Musikaddikt- I think everyone responds to self harm in different ways. If I had a friend who talked about self harming all the time then I think it woud become more socially acceptable to me.

Mike- You made some very innteresting points in your coomment, especially about the spread of piercings and tatoos. But dont you think that the spread of tatoos is from fashion styles and not glorification of harm

Bob- I wrote this piece a very long time ago but what I was trying to understand was the media hype surrounding so called “emos” and their close link with self harm. In no way do I think self harmers are “emos”, for example I self harm and would not place myself in that steriotype group. If I had to place myself into anygroup, I would describe myself as indie, but that is beside the point.

its not all about looks and music.
its an inner battle and terrible habit.

The feeling of release and freedom of such behaviors is strong and intimately linked to physiological mechanisms which are poorly understood.

when I started SH, I didn’t know of anyone who did it, but now everyone does and they’re not afraid to show their scars. i think i will always be ashamed of mine.

take care.

Suzy x

Audacious- I did pick the bits which stood out the most, so I suppose they are likely to be the most sensationalist. I suppose the media has to pick storys that will sell so if they can blame emo on teen suicide to sell papers then they will do it.

Cb- the daily mail is crap, I like to stick to a diet of broadsheets. Ocasionaly read the like of the mail but only if there is a copy hanging around, would never give them money. The whole thing about the “nazi” orgy shows how the papers can fabricate parts of news articles to make a good headline.

Zarathustra- the manics are good, but I saw them play last year and they were lacking at best, crap at worst. Just old men, was rather sad really. I think it is very easy for us to mock groups like emos because they stand out so much.

The main points raised from this post have been carried over to my new post called “Blame it on the emo-goth”

A few years before that, it would have been the Smiths fans, and before that, it was punk. These things are a regular cycle that comes around in different manifestations.

As a self injurer myself, I guess I just find it really hard to believe there are people out there who are “exchanging competitive messages on their teenage websites about the scars on their wrists and how best to display them.”… Even the whole “going around pretending to be all sad & suicidal”… I just don’t see it.. or I just don’t get it. I believe it really is all just hype & sensationalism from the media (& my god, it IS the Daily Mail!), very much the same as they are about “Goths” – or you know what, scrub that – very much the same as the media is about everything.