The Emo Phase
Back at the beginning of the 2000s, the world looked as if it was dipped in black paint. Everywhere you looked, you’d see emo kids wearing their hair black and spiky, clad in black and listening to My Chemical Romance and other emo classics. MySpace was filled with selfies showing those awkward angles and teens brooding in front of the camera. What happened to those teens?
Some grew up and ditched the somber black, never to listen that music, while others still remain emo at heart.
Expect to see them without all those piercings and dyed hair. Reddit user cheezeblock777 asksed: “Emos of the early 2000s, what are you guys doing now?” You’ll notice quite a few incredible transformations! Let’s check them out in the following photos.
This man was 15 when he moved to a different school and tried to be different. Being a ginger, he dyed his hair black and wore burning pentagram t-shirts.
He’s now 26 years old and has a master in geography: “I’m also married, have bought a fairly big house, a sailboat, a car and a cat.” That’s quite a transformation!
From a scowling teen to a happy dad, this man has recently got married and is now a dad!
He said he just moved in a new house and is now studying to become a laboratory technologist. Someone’s really happy!
Going through the very heavy and bright purple dreads to a more toned down style, this woman is no longer fighting to clearly see through her fringe and looks pretty happy!
Gone are the purple days…
This man shared his 10 year difference photos. The one on the left is with him working for Applebee’s, who just loved the emo look.
The one on the right is with him as an events coordinator at a golf course. That’s one cheerful man!
Back when he took the photo on the left, this guy used a heavy DSLR camera that he balanced on a hand while struggling to be all thoughtful and sad.
On the right, you see he’s happy on a trip with his fiancé, and not emo anymore, as he said in the Reddit thread.
The kid on the left was in the ninth grade and rocked a classic emo look, wearing pink and black, chains and baggy pants accessorized with wristbands and pink locks.
Now she’s a special education teacher for high school freshmen, teaching them “how not to do the things I did.”
This man revealed he was “pretty damn weird in high school,” revealing the photo on the left, showing us his current look and a bit of a story. After graduating from high school, he joined the army infantry because he was a bit confused about the future.
He went to Afghanistan and served for 6 years in the army. Now he works at home depot and looks pretty happy, although he said he still is “trying to figure out what to do now.”
This awesome woman is now a Heavy Metal blogger. While she is no longer an emo, she did claim to be a struggling writer.
Guess what? “Now I listen to Led Zeppelin and I am a struggling writer.” She did make her dreams come true!
Seeing former emos look so different and taking a regular job is so surprising since they had very different perspective about life.
This man became a firefighter and said that if he’d have a chance to go back in time and talk to himself, “and said you would cut your hair and become part of the fire department, I would’ve never believed myself.”
You don’t think of a cop as being that awkward kid who was an emo back in his teen years. Well, this is exactly what this guy did, yes the emo that gave off the anti-authority vibe.
He said “I became the police. I also now send couple Christmas cards.” Oh no! The joyfulness! The horror!
It took a while for this emo to turn back his life around.
He admitted it was definitely a phase and going to a videogame school was what helped him improve his look and lifestyle. He said he “learned to code, and now am working at an awesome startup.”
The time of selfies sort of started with the emos who looked at the camera as if they were surprised and annoyed they were being photographed. This woman gradually learned to smile at the camera and actually customizing her myspace profile led her to learn coding.
She is now a full time web developer! She also let us in on a little secret: she’s “slightly emo on the weekends”!
This guy was rocking the emo look with that hair and the half-raised hood. Add the brooding look and you have the perfect emo teen.
Now he’s 100% a different person! He’s in the US military, but he said he still listens to his “high school screamo every once in a while.”
This young teen slowly transformed from an awkward teen to a scientist! She is also married and has a 4 year old son! That’s just incredible!
“Currently finishing up an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and molecular biology and applying to biological engineering and cancer biology PhD programs for graduate school. Just finished an internship at Johnson Space Center for NASA as a spaceflight microbiologist.”
This emo was rocking the side bangs back in her emo phase when she was an art student.
Now she is a care assistant and looks pretty cheerful compared to the dour faced kid on the left. Gone are the scowls!
“I'm a proper grown up now, working as a trainer for the bank, buying my first property, paying the mortgage,” wrote this gorgeous young woman whose hair looks a lot better than when she was struggling to puff it up and be a scene kid.
She looked a bit like Sonic…
This cute girl on the right looks back at her teen self from 10 years ago and says:
“If you'd have told 15 year old me that this would be my life 10 years later I would have laughed. I […] never wanted to get married. Haha.”
Although this young MP from the US Air Force has come a long way since he was an awkward emo teen, he still has a guilty pleasure he revels in during his gym sessions:
“I still keep BMTH, TDWP, Attack! Attack!, Escape the Fate, Job for a Cowboy, etc. on my gym playlist though.”
This teen had never thought he’d become such a well behaved grown man:
“Well, I am a normal, fat 28 year old that started his family early. I own my own home, make 50,000 a year in a medical field, and I am really enjoying life.”
For this teen, life has been pretty rough and his family wasn’t quite there to help him out.
However, he bounced back on his own and has began enjoying, as he said “more top 40 music than teenage me would tolerate.”
“I'm still listening to Brand New, work as an Administrative Coordinator for a Fortune 500 company and up until now never noticed it wasn't really a phase. Sorry, Mom!”
As years pass, we realize how difficult we really were as teens and we really feel sorry for our parents who couldn’t understand what was happening to us.
While this teen was practicing a more intense gaze, he left the disdain for camera behind and just embraced happiness.
He needed a few years for that, but we all know teen years make most of us emos either we like it or not.
This grown up hates filling his taxes, and we gotta ask: who doesn’t?
“Went to college, voted Republican, drive a Camry, working 9-5 doing medical research and in a stable 2-plus-year relationship. Nothing makes me hate myself more than filing taxes. The man got me.”
This broody look was replaced by a smiling man that left behind his emo teens.
He is now a removal technician in the funeral industry.