The Real Ones Will Be Eternal: Rolê Emo and Alternative Families in São Paulo

Abstract

In the mid-2000s, among young emos in the city of São Paulo, alternative families emerged, networks of friends that gain notoriety in the alternative scene, giving their members prestige and emotional and material support. Thinking of friendship as a form of interaction, this paper seeks to reflect on kinship, sexuality, and friendships from the testimonials of members of these networks, focusing on alternative families as families of choice, possibilities of inclusion in the imminence of non-alliance. Based on the memoirs of members of the emo scene and my own, as well as other varied sources, and dialoguing with the proposal of an ex post facto ethnography, I discuss emo as a set of individual and collective experiences of the transformation of rock.