A quip heard recently:
“Ancient Goth: one of a Germanic tribe which spent centuries harassing the Roman Empire.
Modern Goth: A vegetarian pretending to be a vampire.”
Was Johnny Cash a Goth?
“Hello…I’m Master Johnny Cash. Welcome to my Ring of Fire.”
In that Johnny Cash always seemed to be just about the most unpretentious person you could ever meet, and the whole Goth thing seems to built on nothing but pretention and affectation, I’d vote no.
Lots of stereotypes in this thread, and a lot of distain toward Goths. Pretty rude if you ask me. And yet people would (and have) jump all over people who would lump all “frat boys” into a subgroup. In fact, didn’t we just have a thread about Greeks where that happened?
I’m a little confused as to why dressing differently from the vast majority of people out there is somehow a negative thing. Is it because the teenagers who do it are so overly earnest in their convictions that they are different? News flash: Teenagers are earnest about everything. Doesn’t matter if it’s wearing black clothes and eyeliner or whether they get a certain date for the prom or not, it’s always the most unique, most important thing in the world. And nothing adults say is going to change that.
I don’t see why people who dress in a Goth style are really any different than those who used to dress in pink Lacoste with the collars turned up, or any other style craze. It’s a subset of clothing and music, and, to some extent, a worldview. But it’s not really anything crazy or that strange, and it’s not a guarantee that someone is stupid, or a loser or an underachiever.
-Necros (31 years-old, software engineer, former National Merit Scholar, member of the Colorado Gothic Lolita Society)
From Alfred E. Newman: “Today’s non-conformists are getting harder and harder to tell apart.”
I was not a goth, but part of the punk scene in the 80’s and goth is just another subculture to me. I am sure there is nothing wrong with her identifying with that group, your teen years are hard and having a group who shares many ideals with you is a good thing.
I’d be more worried about cutting class than membership in a subculture.
By the way, back in the 80’swhat are now called Goths - we called “Death Rockers” or “Art Fags” depending on how much they were into Bauhaus, Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy and whether they were more into all black beatnik style clothing (think Dieter on SNL) or into what would now be called goth clothing. Both crowds were pretentious and wore all black, wrote sad poetry and danced to the same music.
It wasn’t until industrial music had crept into the scene that Death Rock refered to harder more industrial dark music, and Goth became the term used for the black haired, eyeliner, lace and pretention crowd. I think the “Art Fags” may still be around too as their own subculture too, because I am sure somewhere a teenager has picked up “On the Road Again”, and is planning on going doing a major in philosophy and a minor in 20th C. American Lit.
One more little highjack - I found this Goth style family tree just a second ago:
I’ve always thought them rather stylish, & much better dressed than some teens.
Absolutely. For example when I was a goth, goth had already been around for quite some time. That didn’t make me feel any less unique. I wouldn’t recommend making both these statements at the same time, though. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend pointing out to her anything that is being said here in terms of Goths being all the same, etc. I know that my friends were definitely not all the same…some of us were more punks, some of us were more goths, some more deathrockers, some more mods. And within the “goth” there was a wide variey of styles to choose from…were you a leather jacket/spike person or a lace skirt/ruffleshirt person? Did you prefer skullboots or Docs? Plaid or no plaid ever? What band t-shirts did you have and cherish? Vampire novels or serial killer collecter’s cards? Back in my day there was no “Hot Topic”, so I guess we didn’t all look quite so similar since we all had to go far and wide to find our clothes and etc.
And besides that point, if you tell a goth teenager they are just like everybody else they will most likely think you are the biggest idiot asshole in the universe and you just don’t understand. Not helpful.
I think many people are attracted to goth because they know for certain they don’t fit in with the mainstream. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to have any friends, though. Many people find the style very attractive. When I went to my new high school, not knowing anybody, I moped and pouted about the campus, dressed in all black, etc, sitting within sight of the other “alternative” people. After a few days, they invited me to join them. They were my friends all through high school, and every year we’d spot the freshman who were like us and welcome them too. Wanting to be an individual does not equal wanting to be a total reject. And you have to remember what it’s like to be a teenager.
Goth fashion is way better than hipster jeans, visible thong and “I don’t need brains when I’ve got tits” that is the “mainstream” clothing for young women.
Ah, the Goths… Truly formibable warriors, what their bringing down the Roman…
::Reads OP::
Oh, that kind of goth. I’d say there’s nothing wrong with the goth part of it. Or the “hanging out with underachivers” part. Hell, I hung out with under achivers, and I’m doing pretty well. Unless she’s only hanging out with underachivers, that might not be good. She’ll probably turn out normal, barring some major emotional thing.
I’m not a goth, but I was a punk rocker- which scared my mom until she realized that it was a pretty positive thing.
First off, we should acknowledge that teen culture is, on the whole, pretty dumb. When I was a teenager, I got sick of all the gossiping, backstabbing, jockeying for position, competition for guys, emphasis on appearence (and only one body type or face type was “right”) and the rest of the bullshit that goes along with teen popular culture. I got sick of the popularity game. I got sick of going to school and having people critique my outfit and use my friends against me etc. And I definitely wanted to talk about more interesting stuff than shopping or who is dating who. I realized the only way for a too-smart unconventionally attractive and socially non-compeative person to win the poularity game was to not play it. And if you arn’t completing for popularity, there is no place for you in mainstream teen culture.
So, I looked to the subcultured. There I found people that would accept me no matter what I looked like. Sure, there is a uniform and trends. But for the most part it is a lot more playful than regular teen fashion is. Creativity was valued more than conformity. And your face and body type doesn’t automatically mean you are inferior. There is no concept of “sexy chubby Abercrombie and Fitch type” but there is plenty of ways to be a sexy chubby goth or punk rocker or whatever. Anyway, fashion became about having fun instead of some kind of competition.
I also found it was a lot easier to have the kind of conversation I liked in a subculture. I was a politically aware kid, and punk rock suited me well. Goth tends to be a rather emotional subculture that validates the strong feelings that teenagers have.
I always thought the girls reading the well-thumbed Anne Rice novels were the Goths, as long as they were wearing lots of eye-liner.
Didn’t the codification of this whole Goth-thing hit its high point after that Crow movie hit the screens?
As a side note, evolved (my opinion!) female Goths would congregate at Metro in Chicago (could have the venue wrong), and when the whole latex/PVC/fishnet thing was in style…I wanted to be a Goth, too. Forget the fact that I was probably wearing jeans and an oxford…I really wanted to be a Goth.
Upon review, I see that my username may imply Goth-ness. Not so, but please refer to the above paragraph.
-Cem
Dude, you’re not goth. Goths only come out at night.
As for the “why would you want to attract negative attention” question in the OP, I would posit that a lot of goth teens are already attracting negative attention (because they’re fat, or “act” or are gay, or because they’re smart), and so they really have nothing to lose by dressing or acting “weird.” Trust me, if you’re part of the out crowd, you got made fun of a lot more if you attempted to fit in with the cool kids, as evidenced by the couple of times my mom set out Gap-like clothing for me in middle school. And it’s not just clothes, but other things. Like if an uncool kid tried to go to a dance, they’d get picked on for trying to fit in. Whereas, if you say you don’t care about the dance (whether or not you actually care or not) then you don’t get hassled as much.
I wasn’t/am not a goth, although I do wear a lot of black. I would have been a riot grrrl if I’d known about it, probably.
I have to agree 100% with this explanation. I was unpopular in high school, but I became an angry, bitter loner, despite being a “band geek” and a National Merit Scholar who was among the top 20 graduates, GPA-wise. But I had few “real” friends (and NONE in the band), I didn’t date, and I didn’t do anything high schooly: never went to any football games (didn’t march in the marching band), didn’t go to grad night or homecoming or prom. At the time, I had nothing but contempt for those who did, since I felt they had nothing but contempt for me. I would have loved to be part of a subculture like Goths where I could have felt like I fit in, but we didn’t have any. All we had were a few jerk metalheads and a whole bunch of stoners, and they were worse then the popular preppies.
Wasn’t a goth in high school, but I was in my early twenties. I still love the style, though between my budget and my body type, I can’t really pull it off 
Talking to goth teenagers, though, they seemed mostly the brilliant, geeky outcasts of high school. I’m pleased to see today’s crop of brilliant, geeky outcasts have so much better fashion sense than those of my generation 
I agree with Fisher Queen’s and davenportavenger’s assessments. From what I can tell, goth teens who are underachievers are usually underachievers because they’re bored with the slow pace of school.
From my experience with goths they just kinda seem to dress in black and wallow in self-pity. They also tend to be very pretentious, in the you-don’t-understand-the-pain-of-being-as-deep-I-am kinda way. A lot of times they sit around stroking each other egos or go on I-suffered-more-than-you contests. I’m not sure what the appeal is either.
My sister in law (now aged 18) has been doing the Goth thing for the last two or so years. She hangs out on a Goth message board, and out of curiosity I checked it out one day. Talk about laugh! For a start, they submit profiles of themselves where the reveal how Goth-y they are and they post photos of themselves looking all dolled up and dramatic, and then they rate each other out of ten! That’s actually how I found the site, SIL had asked for an extension on the shared internet connection to finish some homework but the proxy logs kept showing hits on a Goth site - she was refreshing her profile every couple of minutes to see how she was being rated. From what I can tell of the people she hangs with on that site, they seem like a bunch of middle class white kids who’ve never gone without anything in their whole lives, and they like to sit around and bitch about how hard they’ve had it, how much trauma they’ve lived through to this point and how no one understands them. Hey, that pretty much sums up my teenage years too.
There’s two things that I just love about them:
- “I hate judgemental people!”. Hahahaha. That never fails to crack me up.
- The constant moaning about the discrimination they suffer. I’m sorry, I have limited sympathy for people who deliberately set themselves apart and then moan that they are being treated differently. This isn’t like racial discrimination where a person is mistreated on something as fundemental and unalterable as the colour of their skin. They dress to look alarming and then complain that they can’t get a job. The boyfriend is the worst for it. He wears spacers in his ears and little fangs out his nose - Mr Cazzle, ever squeamish, can’t even stand to look at him as all the holes make him feel ill - and he complains that he can’t get a job in hospitality because people are so judgemental and discriminate against him over his face full of metal. I don’t think that it’s too much to ask that you conform to the public image that your employer wants during the hours that you’re employed by them, and who wants a be-pierced, fanged vampire serving them in a nice resturant or bar? You could at least tone it down for the job interview, and then discuss your appearance when you get the job to try to work out something that suits you both. The boyfriend is too principled to dress down his look for job interviews, which is why he’s 20 and still unemployed. Nice guy. They are both the sweetest kids. My SIL in particular has always been a goofy, funny and kind hearted girl and she still exactly the same except she has more eyeliner on. I have trouble seeing her as the mysterious and tragic figure that she considers herself to be.
I’m not goth, nor do I play one on television, but my style of dress appears to be “goth”. I don’t do it to be different. I could care less if anyone’s wearing the same damn pants as I am. I dress like this because it’s what I’m most comfortable in, and if you’ve got nothing but black clothes, everything goes with everything else. I enjoy white as well, (but don’t wear it by itself) because of the fantastic way the color plays off black. Contrasting.
I often surprise people who think I’m goth. They ask who are my favorite bands, and I’ll just say The Floyd, Led Zep, The Clash, and so on.
Every so often, however, I’ll indulge in “tortured weasel screaming” music such as Atreyu, Dir en Grey (Japanese), and others. I’m pretty nerdy, saying this because there seems to be a general consensus that most goths are.
This was certainly true 4 years ago when I still in high school. Rather than wearing black clothes and silver jewelry all the time in high school, I chose to buy cheap plain white t-shirts and write names like 'Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, American Eagle, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. on the front. My message was basically making fun of people for paying so much money for clothes just because of the brand name on them.
Although I never adorned the attire of ‘goth’ kids, I was friends with some of them in high school. They allowed me into their circle because I could play guitar leads from Black Sabbath and AIC songs while they played the other instruments or hung out to hear the rest of us.
These ‘goth’ kids I knew sort of had a rebel without a cause sorta thing going in my opinion. They dabbled in the occult but did not impress me w/ their knowledge. I asked, “So do you read much Aleister Crowley?” The response from the group was “who’s that?” Their general outlook on life seemed a bit existential to me, but they didn’t really know what existentialism was when I asked. At least, they were always very welcoming to me.
I don’t think my high school friends were a model for goths everywhere. The black clothes, etc. is a common theme among goths but their philosophies, academic performance, and personalities vary greatly among goth groups and goth individual from my experience.