FAKE FAMOUS: "How to be Emo"

Everything you wanted to know about being emo. Not to be confused with Sesame Street's Elmo. Elmo is actually cool.

You all know how I like to make fun of emo. Mostly because it's easy and because, to me, all music is emotional. No musical "genre" should get to lay claim to what is essentially the basis of all musical form — to create emotion, to symbolize emotion, to celebrate emotion, to work out emotions. Beethoven made some emotional pieces. Stop coping his style.

That said, a fellow named Christian Bretz along with his buddy Brennan Reed created this funny, 21 minute filmstrip on "How to be emo" in the same vein as those educational films made in the 40s and 50s shown in schools across America. (My hometown of St. Louis actually is home to the largest archive of these archic, government sponsored films that covered everything from drugs to personal hygine to science.)

This little movie should clear up some of those questions for you who may have wondered "What is emo?" And it might also entertain those, like myself, who think it's a bunch of bumpkiss.

Roll film!