"Are MCR dangerous? They wear black, their music is dark. Worried parents and overjealous journalists see in My Chemical Romance a danger. They reproach the band with advising their fans to commit suicide on their new CD "The Black Parade". But the singer Gerard Way gets the reproach straight: "People, who claim this, haven't got anything. We want that people decide to live."
You need to open your eyes. There have been kids and adults for a long time that cut and now it's being attached to the term "Emo". This is a sad world, there's war, violence, drugs and so many other other bad things, and still media thinks kids cut because of "emo" music. You really need to open your eyes. It's something deeper - Kids have problems at home, they're being bullied at school, their parent's don't have faith in them - THAT is what's depressing them.
Stereotyping My Chemical Romance as a band that promotes self-harm/suicide, is incredibly offensive to us and them. It's lazy on the part of adults and critics who, instead of admitting that maybe they haven't been there for their kids, choose a scapegoat instead. Kids don't self-harm because some band tells them to, they don't self-harm because they are emo and think that's the right thing to do. We might be younger than you, but we sure as hell ain't stupid and so blind that we couldn't see if someone would try to make us commit suicide. That's something parents, adults and the wider world need to know and respect.
It's not the bands that make kids suicidal, it's the depressed kids that lean on music and find only comfort in their life in it. Depressed kids don't want to listen to Britney Spears (nothing against her), they want to listen to something that they can relate to. Sometimes music is the only thing that kids can trust to in this world. Music makes life meaningful for others, it makes kids feel like they have a purpose and like they have a reason to live. And they do. Every one of us has every right to be in this world. We have the right to stand up for the things that mean a lot to us. We have the right to stand up for our rights. We have the right to dye our hair black without hearing from others that we're emo. We have the right to listen to My Chemical Romance without everyone thinking we slit our wrists. We have the right to let a band effect our lives without other people considering it a cliché. These are our rights. Rights that every people should have without having to fight for them.
This project is us standing up for the fact that we're okay. We don't want to fight, this project is just our side of the story, that we leave out for interpretation.
Kids are being labeled as "emos" by media and that is what's depressing them. Emo wasn't anything big until media really started to fight against it.
Instead of fighting against emo and the bands you think are related to it, how about having a little faith with the new generation? "Emo" is something media has ruined, and it's the media that's killing the new generation. It's adults that control the media now, but there will be a time when you aren't here anymore, there is only the generation that are now labeled as "emos". Have faith in those kids, because right now the bands that you try to destroy, are the only thing that do have faith that generation.
My Chemical Romance has always cared for their fans and wanted to change the world - make it a better place. They are against violence, against self-mutilation, against suicide, against cutting, against homophoby, against war, against all these things that the growing generation is afraid of. And media is trying to label My Chemical Romance as a band that is a big harm to everyone. We might not be want you want us to be, but that's okay. We are what we want to be. We are ourselves. Even though our teachers, friends and family don't always have faith in us, My Chemical Romance has, they stick by our side. They teach us, they make us stronger, they fill us with hope. We won't let the media take that bond away from us.
IT'S A FRIENDSHIP. THEY STAND UP FOR US AND WE STAND UP FOR THEM. AND MOST OF ALL - THEY'VE TAUGHT US TO STAND UP FOR OURSELVES. SO STAND UP FUCKING TALL, SUPPORT US AND FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT.
The more media says My Chemical Romance is bad, the more we prove media wrong.
"I'm sure you all have seen in the tabloids calling us some emo death cult. But I'm sure you know that we have never encouraged you to be anything than yourselves, and to never take any one else's shit!"
- Gerard Way
"If you've been a fan of the band for a long time, you know we've always talked about suicide, depression, things of that nature. And we've always told you that if things feel so desperate, and you're so hurt you're so depressed, you find some person that you trust to talk to. That's something we've always said. But what we're going to say to you today is, that if you find yourself depressed, hurt, like an outcast, like the only kind of place you could ever fit in is in a show like this, that's not the case. 'Cause even though we're all outcasts in our own way we all belong to this world an we all fit in to this world. Do you understand me? We all have something to say, but you never ever say it with violence."
-Gerard Way