Reflections: My Early Teenage Years.

This post is a reflection on a chunk of my teenage years. More specifically the ages of 12 to 15, also referred to as my 'Emo Years'. What prompted this post was a friend of mine tagging me in a link to a Buzz Feed article titled '26 Things Only Former Emo Kids Will Understand' and the shocking number of things on that list that applied to my Emo Years. So I thought I'd go through some of the ones that applied to me and laugh at my former self. Who knows, maybe some of you will be able to relate!

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5. Wednesday was the most important day of the week because that's when Kerrang! Magazine came out.
This is very true. When I was younger every Wednesday without fail I would get Kerrang! Magazine. Then my parents made it even easier by getting my a subscription to the magazine. After that subscriptions ran out a year later I ended up never picking up a Kerrang! Magazine again. Not that I ended up with something against the magazine; I just got bored of it and towards the end of the subscription I only ever looked at the pages with all the tour dates on.

6. You used the pictures from Kerrang! Magazine to decorate your room.
Again this is incredibly true of my teenage years, and is still ever so slightly true now. Once I had read my Kerrang! Magazine I used to rip out the posters and cut the rest of it to shreds. All the images I'd taken from the magazine would then end up blue-tacked to the walls of my tiny bedroom.

I have since switched rooms with one of my sisters. The room is a lot big and my collection of old Kerrang! cut-outs is a lot smaller. So now only my chimney breast is completely covered in a Kerrang! cut-out, gig ticket and random photos collage. That being said, since I've going away to uni some of the pictures have started to fall off and I have yet to put them back up.

9. You fancied Sonny Moore way before he was Skrillex.
There is no point denying it, back in his From First To Last days I had a decent sized crush on Sonny Moore -not so much anymore. The same can't really be said for his Skrillex days though.

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11. You remember when The Daily Mail ran a campaign against emos.
I remember this very well. I'm not sure if it was just the one article or if there were a few more; but my aunt actually cut out the first Daily Mail 'article' that fuelled this anti-emo campaign of theirs and gave it to me. I might actually still have it somewhere...

12. And you cheered on as the emo community fought back.
I'm not going to lie, when I found out about Gerard Way encouraging My Chemical Romance's huge Reading Festival audience to chant "Fuck the Daily Mail"  when he found out about it, I was a very happy and very proud emo. And I'm still pretty happy that the 'emo community' fought back.

14. You perfected the MySpace pose years before the word 'selfie' was a thing.
The 'selfie' was born in 2013; my -now embarrassing- MySpace poses were born in 2007. I had the selfie down to a T before it was even called a selfie. To some of you that may sound like I'm proud of my MySpace pictures, and that is because sarcasm doesn't translate well in text. The majority, if not all, of my MySpace pictures are horrifically embarrassing.

The perfect MySpace pose formula: hold the camera at any awkward angle, look away from the camera, pull a face instead of smiling and always have your non-camera holding hand -a.k.a. the awkward hand- in shot.
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17. Your Converse were everything to you.
I think all your Converse meant everything to you as a teenager, whether you were an emo or not. All my friends and people in my class loved their Converse, and only 30% of them at the very most could ever be labelled as 'emo'.

21. Your outfit was not complete without a studded belt.
I own three studded belts that I no longer wear. The famous three rows of silver studs, pink and white studs, and multicoloured studs. I don't think I need say any more.

23. Local band nights were the only place to be seen.
I became friends with a lot of people in local bands. As a result of being friends or friendly acquaintances with a multitude of band members, and wanting to support them in their pursuit of musical success, I went to a lot of local band's gigs. I knew so many that in my sixth form years I was able to throw a fund raising gig for the Teenage Cancer Trust, and finding the bands was the easiest part.

So there is a little insight into my early teenage years, which can also be referred to as my most embarrassing years so far. I hope you enjoyed finding out a little bit more about me; and hopefully some of you can relate because if it's only me that can put my hand up and say, "Loads of these things apply to me," then I'm either being too honest, or I had the misfortune of being more emo than average for three years.
-Hannah. :)