If I think really hard, I remember when I cared about the differences between The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most and Swiss Army Romance

I'm emo, even if I'm not exactly sure what that means anymore. Whether it's music, fashion, or an emotional state, to me, the DC area emo scene circa the turn of the century encapsulates everything emo and, at it's peak, its nucleus was the auditorium at St. Andrew's Church in College Park, Maryland.

St. Andrew's was strictly and rapturously DIY: Cash only, no advance ticket sales, a totally unadorned stage, nothing on sale but merch, and loads of local bands opening for national acts (i.e., bands on Vagrant, Drive-Thru, or Fueled By Ramen). I saw at least a dozen huge emo bands in St. Andrew's viscerally intimate atmosphere. Crashing my car in the rain on the way to see Alkaline Trio and was one of the worst moments of my young life.

The greatest show I've ever been to, though, also anticipated emo's demise. Instead of just one huge emo band, several of them performed that night with a few local favorites. St. Andrew's was filled well over capacity with wildly vibrant expectations. The region's emo kids descended on College Park clad in their finest. One bespectacled girl who wore a striped sweater while lying under a tree, a leather bound book held to her chest, stared into the sky while the line progressed behind her into the church. It was probably the most emo thing I have ever seen.

Yet, that night signaled emo's conversion into a mass culture stereotype, personified by Chris Carraba. The crowd, accustomed to a full band's distorted grind, was skeptical of Carraba, then the only member Dashboard Confessional, and his completely acoustic set. However, he quickly caught on. About a year later, Dashboard's soft tones would blow up in the mainstream. Record execs eviscerated the emo-purity of Dashboard's solitary acoustic guitar and added a backing band, making the songs somehow much less emo. When drums were added to "Screaming Infidelities," the emo scene became unhinged as though Dylan had gone electric. This perceived betrayal created the emo caricature that garnered a spread in every supermarket magazine, killing the scene. It wasn't ours any longer, it's been sold and securitized to Universal Music Group though a distribution deal with Vagrant Records and that girl in your english class who wore a Get Up Kids shirt even though she'd never shed a single drop of sweat at a show.

When the Green Album came out, my emo fandom dwindled further. Every song on Pinkerton begat another emo sub-genre; it was emo's VU & Nico. Even better, Weezer had been mostly defunct since 1997 and unable to fuck up their legacy. The Green Album, and subsequent recordings, however, did precisely that and called into doubt whether Weezer, and therefore all of emo, had been fundamentally flawed from the beginning. Sickened by mall-emo, underground kids went back to the well of hardcore for authenticity and came back with screamo. Other more tender souls were captivated by Conor Oberst. Screamo eventually drifted back into punk while other emo kids merged into indie genericism. By that point my interest deviated to totally non-emo things like Dischord shows at Fort Reno and Wes Anderson films at Cinema Arts. (Let me explicitly note the sarcasm here.) Eventually, some jackass set off a firecracker in the middle of a crowd at a St. Andrew's show, quite literally blowing things up and making sure that nobody ever had a show there ever again.

Yet, my emo side will never die. While I don't still wear Dickies and I've never worn Chucks or a spiked belt (all emo standard issue), I still dress sort of emo, love girls with dark hair, bangs, and eye shadow, and wish I cared enough about an existing band to crush myself against hundred of other sweaty people and scream the lyrics all night. The basic environment of St. Andrew's affected me more than any other venue because of the community. We were owned something special and unique. It was ours. It wasn't just about musicianship, it was contributing to something true and DIY with people who understood. Emo's totally dead in all but its remnant form, but my memories remain.