I saw this picture while logging in to MySpace the other day (yes, I still have a MySpace account, shut up.)

Anyway, for some reason, I couldn’t stop staring at the picture. The band, Madina Lake, is some up-and-coming screamo band, which, as if looking like they do wasn’t enough to piss me off and make me hate them, just being part of that whole genre made me want to put my fist through my monitor.

Seriously. WTF?

At first, looking at the picture made me angry. I have a visceral response to hipsters and the EMO-tionally retarded that usually results in profanity and threats of violence. Why the hell would you want to look like your hair was cut and styled by a junkie who took clippers to half your head then passed out?

So for some reason this image was completely mesmerizing. The more I stared, the more I felt like the brunette guy on the left was looking into my soul. Wait, is that the creepster from Wedding Crashers who paints the naked picture of Vince Vaughn? Nevermind.

So yeah, I couldn’t look away from the picture, even with pedo-bear on the left and his creepy eyes. There was something about the photo that I swore I had seen before, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

Then it hit me.

This guys in this band look like the product of some cocaine-fueled orgy at a concert-after party with the guys from Poison and the syphilis-ridden dancers from the Wednesday afternoon shift at a Youngstown, Ohio strip club.

Admittedly, it’s terrible to think about. C.C. Deville all sweaty, hair spray and mascara running into his eyes, pumping away on some uggo with a double-chin and bacne as Talk Dirty to Me is blasting out of the boom box in the corner.

If you need a second to walk away and get that image out of your head, I understand. Take a deep breath and think happy thoughts about puppy dogs and ice cream.

OK, better? Good. Now to the point of this post.

A bigger realization came with looking at the picture of these idiots who run around in make-up and girls clothes, co-opting some of the punk style we grew up with and making it so that you don’t want to wear your studded belt for fear that some smelly fucking hipster would walk up to you and ask you what you think about the new !!! album.

It makes me so angry I want to snatch his can of PBR out of his black-fingernail polished hands and smash it into his non-prescription, black, thick-rimmed glasses. After that, I’d grab the scarf he is wearing over his ironic t-shirt (seriously, it’s July, why the fuck are you wearing a fucking scarf?!?!) and choke him with it.

Suffice it to say, I’m not a fan of the hipsters and the emo kids, but I digress.

I was hopeless until I realized that these idiots look just like those idiots in the 80s did. They wore girls clothes and make up and played in bands where how they looked mattered more than how they sounded, just like they do now.

Oh, and by the way, if you get a gig to play records in a club, you’re a DJ, not a turntablist. Seriously, what the fuck?!?!?

So anyway, eventually real music prevailed. Fans eventually saw through the make-up and Aqua Net when the Nirvanas, Pearl Jams and Green Days of the world took over. I’m really hoping that it’s only a matter of time until history repeats itself.

Until then, I’ll just put the new Gaslight Anthem album on and wait.