Saturday, May 23, 2009

New updates

Had problems updating this blog for technical reasons. But have now loaded a bunch of updates for the last 6 months or so.

Emo Panic hits Egypt

The latest country to be worried about Emos is Egypt.

Egypt's emos, the latest hate figures

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 6 2009
  • Jack Shenker


Just to clarify, that's emo as in ludicrously tight T-shirts, dyed-black fringes, studded belts and thick horn-rimmed glasses, confessional slash-yourself music and a lingering sense of narcissistic self-hatred. In Egypt.

The exposure of the graffiti's true creators did nothing to curb the collective panic now seizing the opinion columns and chat shows of the Arab world's largest country. In fact if anything, it intensified; men with long beards and explosive belts are one thing, but teenagers who listen to My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy in their bedrooms while squeezing into skinny jeans are quite another. True, police now had these particular Banksy-wannabes under lock and key, but how many more were out there and what did they want from us?

Up to 10,000 Egyptians were members of emo-related Facebook groups, we were informed; all were adherents to a western cult which glorified homosexuality and threatened to undermine Islam. Discerning readers were offered tips for identifying emos: they were "driven by punk and emotion", wore "guyliner" and "manscarer" and were to be found "loitering in streets ... often dismal and in tears".