Now, I was never a committed emo kid back in the good old days. I was a little bit too young to fully adopt the lifestyle, plus my mom would have never let it fly. I was more in the music appreciator sphere. I was very much into all the quintessential bands, My Chemical Romance specifically. While that might sound a little trite, it is, I was and still continue to be a super fan.

So what did it mean to be emo back in the mid-aughts? Did you have to adopt the aesthetic? Did you have to attend Warped Tour despite your parent’s pushback? Did you have to live and breathe by the philosophy of being emo? Surely, there are some purists out there, but I’d say enjoying the music is enough to make you at least a junior emo. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. Gatekeeping is useless, just let people enjoy what they want to!

So whether you were the embodiment of the emo phase, a casual fan, or somebody just nostalgic for that era, here are some emo memes to make you feel entertained!