Emo Nite is a music event started by three friends from Los Angeles: Morgan Freed, Babs Szabo and T.J. Petracca. This concert now tours the U.S., and it’s making its way to The Masquerade on Nov. 15. Some of the biggest names in music, including Skrillex, Post Malone, From First to Last, Good Charlotte, Machine Gun Kelly, The All-American Rejects, All Time Low, Young Thug and more have been a part of the Emo Nite Family.
The emo subculture is a lifestyle based on emocore, or emotional hardcore punk rock music. Emo youth may identify with the expressive and confessional lyrics of this genre. In the early 2000s, countless emo and scene kids from all over the world joined together by hunting out new bands to cry to. At an age when so many were wrestling with identity, the emo subculture was there, and so were millions of virtual friends doing exactly the same thing.
Makeup was worn by both girls and boys after Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy sported his thick, black eyeliner. Everyone wore girls’ skinny jeans, nail polish, hair dye and tight band tees, which is what most people wear to Emo Nite.
People join together, dress up like they did when they were teenagers and listen to a DJ play early 2000s alternative rock, emo, pop punk, post-hardcore, punk rock and hard rock music. Over the past few years, Emo Nite has evolved from just a music event to a strong and inclusive community. Friends and strangers come together to dance and cry to their favorite Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday songs.
Emo Nite has become such a phenomenon because of the power of nostalgia, the feeling of being 15, angry and wanting the world to know. Now that the event is coming to Atlanta, anyone can go and enjoy the event.
Emo doesn’t just mean the studded belts, cut-my-wrists lyrics but also strong memories of a distinct lifestyle, which is what attracts many to Emo Nite.
“I would go to Emo Nite because a lot of my childhood memories have to do with music from this time period, so I can’t even imagine how fun it would be to relive it again with my friends who experienced it with me,” Jenna Young, a Georgia State student, said.
The creators of Emo Nite have taken this subculture and turned it into the rave-like simulation of a real concert and created a sad, but also happy, ecosystem, successful impudent merchandise, Snapchat filters, a live stream on Twitch and celebrity guests from the punk-rock bands they play at the party.
Emo Nite allows attendees to reminisce on times they considered “hard” during their teen years. These were the bands that people listened to when they were sad and angry, and now they can go to Emo Nite and find happiness when they hear these songs.
This party helps bring together a whole subculture in honor of emo music, a genre not as popular today. The death of the emo subculture in the later 2000s is credited to bands being swallowed by the mainstream. But to many, emo never died. It lived with them past their adolescence, and that is why Emo Nite has been such a success.
