips around a lot, but it does touch on the emo scene, the idea of scarification as a form of tattooing, etc. Though it definitely say that MCR would encourage suicide. @_@

Jeez. I mean, my first association of music+suicide? Good Charlotte's "Hold On" song. Which is about as anti-suicide as you can get.

Oh man, I should not type stuff when sleepy/distracted.

That should be "it definitely doesn't say that MCR would encourage suicide".

...Wow, okay. I'm hesitant to point fingers, especially at parents that have just lost their child, but if your teenage daughter has been cutting herself as part of some kind of "fashion" (that's not a fucking fashion statement, see what I did there) and then after a fight she goes to her room saying she wants to kill herself?

...I wouldn't be blaming the music she listens to.

Edited at 2008-05-08 06:05 pm (UTC)

The Black Parade is a nickname for the place where Emo fans believe they will go when they die.

Lies! Anyone familiar with the emo subculture knows that it's referred to as "The Big Hot Topic in the Sky."

Sadly, you can't buy Black Parade uniforms there :(

LOL

Oy. *sighs, shaking head* Not that it would have been better had it been original, but I thought the whole "blame suicide on the music" thing had been done and discredited so many times no one believed in it anymore.

someone go to the Tipper Gore School of Journalism?

~shakes head~

While this is a tragedy as far as the little girl is concerned, the article is absolutely ridiculous.

That they're actually trying to do this? After the PMRC Senate Hearings close to 20/20odd years ago? Where the only comeback against being proven wrong right and left, having supposed quotes corrected to actual quotes, correcting what the lyrics were and what they meant was basically "Why are you attacking Senator Gore's wife?" everytime "No, Ma'am, this is the actual--" quote lyric etc was said in response to her.

It didn't stick with Sabbath or Ozzy or Judas Priest or any of the thousands of times before this sort of tripe has been tried.

MCR is a big name. They're theatrical. They have easily pulled from context lyrics that can be used to feul fires. And Frank & Gerard's stage antics make them that much more of a target for some as well I'm sure. Same old same old unfortunately.

after the fact adding PMRC was in the states, article from UK yes but that circus was post CNN in existance and just this has been done so so many times on the whole gamut of every teenage problem under the sun up to suicide.

BB, the evening standard's a rag, nobody listens to what they say. All the tabloids here hate MCR and it hasn't stopped them becoming more popular with more teens year upon year.

Hilariously, the broadsheets - real newspapers! - can't get enough of our boys. Which really tells you everything you need to know.

What complete TOOLS.

Grr.

Wow, the media teaches me so many things! Now I know that My Chemical Romance, Marilyn Manson and Judas Priest want me to kill myself and that Marilyn Manson is also to blame for every school shooting! As are first-person-shooter games and the color black. Also, Dungeons & Dragons makes you worship Satan! Or is it that Satan makes you worship Dungeons & Dragons? I always get that one confused.

A Chick Tract for every occasion.

Vampire:The Masquerade will also make you kill people, fyi. Steer clear of that one.

I always wondered why Pearl Jam's Jeremy never got blamed for shit. I always wanted that as my soundtrack if I did anything crazy at school. (I frequently had fantasies about doing things which would have me branded a threat to national security when I was at school.)

Sad. Both the tragedy that family are living right now, and the shoddy, shoddy writing that passes for much of today's journalism - bullet points crafted it seems for complete morons, I couldn't help but hear it being read slooooowly, so one understands...ffs >:(

The Evening Standard own London Lite. The ES is owned by the Daily Mail, who were once pwned on the subject of MCR when a (Guardian, if I recall correctly) reporter pointed out that the last time the DM supported people who dressed in black, they were advocating that their readers joined the fucking Black Shirts.

So basically, anything they print, isn't worth the paper it is printed on.

The music made her do it?

Wow, so that summer when I was 16? I guess that means I can stop blaming myself and point to the mainstream radio station I was listening to at the time *eyeroll*

*sigh*

Umpteenth verse, same as the first. Why can't people just be sad without filing things away under "somebody's fault" at the first available opportunity?

You know, leading edge musicians have always been blamed for the whacky/tragic behaviour of Impressionable Youth. Wasn't Mozart considered a bit wild for the younguns in his day? Elvis was apparently responsible for inflamed passions, which apparently led to Loose Morals. I recall my mother thinking that if I listened to KISS I'd be possessed by the devil. Goethe probably had a more direct effect on suicide rates in 18th century Germany with "The Sorrows of Young Werther" than MCR. Hmph.

There are so many things to object to in this stupid British article, beyond its misrepresentation of a single band and a whole music genre, not to mention to callous use of a death to push a tired reactionary line. This is such lazy journalism, and does nothing to explore the real and devastating issues of suicide. It's acknowledged in Australia that there is a high suicide rate of men in their early 40s, but no-one thinks to blame that on listening to too much Cold Chisel or Rod Stewart.

Hmph. Hmph hmph hmph.

I think I have my Indignant Pants hauled up really high today.

Hmm. I see that you're blockquoting something but all I can read is

tabloidtabloidtabloidtabloiddriveldriveldrivel.

The girl's death, though, is completely tragic and, I think, hard to get to the bottom of really. Is any suicide easy to say "this is why"?

Maybe she did believe that emo kids cut themselves and wanted to fit in. Or, maybe, as it appears to me, it was just a really convenient way of getting her parents off her case.

I think people struggle to understand things that are impossible to understand and upsetting. They find things to blame it on because they don't want to look at themselves, at society, at deeper issues. It's the music that makes kids hurt themselves and eachother. Take it away and it'll stop.

And it's really stupid, and pointless, and dumb. I remember Jessi saying it happened to silverchair back with "Suicidal Dream", that some kid committed suicide and all of a sudden that song was the reason.

As a side note:
I feel like people who, for example, cut themselves and post it on LJ or Myspace, often get written off as "emo posers" when, in my opinion, the kids who are showing off their self-injury ("doing it for attention") or joining cutting comms on LJ are just as troubled, just as valid, as those who are hiding it.

Doesn't it say something about someone if they're willing to hurt themselves for attention, as for any reason? What's going on in their lives that they don't feel loved or supported any other way? They're seeking out a community - whether that's a community of cutters who are like them, or a community of emo kids who they're desperate to fit into. But it's the same reason some people go to church, or hell, to concerts. They know they're surrounded by people like them, who think and feel some of the same things they do.

I don't know where I'm going with that. I guess because people keep saying, "oh, emo is to blame." And I guess I feel like, even if the girl honestly did start cutting herself as some kind of bizarre emo initiation rite...I feel like it has more to do with her family, her mind, her life, HER. Why is she doing this? What makes her feel better when she fits in?

I think most of this is unanswerable.
It's just really fucking sad is all.

PS: I remember Jessi saying it happened to silverchair back with "Suicidal Dream", that some kid committed suicide and all of a sudden that song was the reason. This makes me sound super-young or Jessi sound older than she is, but really she's just been an obsessed SC fan forever.

...and when we were kids, grunge was blamed for making kids commit suicide. (I was more emo as a teenager, funnily enough. :) )

It shits me nwhen subculture gets blamed: if some hyper-successful sporty kid offs themselves, it's a tragedy and a shock, if it's some emo kid, it's all the music/subculture's fault.

Way to trivialise teenagers and mental health issues. Damn, it shits me.

One look at the lyrics of 'Welcome to the Black Parade', just *one*. That's all they needed to do to refute that.

*sigh*

How thoroughly craptastic, and how horribly trivialising of a human being's death. ::growls:: Typical of British 'journalism'.

I should add: This is London is one of those shitty, give-em-away-free 'news'-papers that people read on the tube because there's nothing else to do except Talk To Strangers OMG D-: and it means they can avoid making eye contact with anyone.