One Year After Mexico’s Anti-Emo Riots…

Last year, Mexico City was the scene of an all-out subculture battle that shook the country to its very soul.

Or so the media made it seem.

And so the media made it. Period.

The very reason I was upset by the illogical and false comments by a “journalist” from the Louisville Parent Examiner was because of the influential hold that the media – all types of media at that – have an influence over those who read it. The press are supposed to be the watchdogs of the public in a democracy, with the media informing society about their world around them. But what happens when the details are fabricated, when lies are thrown in? What happens then?

Last year, it was the “anti-emo riots” in Mexico City. What began as some Internet-fueled complaints about emo from those clearly not involved in the scene, local popular MTV Telehit host Kristoff launched some complaints against emo. Next thing you know, there are some scuffles between punks and metalheads against emos in Glorieta Insurgentes Plaza and the media take up the story and make it a headline issue. And then more outbursts involved in these youth subcultures.

Today, as Mexico’s News reports, once the media attention died down, so too did these occurrences. Here’s more:

 

“Fernando Aguilar, a professor of youth politics at the UNAM, said that urban groups largely coexist peacefully, and that their members have been unfairly marked as dangerous and aggressive as a result of a few isolated incidents.

‘The media create a supposed rivalry between these groups, a rivalry that doesn’t exist,’ he said.”

 

And there it is. In print (or online). A message infiltrated into the media, for the media. And there’s more:

 

“Benjamín Flores Esquivel, an 18-year-old dark [Note: “dark” is slang in Mexican culture for metalhead], skates off a curb with a few of his friends, some emo, some ‘raztecas’ reggae fanatics.

‘The fighting between groups is stupid, and it happens in a moment of craziness,’ he said, fiddling with his pentagram necklace. ‘For me, it’s easy to exist with people from other groups.’

Vividiana Aguiar Cinta, also 18, agreed. 

‘Not all punks harass emos. They’re friends,’ she said while passing through the plaza. 

‘Fighting comes from intolerant people.'”

 

‘Nuff said.

 

YouTube clip of Kristoff’s show on emo that apparently (according to a poorly-made translation of the post, by the individual who posted the clip) “started” the riots nearly one year ago: