All the goths I’ve ever known were nice. I mean, unless you pissed them off or something, but that’s almost everybody.
Known both types. Goths who were real jerks. Goths who were perfectly nice people. Goths who were intellegent open minded people. Goths who were dumber than rocks or assumed everyone who wasn’t Goth has “sold out” in some fashion. Goths that were cheerful, Goths that could have really used antidepressents.
Depends on the indidividual and the crowd they are hanging with. As well as the moment, since I know people who are perfectly nice sometimes and not so nice others (including myself).
I’m kind of a goth, too. I dress goth-y, I listen to goth music, I go to goth clubs…
Has anyone found me nihilistic and depressed? Didn’t think so.
I’m an amateur seamstress and bellydancer with an historical clothing interest. I love really neat clothes. Goth styles tend to be more interesting than, say, Old Navy. I like wearing them, and I like making them.
In general, I’ve found goths at least as polite as most other teenage subcultures, if not more so. As I’ve mentioned before, I started going to goth clubs when I found out that wouldn’t get really revolting men hitting on me in a very sleazy fashion if I was at one. There’s no way could dance at a normal club and not get hit on all the time- not because I’m uber-gorgeous, but because I’m a bellydancer, and after four years of training, it’s the way I dance naturally.
Yeah…but they might use their Wiccan powers to turn you into a frog or newt or something. That’s what happened to me.
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er…I got better.
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- Reality check: people generally referred to as “goths” tend to dress a very particular way, in order to offset themselves from everybody else. I think white face paint looks funny, it reminds me of clowns. And I do not consider dressing any differently to be any sort of actual accomplishment. So, goth==clown. Clowns==laughed at, so therefore goths==laughed at. taa-daaaa! Anything that prompts a heterosexual male to wear makeup in public (and any such male who does so) deserves mocking.
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- Perhaps you should read the entire thread again from the begininng. I’m not the only one here with a negative perception of goths…
… - Every expression of pop subculture is not valid and precious. Much of it is consigned for the trashbin of history, and some never left. If you saw someone walking down the street, themselves covered in dog shit but perfectly happy, you’d think they were a fool–and rightly so.
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Really Doug? Right now I’m cultivating a relationship with a guy who wears makeup… and he is very heterosexual… he looks good in it. As long as they aren’t caking it on (which never looks good on anyone) who cares? Not every goth cakes on white base followed by all the black to make themselves look like the Crow. In fact some can put on makeup better then woman who have been doing so for years and should know better!
Heck one of the sweetest guys I know even wears skirts a lot of the time. (Long ankle length ones, it’s not like he’s running around in mini’s!) And he’s very hetero as well!
“Anything that prompts a heterosexual male to wear makeup in public (and any such male who does so) deserves mocking.”
Why would any man wearing make-up in public deserve mocking? Just because it’s not been the norm for our short little time on the planet, doesn’t mean it’s a reason to be nasty to anyone. Making someone miserable because they’re different is a rather brutish, ignorant attitude.
As for goths, I’ve personally found they tend to be a bit more polite, open-minded, and so on than some groups of kids. It’s just the nature of the beast. Sort of how you’d find that jocks tend to be better at sports. There is a good deal of variety within all the groups though. What’s tripping me up these days are the kids who look like goths but are not. They are simply kids who’ve seen the look on tv or in the movies and are taking that for themselves, not bothering with any of the music, poetry, etc. Maybe that’s who you ran into.
I think a little eyeliner on a guy often looks good. And I certainly don’t think that goths deserve mocking. There are several styles of dress that I don’t really “get”, but openly mocking a person wearing those styles really accomplishes nothing.
Um, my best friend’s boyfriend would prove you wrong.
His father did just that: wore a suit all day long. He doesn’t ever remember seeing his father wear anything but during the day.
So, you feel that you are the arbiter of how others should be treated, and your rigid gender identity leads you to abuse others who are more secure than you are.
:wally
This thread is a great example of why “it’s taking longer than we thought.”
Er, what was that you were saying about prejudice?
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- I am the arbiter of my own opinion. And I did not say that I openly mocked anyone–just that I tend to make a few conclusions about the character of someone who walks around all day every day dressed like Marlyn Manson, something that even Marlyn Manson himself doesn’t do. I don’t see originality or substance, I generally see a sad copy of mass-marketed pop images and an obsession towards frivolousness, particularly with regards to guys who wear makeup, since it is marketed primarily to women in the country I live in.
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- It might be nice if everything was fair and “how you looked didn’t matter”, but that just isn’t so, and it will probably never be. And if it was, the whole reason for appearing differently as a matter of fasion would vanish- there’d be no point in the effort. As far as my own opinions go, at least I am willing to admit that within limits I do judge people by their appeareances-- there are an AMAZING number of saints here who have nothing to confess on the matter. You might claim to be one who is completely free of personal and prefessional prejudice, but somehow I doubt that.
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My name’s Sionell and I’m a Goth. There. I’ve said it. And I didn’t have to be rude to anyone! In my experience (and there’s a lot of it), I’ve rarely come across Goths who make a point of insulting or taunting ‘normal’ people.
We have long been singled out and picked on by those who consider themselves normal, and thus consider us to be freaks. I guess we just learn to live with it.
DougC you may not have said that you openly mocked anyone but you did say that male goths deserve to be mocked. Why do they deserve this? Because they’re threatening your idea of how a male should dress??
There’s nothing wrong with judging someone on their appearance and to recognise that we all do this, but to feel as though you have to take the piss out of them for it as well, IMO that makes youseem like the idiot…not the guy in the make-up.
Have a bit of tolerance Doug 
well, on alt.gothic a few years ago, several goths claimed that although they look scrawny, when riled they can take out folks several times their strength.
So, you would either be dealing with more than you can handle, or at least people who THINK they are more than you can handle. Which puts them halfway there anyway 
I’m gonna start a new subculture and call it Emogoth. Expressive, angsty, depressive lyrics set to power pop music with keyboard counterpoints in minor keys.
Fashion: corporate logo t-shirts (in black,) ripped jeans, and a pink feathered buzzcut.
Events: Emogoths spend all their time taking pictures of children’s funerals.
Albums: Covers made up of said photos of funerals, pasted together with poems, but all of these must refer to the Wasteland.
The goths I’ve come across have seemed to think they were “too cool for school.” You’re lame if you haven’t heard of Christian Death or whatever obscure bands they’re into. I also remember going to King’s Island (amusement park) in August on a 90 degree day, seeing 5 or 6 goths dressed in all black from head to toe, and wearing leather jackets. Uh, yeah, you’re cool.
Btw, Cliff Yablonski hates goths, and he hates you too. www.something awful.com. Hee hee. Check it out.
oops, that’s www.somethingawful.com
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- Ehhh, excuse the regionality, what does “take the piss out of them” mean?
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- Oooohhhh, suuuurrrre they can. Tell them to go light on the makeup for a while–they have obviously confused themselves with something else entirely.
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I was being ironic, by adding a little wood to the fire. Also at a more hidden level my post went on to state ‘True Goths’ are like ‘True Scotsmen’ indefinable. Ergo by extension there are no ‘True Goths’, so A true Goth would be far less likely to be rude to someone else than a Frat boy would.