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The mid-to-late-2000s youth subculture built around emo and pop-punk bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and Dashboard Confessional. The look: long side-swept bangs over one eye, black skinny jeans, band tees, studded belts, thick eyeliner, Converse, and dyed or straightened hair. It lived on MySpace through dramatic high-angle selfies and Top 8 drama, shaping a generation's teenage aesthetic.
Pete Wentz's swoopy black fringe, Patrick Stump's soaring voice, and song titles that ran on forever. "Sugar, We're Goin Down" ruled TRL and Warped Tour, making Fall Out Boy the pop-punk face of the MySpace era.
The black-walled store at the end of the mall where the music was too loud and the T-shirts had bands your parents had never heard of. Studded belts, band merch, hair dye, and a smell of incense you could identify from thirty feet away. For a certain kind of teenager, walking in felt like finding your people.
![Video thumbnail — Panic! At The Disco: I Write Sins Not Tragedies [OFFICIAL VIDEO]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vc6vs-l5dkc/hqdefault.jpg)
The song that was everywhere in 2006, with the earworm chorus radio had to censor. Brendon Urie in a ringmaster's top hat, a circus crashing a wedding, and enough theatrical energy to define an era of emo-pop — every kid noticed what the stations cut out and learned the uncensored lyrics anyway.
Zim is an alien invader from the Irken empire sent to conquer Earth, except he's terrible at it — and his malfunctioning robot servant GIR, disguised as a green dog, is somehow worse. Jhonen Vasquez's creation was Nickelodeon's darkest, weirdest cartoon, and the network killed it fast. The kids who found it never let go.
![Video thumbnail — My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade [Official Music Video] [HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RRKJiM9Njr8/maxresdefault.jpg)
The eyeliner-and-marching-band emo icons behind The Black Parade. Formed in New Jersey after 9/11, MCR gave every mid-2000s teenager an anthem — "Welcome to the Black Parade," "Helena," "I'm Not Okay" — and a look.
A black leather-ish belt carrying rows of chrome pyramid studs — one, two, or three if you meant it — worn loose and rattling whether it threaded the belt loops at all. It was the cheapest possible ticket into the 2000s emo and pop-punk uniform, sold from the Hot Topic checkout rack to every kid assembling a personality in an afternoon.
Stillwater, Oklahoma's hook machine. Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler wrote the songs wedged in every 2000s head — 'Swing, Swing,' 'Dirty Little Secret,' 'Move Along,' 'It Ends Tonight' — and then closed the decade with the most cheerful-sounding kiss-off ever recorded, 'Gives You Hell.'
An affirmation dressed as a rock anthem — "don't write yourself off yet" — from a band that had just been dropped by its label and instead stumbled into its biggest moment. It climbed all the way to #5 on the Hot 100 and soundtracked every awkward kid's 2002.
The traveling punk-rock summer camp of the parking lot: one cheap ticket for a full day of bands, a sunburn, and a merch tent where your favorite unsigned act was selling their own shirts. For a generation of pop-punk and emo kids, Warped Tour was the pilgrimage that made the scene feel like a nation.