In the summer of 2008, while the rest of the world was busy arguing over whether My Chemical Romance was "real punk" or arguing over Myspace top eights, the Russian State Duma was facing down what it believed to be the single greatest existential threat to the motherland: teenagers with side-swept bangs. Armed with clipboards and an overwhelming sense of doom, Russian lawmakers introduced a formal bill titled "Government Strategy in the Sphere of Spiritual and Ethical Education," officially declaring the entire emo subculture a national security hazard. Parliamentarians drafted meticulous legal definitions of the domestic threat, describing an emo to the press as any youth aged 12 to 16 who dared to sport black and pink clothing, studded belts, black nail polish, and—most dangerously—hair that covered "at least half of the face." Believing that these dramatic, eye-obscuring haircuts would somehow erode the nation’s future leadership, advisor Alexander Grishunin deadpanned to reporters that the crackdown was crucial "so that by 2020, Moscow will have someone to rule its government."

Naturally, the proposed ban on emo dress codes in public schools triggered a response that was as melodramatic as it was iconic. In Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, local kids fought back the only way they knew how: by assembling a deeply solemn, highly stylized protest march. Dozens of teens trooped through the Siberian cold in tight jeans and fringe cuts, holding up protest signs reading "Kill the State in Yourself"—a slogan so aggressively angsty that it could have easily served as a track title on a 2005 Fall Out Boy record. Others taped their mouths shut with red electrical tape to symbolize being silenced by authoritarian dress codes. While the bill eventually fizzled out into legislative obscurity, the image of adult Kremlin politicians sitting in serious committee meetings to legally debate the tactical danger of dark eyeliner and asymmetrical fringe remains one of the funniest, most absurd moments in subculture history.