Emo not a cause of death

[You may notice that the quote below is a link to MySpace. Now I don’t cruise MySpace, but do from time to time come across a link to that networking site.]

Apparently recently in the U.K. a coroner blamed emo music for the death by suicide of a 13 year-old girl. Wouldn’t it be great if it was really that simple? Merely do away with one type of music and kids will stop dying by suicide. Similarly, as discussions seem to be running in the media lately, do away with guns and kids will stop dying from violence in our streets. No problem is that simplistic. All of these types of problems are “over-determined” with multi-factorial etiologies. Their solutions must similarly be multi-pronged, addressed on many fronts. That is not to say that they can be solved, but that they will require work and not magic wands or bandaids.

As someone posts in their comments in the discussion on the girl’s death:

NME.COM user Time For Something Bibical said: "My heart goes out to her family, but you don't get 'suicidal' just solely by listening to 'emo' music, there are always deeper reasons and connections

We must work on these “deeper reasons and connections” while providing an out, access to help and folks pushing/assisting those in these sorts of spirals to access that help.

One last aside, in response to a recent question posed to me I could not find any research demonstrating a causal link with emo music and suicide (including asking some folks I know for some help in the search).