Imagine this: it’s a sunny morning and you’re using your Apple iPhone 3G to check out a new app called Instagram. You’re editing a picture of yourself wearing a colored pair of jeans and heavy eyeliner.
Now, when you imagine your hair , what do you see? Is it an emo cut with raccoon stripes? Or a mop of hair that you can’t get out of your eyes? Yeah, 2010 wasn’t our hair’s finest year…
2010 was the year of the “emo” phenomenon.”
“Emo,” which stands for “emotional,” was a phase where being “sad” and “misunderstood” was cool.
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People who followed the trend often posed with a frown in their pictures (or a “rawr”) and liked to spend time alone.
This was found to be “an actual problem in adolescents” by researchers.
One study found that being “emo” may stem from unsolved trauma. “Sometimes the desire to fit with the others makes teenagers embrace this trend,” the article wrote .
Emotional aspect aside, aesthetics was a huge part of being emo.
You had to look the part, whether that was wearing skinny jeans or studded belts.
You couldn’t see teenagers at a concert for My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy without them.
The last piece of the puzzle to being emo was the hair.
A popular style was choppy hair with bangs that covered the eyes. This even earned its own term called the “swoosh.”
Many emo kids also liked to dye their hair in different colors and combinations, such as raccoon stripes.
In case you need a reminder of what this looks like, TikTok user @chanlynklay shared a flashback!
In her viral video that’s now been viewed more than 10.2 million times, she shared photos from her sister’s 2010 yearbook.
“IM SURE YALL ARE AMAZING PEOPLE ITS OKAY IT WAS JUST A PHASE,” she captioned the vid.
The number of people with side bangs and haircuts with pointed cut ends was pretty astonishing.
Equally astonishing is how many of them were able to see! One kid even wore a tie around his neck like he was Avril Lavigne.
The comments on the vid were dripping in nostalgia.
“The way I wanted to be them when I was a kid,” one user wrote with the crying emojis. Many agreed, as their comment received over 108,000 likes.
“The side bangs has a chokehold on everyone,” another wrote.
“It’s not a phase,” another user commented.
Many users were taken back to good ole days. “That was when life was at its peak,” one wrote. “THE BEST HIGH SCHOOL YEARS. We had the internet but weren’t addicted yet,” another user commented.
TikTok user @theredbeard kept the trend going by also showing photos from their 2010 yearbook.
The video showed hairstyles ranging from deep side parts to blue hair to a purple mohawk.
But it was the third girl with black, yellow, and pink hair, and eyes drawn on her forehead that really captured people’s attention.
“The third one was pretty creative, she had this all planned out she knew it was going to go viral somewhere lmao!” a user commented.
In another viral video, a wife didn’t hesitate to embarrass her husband by showing his senior photo. This showed him with an emo-style cut that had a deep side part.
When she didn’t know what the round dot on his forehead was, one user had an idea.
“it looks like a round bandaid to hold his hair down lmao,” one joked. Makes sense.
As fun as it is to look back at the emo days, I think we can all agree on leaving these hair trends in the past, k? KAY?!
