The Eyeliner Wars

He’s right about that. If there’s one thing emo kids—they of the online diaries and bedroom self-portraits—know how to do, it’s self-promote. The Glorieta is a zoo—there are twice as many spectators as marchers, and almost as many photographers. Even the police snap camera-phone pics. At one point, a ponytailed radical from a nearby university climbs atop a statue and delivers a fist-pumping speech about free expression and oppressive autocratic regimes. “Keep fighting for your freedom!” he urges the emos. “¡Viva libertad!”

At six minutes to 3, a man with a megaphone rallies the troops. “Ready, boys and girls?” he asks. “Remember, try to stay spread out, so it looks like there are more of us. And don’t forget to be safe! OK? Entonces, ¡vámonos!”

With a cheer, the kids begin their hour-long crawl through the streets of Mexico City, a fizzy mass of Pixy Stix legs and flat-ironed hair. Occasionally there is chanting: “Together! United! We’ll never be defeated!” or “¡Toleráncia! ¡Toleráncia!” Halfway through, two girls break into a pep-squad cheer: “Give me an E! Give me an M! Give me an O! What’s that spell?!” On Martinez de la Torre street, a TV news crew materializes, and a girl in leopard ears ducks to hide behind her friends. “That’s the channel my mom watches!” she gasps.

Finally the procession arrives at El Chopo. Stretched above the entrance to the marketplace is a hand-painted sign: welcome to the chopo, emos. But the rest of the scene isn’t quite so hospitable—200 or so punks chanting, “Emo is shit!” in the middle of the street. Separating them from the emos is a battalion of riot police wielding shields and truncheons; it’s meant as a precaution, but it feels more like a provocation. “Assholes! Assholes!” the punks chant at the cops. Someone lobs a half-empty plastic Coke bottle over the barricade, then another, then another. Soon, there are rocks. One punk, in a bandanna and black hoodie that says, BE A PATRIOT—KILL AN EMO, rips down the welcome sign and starts stomping on it.

After about 10 minutes, the emos retreat down an empty side street. It’s not quite the reception they were hoping for; still, the march is deemed a success. “We had to make our voices heard,” says Javier, 18. “We had to show them we’re not afraid.”

For the emos, being heard is no small victory. “There are many things on the Mexican political agenda right now,” Hector Castillo says. “Crime, oil, drug cartels, election scandals, U.S. relations. Young people are not one of them.” In a country with more than 40 million young people, the emos aren’t just campaigning for tolerance—they’re standing up for teenagehood itself. 

“A month ago these kids had a fashion,” he adds. “Now they have a flag.”

A few days later Blender is back at the Glorieta, looking for a club that doesn’t exist. We’ve heard tales of a semi-secret establishment called Los Sillones (The Armchairs), where underage emos can go after school to buy beer and hang out. It even has its own MySpace page. But no one we talk to has ever heard of the place—or at least, no one’s admitting it.

Eventually a sympathetic kid named Omar leads us down the street to a skate shop. Upstairs, on the second floor, is a smoky room, maybe 60 feet long, with bare cement walls lit by the glow of blue neon. The armchairs are gone; the owners hauled them away six months ago because people kept trying to have sex on them. But Omar says the emos still come to mamazear—a slang term they use to describe no-strings makeout sessions with friends or strangers of either sex. “It’s just a place to have a drink, listen to music,” he says. “And you don’t have to worry, because it’s OK to be emo.”

Omar and his friends call themselves the Scream Senseless Crew—“because we scream and scream, but no one hears us.” They give pro-tolerance talks in the subway and recently organized a weekend street fair. What bothers them more than the abuse and harassment they get from peers are the lies perpetuated about them in the media. “The newspapers say we cut ourselves, or that we’re depressed all the time,” Omar says. “But it’s not true. Sure, sometimes we get sad, just like everyone else. But mostly we lead pretty happy lives.”

Los Sillones doesn’t close for a few hours, but Omar has to get going. Twice a week the members of Scream Senseless pick up trash around the Glorieta, and today it’s his turn. He’s also trying not to spend money: He and the Crew are saving up to print matching T-shirts, which they plan on wearing to the next tolerance march. They found a guy who’ll do it pretty cheap, and they already have a design picked out. On the front will be their initials, SSC. And on the back, their motto: Live and let live.