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Their life is high-contrast pain.
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Life is unfair; kill yourself or get over it.
—Black Box Recorder, "Child Psychology"
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I stole some pins from the noticeboard and pressed them into my hand and they spelled "why?" —Bill Bailey, "The Song Written from the Perspective of a Young Man Who Works at Starbucks and Self-Harms"
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The things that differentiate and identify Emo Teens are that they dress mostly or exclusively in black, and listen to music that isn't necessarily considered "mainstream" (such as the "emo" genre, from which the emo aesthetic is mainly derived).
Since Emo Teens cultivate an out-of-the-mainstream image, sometimes writers get lazy and use them as a stand-in for any variety of geekishness that isn't considered "too nerdy".
Since There Are No Therapists, no matter how dark a Backstory a fictional character has, if they act even remotely unhappy with their lot in life, they are "emo". Internet fanboards don't care if you spent the first decade of your life in a cupboard under the stairs only to discover your magical new world comes with a mortal enemy, your dad scarred your face with fire and kicked you out for valuing human life above military victory, or you came home from school one day to find that your big brother killed your parents.
In days past, the Emo Teen would have been a Goth or -- more rarely -- Perky Goth. (Except during The Nineties, when they would be wearing grunge flannel.) They're almost never a Strange Girl.