Emo Nite

Since they threw their first party at an East L.A. dive bar, Morgan Freed and T.J. Petracca, and a dedicated crew of regular attendees, built Emo Nite into a phenomenon. Top-tier emo artists, old and new, curate playlists and perform, with guest lists boasting members of blink-182, All Time Low, Dashboard Confessional, The Maine, and Good Charlotte. Scene-friendly pop culture mavericks often participate, like past attendees Post Malone, Demi Lovato, Machine Gun Kelly, and Skrillex.

It’s all too easy to forget that before the first Emo Nite in December 2014, “emo” was a joke.

Somehow on its journey from a melodic post-hardcore subgenre, built on earnest emotional expression, to a mainstream moniker assigned to anything remotely angsty, “emo” became a dirty word. Despite the positive impact ushered in by waves of bands, from the crucial “Revolution Summer” and Sunny Day Real Estate through Taking Back Sunday and My Chemical Romance, accepting “emo” as a dismissive designation or identity invited polite embarrassment and even scorn.

But Freed and Petracca grew up loving the music associated with emo and the people like them who similarly embraced outsider art and subculture, regardless of changing fashions or pretentious snobbery. Petracca told The New Yorker the idea behind the first Emo Nite celebration was to center a happy, communal experience on the music they once listened to when they were upset and alone.

As emo reenters popular culture with a blend of adoring nostalgia and optimistic forward- thinking, Emo Nite remains an authentic space to celebrate diversity, experience passionate catharsis, and champion authentic expression. Emo Nite isn’t a band or a DJ crew. It’s an idea, one as simple as the urge to throw a party for a beloved style of music. Often imitated but never truly duplicated, Emo Nite’s founders and supporters are fond of saying, “If you don’t see the grave, it ain’t our rave.”

The co-founders continue to look ahead. “Emo Nite definitely impacted culture,” Freed notes. “But we have no plans to stop changing the way we view the evolution and expansion of the genre.”