Were you an emo/goth/geek/mean girl at school?

[MadMAGA]

14yo DD is into Billy Eilish and other miserable music, but was mystified when I described her as an emo. She knows what goths and means girls are though. I was trying to remember which tribe I was in as a teenager. Probably a bit geeky.

What was your tribe?

I was a goth/metaller. Dd left school 2 years ago - groups there were largely geeks, emos or basics.

1980s. Metalhead.

I didn't define myself in this way and neither did my friends - we were all multifaceted. I was into high fashion - not that I could afford it! I loved buying perfume and designer make-up and the high st copies of what I saw in Vogue and Marie Claire. I also loved Brit Pop and Indie music, horror films and literature. Thought I'd be writing modern classics by the time I was 21 (spoiler: I wasn't and I'm still not). I don't thonk I fit a particular stereotype or category.

Ummm so a geek then? 🤓

said kindly and as a fellow geek ish try-hard

Oh! We called that crusty.

In East Yorkshire we called em grebs, that was me

I was a skater girl.... i channelled Avril Lavigne

Crusties and grebos weren't a two circle or one circle venn diagram. They were distinct in many ways. Music and clothes. The music was really specific!

Not where I grew up! Have never heard of greebos.

How would you describe crusties?

Cool-geek! Loved lessons, extra curricular stuff, and getting good grades, but went wild at weekends, out dancing and snogging boys.

Crusties were more traveller adjacent. Hippies more. Grebos were still grubby but into very specific Midlands music. Fewer ethics LOL.

Same. I was an inbetweener really ☺️

I'm old.... New Romantic with swotty-geeky tendencies (we were at a highly academic private school so everyone was like that).

I miss my German army coat.

Goth/greb (90s and early 2000s). I sort of morphed from indie kid/hippie in my early teens to metaller/goth by late teens, and more goth hippie at uni.

For us the crusties were the drunks/travellers who hung out in town.

I've recently bought myself an oversized green jacket, more like heavy shirt material, and every time I put it on it feels like I'm 16 wearing my German army shirt 😁 It feels very right!

Early 2000s emo here - but I wouldn’t say Billie Eilish was emo!

Not really. I minded my own buisness. I have never been a geek.

A sporty geek, on the periphery of various groups

Greebo/goth

I was in with the 'cool crowd' for a few years and hated every second. When I went into 5th year (Scotland) I distanced myself. Had no friends for a bit. Then met my best friend. Hated being 'cool'. They were all utter pricks. I just didn't have the confidence to not go along at the time.

Emo/greebo/grunge here too! My dd is heading down the same path. What really fucking winds me up that the girls who would have called us ‘dirty greebos’ at school are now wearing Nirvana tees!

I didn't identify with any label at school. I liked prog rock, some heavy metal and quite a lot of chart music. I used to take my transistor radio to school to listen to the new chart countdown on Tuesday lunchtimes.

I used to go and see a lot of bands.

Guess which period I am talking about?

Also I was smart and that wasn't cool. I can remember deliberately doing worse in exams. So glad it's not like that now.

Grunge!