Were you a teenager in the early noughties? Did you have a swept-over side fringe, black and white vans or those weird studded bracelets that with hindsight, looked a bit BDSM-y? Do you have pictures snapped from way too high an angle of you wearing this get-up? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you were officially an emo – and you’re now the subject of a new exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre.
The Museum of Youth Culture is collaborating with the Barbican Music Library to showcase I’m Not Okay (An Emo Retrospective), an exhibition exploring the ‘collective teenage melancholy’ of the noughties. Named after the iconic track by archetypal emos My Chemical Romance, it’ll feature a mix of posters, vinyl and rare photographs that celebrate the ‘raw, vulnerable and unapologetically different’ aesthetic.
The exhibition has been designed to feel like stepping into your teenage bedroom: think Panic At The Disco posters, plenty of band tees, badges and of course, studded belts. There’s merch from early tours by Paramore and Funeral For A Friend, and best of all, personal items submitted by 1300 members of the public, who’ve offered up everything from their cringe selfies to screenshots of their Myspace profiles and even angst-filled diary entries.
Creative Director Jamie Brett says: ‘The emo scene resonated deeply with teens who wanted to express their angst, doubts, insecurity, and sense of feeling and being different.
‘As well as the content that we unearthed digitally, we are very grateful to everyone who remembered how emo culture helped shape their lives and answered our shout-outs for visual material for the exhibition, essentially, giving them a degree of ownership of it.’
Want to relive your own emo days (albeit without the acne and teenage angst)? The free I’m Not Okay (An Emo Retrospective) exhibition is open until 15 January 2025 at the Barbican Library. You can find more information and opening times here. Now excuse us, we’re off to belt out Fall Out Boy in our bedroom. Sing it with us: ‘Sugar, we’re going down swinging…’
