God Save the Scene Queens

I was falling down a YouTube rabbit hole, as one does when faced with an abundance of free time during the pandemic, and found a video in my recommended feed titled "everyday hair&makeup routine."

It was a normal enough makeup tutorial - save for the fact it was ten years old, blasts "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers instead of your typical non-copyright vlogging music, and the look she serves is, well...I'll just let you watch the video for yourself.

Embarrassingly, I could feel tears welling in my eyeballs. If you're a young millennial or elder Gen Z'er like I am, you probably remember this crazy style. Maybe you even took part in it. The flashy clothes. The bold hair accessories. The "I ♥ Boobies!" bracelets and layered hair teased to the heavens. You probably have similar clothes or jewelry buried at the bottom of your closet.

The girl in the makeup tutorial is a poster child for the scene queen aesthetic. She's got Gir and Skittles stickers above her bed, way too many beaded bracelets on her wrists, and bright pink locks with coontails. While her style is pretty cringe by today's minimalist standards, it was very trendy ten years ago. And by god is it nostalgic to look at now.

Believe it or not, scene style is not completely dead. My boyfriend and I visited a Hot Topic located in my small-town New Jersey mall, and we saw two teen girls with similar hairstyles and makeup to the young woman in the YouTube tutorial. There are still some hardcore scene kids out there, but the style is outdated for the most part.

Scene subculture came about during the mid-2000's. After the grunge movement of the 90's, emo style was all the rage. It was an aggressive, emotional, and gothic form of punk rock. However, bands associated with the emo subculture began to put out records that were lighter, fun, and fit more into pop standards as time passed. (Think Paramore, Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and All American Rejects.) Naturally, fashion began to reflect upon this brighter shift.

Scene trends took the black and white aspects of emo subculture and gave them a pop of color. It was being emo, but loud. The style was a culmination of Warped Tour, MySpace, and "Rawr!" memes combined with straightened and dyed hair, cartoon characters on graphic tees and Silly Bandz.

Scene style was actually one of the first internet-driven subcultures in fashion. Crazy to think about, considering how every fashion trend these days is propelled by social media! Goth and emo styles had existed since the 80's, but with the rise of popular websites like YouTube and Myspace, scene looks became youth-friendly. Perhaps you were the only scenester in your small Oklahoma town, but you were bound to see more scene kids like you on the internet. It made the rebellious style less lonely.

However, as quickly as scene began, it declined. By 2013, the tides had turned towards more muted color palettes Tumblr deemed acceptable. Kids grew up. The punk bands couldn't last. People moved on. Many thought scene style would last for a good ten years, but that's the thing about internet trends: they live fast and die young.

Scene Queen Staples

Say you're not afraid to try out this daring style of the past. Maybe you'd like to take a trip down memory lane and dress up like the cool scene teens you idolized while in middle school? Have no fear: here's the gear you'll need to pass for a scene queen. Try mixing and matching it with the modern pieces in your wardrobe. (And if you need help finding this stuff, just check your local thrift store or Hot Topic.)

Fitted Tops

Vibrant graphic tees, colored camisoles, band shirts, name brand shirts, tube tops and frilly tank tops all work for the scene queen look - so long as they're fitted to your body. Even corsets match the style.

Suspenders

Any kind of suspenders work, but you'll get bonus points if they've got funky patterns, gothic prints, checkerboard, or feature cartoon characters.

Vans and Converse

Whether they're beat up, have a chunky heel, or have laces that rise all the way to your knees, you're gonna need some sweet kicks to serve the scene queen look. Vans and Converse work best. If you can't find them, try finding some blank canvas shoes from your local thrift or craft store and accessorize them with acrylic or fabric paint. Remember to get some bold shoelaces, too!

Fingerless Gloves

Striped fingerless gloves work best, but any kind of fingerless gloves you can find do the trick. Whether they're leather, knitted, fishnet, or have a Halloween-esque cobweb design, they will instantly take your scene queen look up a notch.

Rubber Bracelets

Dig up those old rubber wristbands from the bottom of your drawers! These can be skinny rubber bracelets, chunky wristbands with quotes and band logos, Silly Bandz or even snap bracelets. Just make them fun!

Kandi

No, not candy..."kandi." It's the scene term for large beaded bracelets meant to take up most of your arm. You'll need about 5-10 bracelets for each wrist, and you'll have to make them yourself. You can find cool beads to use at your local craft store, or go to Beadtin and pick out unique beads to order.

Studded Stuff

Belts, bracelets, chokers, pants...whatever you can find with studs will make you a stud in the scene world. Studded looks are hard to DIY since the material is expensive, so you'll probably have to purchase studded clothing and accessories from stores.

Skinny Jeans

Skinny jeans are no longer in fashion - most modern fashionistas are beginning to discard their pairs. But if you're going to pass for scene, you need some tight pants. Look for stuff that is black, plaid, distressed, checkered, or in bright neon colors.

Tutus

You don't need to be a ballerina to wear a tutu! If you can't find these in adult sections, try looking for them in kids sections. The flashier, the better.

Buttons

Put them on your jackets! Stick 'em on your shirts! Fasten them to your backpack! You can even wear them on your pants if you want to. So long as they're colorful, they pass for scene.

Invader Zim Merch

Even if you didn't watch this Nickelodeon cartoon, a true scene queen flaunts her Invader Zim shirts and accessories with pride. Bonus points if your merch features Gir: the cute robot companion of Zim. He wears a green dog costume that's popular on graphic tees.

Crazy Eye Makeup

Scene eye makeup is all about black winged liner, dramatic smoky colors, and big eyelashes. There wasn't much to it besides the bold black liner, but the point of it was to make the eyes pop.

Finally...The Hair

Having poofy straight hair with sideswept bangs is a clear indicator of scene queen-dom. It can be either short or long, but it must not be blah. Anything but blah.

If you're serious about scene hair, ask your barber or beautician for a choppy, layered haircut. Then dye it funky colors! Tease and straighten it! Throw in some cute hair accessories, like bows, flowers, or tiaras! Some scene queens even swear by extensions for extra volume.

There are several scene queens who can explain the funky hair better than I can, so here's an informative video about how to get the scene haircut from home.

- AN IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER! -

Obviously, if you don't feel comfortable with any of the styles mentioned above, don't feel pressured to try them. In my scenecore research, I unfortunately discovered this style and similar mid-2000's styles like punk, emo, and goth tended to exclude BIPOC's due to the extra work BIPOC's would have to put in to attain them.

Before oVertone became a thing, red and pink hair dyes wouldn't take on dark colors. You would have to straighten your hair if it wasn't already straight to get the side swept bangs, and dressing "outside the norm" could put grief on friends and family because you weren't fitting in. All scene kids got made fun of back then and today, but if you identified as a BIPOC, there was an extra layer that could come with the taunting.

There's a great article on Vice written by emo queen Eternity Martis that explains this struggle better than I can.

This is not so much the case today with artists like Lil Uzi Vert and Rico Nasty challenging the emo and punk conventions through emo rap and punk rap styles. But it is important to acknowledge historically, scene, punk, emo and goth styles were very white-centric.

BIPOC's are key members of and contributors to the scene, punk, emo and goth subcultures because like the styles themselves, they understand feelings of "otherness" and rejecting the status quo. Uplift and listen to your fellow BIPOC scene queens! It's important to remember that you can still be a dazzling scene queen even if you don't flaunt the teased hair, the tight skinny jeans, or if you're not a fan of the crazy eye makeup. Scene style is what you make of it. After all, scenecore is all about being yourself and having fun!

Anyways, if you'd like more scene queen style tips, check out this recent video about how to dress scene on a budget. Besides cool clothing advice, she makes a few good points about buying sustainably, not supporting big corporations, DIY'ing accessories at home, and supporting Black-owned businesses.

Scene Today

While the kind of scene popular in the mid-2000's is long gone, there are still sprinkles of scene around in fashion today.

Perhaps the most well-known metamorphosis of scene style is the E-girl and E-boy trends prevalent on TikTok. Like scene queens, these e-queens wear heavy makeup, colored hair, graphic tees, and have an interest in things like anime, cartoons, video games, and memes.

Additionally, there are flecks of scene culture still prevalent in the music world. Artists like Lil Uzi Vert and Josh Dun of Twenty One Pilots boast things like bright dyed hair, fitted shirts, and colorful pieces reminiscent of past scenecore looks.

As everyone participating in this Vocal challenge knows, fashion is cyclical. Popular trends of the past will eventually come back in modern trends of the present. Although it's hard to believe right now, there will come a time when bold scene trends of the mid-2000's will reappear. Some predict we are actually in the "Rawring 20's," and scene trends will become fashionable again sometime in this decade.

Personally, I'm not sure when scene style will rise from the ashes. But it's really fun to reminisce on. Scenecore is such an interesting thing to observe today, considering how far it deviated from the current norm of being "picture perfect" for Instagram and TikTok.

Perhaps there's something we can all learn from it. After all, scene style wasn't exactly "aesthetically pleasing" - and it wasn't trying to be. It was just about being loud, proud, and above all, yourself. Even though scene style has its staples, it was more about having fun than trying to fit in. The more unique you looked, the cooler the scene queen you were.

Sure - maybe 70's, 80's, and 90's trends are stylish today, but can we truly claim they are "nostalgic" when not all of us lived through those periods? At least with scenecore fashion of the mid-2000's, the trends are old enough but not too old for most fashion-conscious youth to remember.

The majority of us have memories of visiting Hot Topic, listening to Fall Out Boy on our Ipod shuffles, and wearing rubber wristbands we collected in bulk. I remember the ways my scene and emo-conscious friends used to dress. Heck, even I had side swept bangs as a tween! It was a fun time to be alive.

So yes, scene culture may not be the trendiest nostalgia at the moment, but for all of us living in this 21st century...it may just be the sweetest.

Author's Note

Thanks for checking out my scene queen article! Do you think scene style should make a comeback in the Rawring 20's? If so, drop this article a like! Tips are greatly appreciated. If you'd like to read another story of mine about controversial fashion, check out Make Red Hats Wearable Again.

Have more opinions about scene fashion? Send me a DM @katyisaladybug on Insta.

Until the next story. RAWR!!! XD

-Katy