I have always worn black and lots of heavy dark makeup.Now,maybe 15 years after I started dressing this way,I see stores that are imitating the goth/punk style(Hottopic,Rave,etc) and little blonde punk wannabes running around trying to act like they are goth/punk. I just don’t get it.When did being goth/punk=trendy?
IDBB
Early 1980s, I always thought. It’s been a popular, if minority, style, for so long now that I can’t remember a time when it was more or less popular.
Don’t worry, it’ll go out of style in a few years. Every few years in high school I’d be fashionable but then fashions would cycle again.
That’s what I’m hoping for,<b>Silentgoldfish</b>.I think a lot of preps are getting into the goth/punk style to be cool/trendy/whatever. As a long-time goth,it seriously annoys me that preps are trying to cop <b>OUR</b> style.
IDBB
I’m pretty sure it’s popular now because of Kelly Osbourne.
I really don’t think dressing Goth can be described as trendy, not yet anyway.
As for Punk, it became trendy when “Skaters” appropriated it from the Punks of the 70’s/80’s. All of a sudden, skater music became Punk music and then the “skater style” became a punk style. So its really a metamorphosis and stealing/appropriation of one sub-culture by another.
It happened in the later 90’s and is hitting its peak now with Bands like Blink182 and Sum41 and manufactured garbage like Avril Lavinge. All three of those artists whom any self-respecting Punk would never describe as Punk music. Its not. Its really a crappy genre all of its own and bares little resemblence to true punk music aside from the realiance on cheap power chords on the guitar. Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Dead Kennedy’s, old Bad Religion is true punk music, the stuff described today as Punk is really just harder edged pop-music.
But like I said, its at its very peak now, you can tell because record companies are rushing to saturate the market.
As for Goth, its a sub-culture that has always been small but its slowly dying out, even in major cities that typically have major populations of such people are slowly shrinking. Most people in Goth circles are lamenting the inevitable demise and this is mostly due to the fact that “goth” music has fragmented itself into small sub-genres of music(Noise, EBM, Synthpop, PsyTrance) and nightclubs can’t cater to all the tastes because they won’t stand for “mixed” nights and want their sound or nothing.
True, but Blink 182 et al are Top 40 so they don’t appeal to the style that I think the OP is referring to. Sum41 fans don’t have the all black/heavy make up look, AFAIK.
I think that stylistically, “true punk” is becoming cool again amongst the subversive crowds. I’ve seen a lot of punk kids with Bad Religion patches safety-pinned to their Urban Outfitters bags. Undoubtedly, some of these kids probably never heard any of their albums all the way through, but still…
I think the timing of the rise of goth and punk has to do with Britney/boyband backlash. As their popularity wanes, the pendulum swings the other way and you see a lot more “Spear Britney” shirts.
We also saw a rise in popularity in other aspects of pop culture. The Anne Rice wave peaked a few years ago but it left its mark. We’re also seeing a lot more tattooed and pierced people on TV and in movies like XXX.
You’re always going to have Top 40 music fans (in my junior high school days, that meant mulletted metal fans) and dark countercultural types and with a lot of “swing votes” in between. Those swing votes always float with the tide of popularity.
Goth has already lived longer than the `greaser’ style of yore. Of course, there are so many youth trends now that Goth will not become emblematic of anyone’s generation the way the Greasers did.
::shrugs:: From what I’ve seen (and, granted, I haven’t seen much–I’m only 19) it’s always been at least a little bit popular. I have to admit, though–and I mean no offense to you, I_Dig_Bad_Boys–that the attitude of “well, they’re just 15 year old kids, they shouldn’t be dressing the way that I dress; I was doing it first” really ticks me off.
First of all, I think anyone has the right to dress however they want. Subject, of course, to the realm of common decency (IE, running around in a pair of boxers or even less is probably not a good idea).
Second of all, the attitude implies that all 15 year olds should be dressing like preps or trendoids ‘cause they don’t understand anything else. I don’t think that’s fair. If I were following the trend at my school during high school, I’d be a conserva-prep. That just didn’t appeal to me; a semi-goth punk thing DID, however. Now, granted, I’d never listened to any real punk music at that time, but that was because I had like three friends, and they were into R&B, Classic Rock, and no music at all respectively. It wasn’t “I hate the music, but I’ll steal the clothing.” I’d just never been exposed to punk before. I mean, what was I supposed to do, instinctively divine what bands/albums were real punk just out of friggin’ thin air before I’d “earned” the right to wear the clothing?
Now, of course, I’ve gotten the chance to listen to stuff like Bad Religion and The Clash and the Sex Pistols and stuff, and I like it and all that. I still don’t think, however, that liking this stuff should be a prerequisite for dressing a certain way.
Well, I don’t know about all that. I mean, I’m growing ever more sympathetic to the theory that youth shouldn’t be allowed to do nothin’, and they should be prejudged and harassed anytime they’re found not chained in the basement where they belong. They are aggressive, horny, sullen, insolent and they listen to bad music. Quite often they travel in packs wearing preposterous clothes that clearly communicate, “if this is what we think of style, what must we think of the rights and dignity of other human beings?”
However, I want to state that I am resolutely against rounding them up and keeping them restrained until they’re 20. We already have institutions in place to keep them in check – among other things, we help them waste their potentially destructive energy by having them get demeaning jobs to buy absurd fashions and crappy music. In the end, they turn into knee-jerk consumers who are deep in debt by the age of 25. Why jail them? They jail themselves.
Now in my third paragraph I’m speaking strictly to the adults in the crowd, because I knew the young people aren’t going to sit through three whole paragraphs before they post a reply. Surely I’m not the only one to notice that these kids of today don’t have any sense of humor, especially about themselves, and the dismal futures we have planned for them. Right now they are typing out angry invectives about me, accusing me of being a lier,' who is biass’ and prejudice' against them. My point is that you could do a lot worse than Goth for styles, and let's not make the kids prove it. Frankly, a Goth with a sense of style looks pretty good. It's all these Goths who don't have a sense of style that we should be trying to repress. Women always look good in long black dresses, for which there are plenty of Simplicity patterns available. Discreet spider-web motifs can add a dash of *joie de mort*. Cheap black nail polish isn't any kind of savings at all -- it'll only force you to use several coats, and this will start to look silly pretty fast. The popularization of Goth style may diminish its cache, but the bright side is that higher quality black lipsticks are hitting the market these days, and hair dyes are now richer and more vivid than the Manic Panic’ of yore. I would definitely vote for a tax earmarked for teaching young boys that you really have to have to have the right skin to get away with torn panty-hose sleeves. More tuxedoes and capes, and less fishnet is the thing.
Punk became trendy in, what, 1977?
You posers.
Pretty much any of these will separate the wheat from the chaff:
It wasn’t until 10 years after I bought Sisters of Mercy’s Floodland that I found out that I owned a “goth” album. I have been listening to punk for about 17 years, but have never owned a pair of bondage pants. I guess I’m not trendy 
LMAO! Johnny Angel, you should turn pro!
Beats my “Well, there was this guy named McClaren who once owned a store…” by a long shot (and my wife wants to have your love child–you two will never meet.)
From what I’ve seen, it gets really trendy every few years or so. You’re not the first to dress that way, I wasn’t back when I was doing it in high school, and the people who griped about me being a “little wannabee” weren’t the first either.
Thank the kids for picking up on it, because when they get tired of it, all of their old stuff goes off to Goodwill and you can get it for a couple of bucks.
Are you kidding? It was trendy a decade ago. As best as I can tell it’s a trend that’s come and gone; I can only guess that either you’re in some backwater where the '70s glamslut look hasn’t come in yet or you’re in some place that makes my area look like a backwater (not hard to do) where it’s already come back in again.
I understand dressing Gothic first became popular around 1150 AD and continued until about 1550 AD.
After that, it was so passé.
That is TOO funny.
I asked this same question seven years ago when I got in to high school.
Then I grew up and realized that although subcultures and movements are constantly being co-opted, I’m still far cooler than any of them even without the youthful postureing of pretending that I am superior for being the “real punk”.
This bias thing is even funnier when it works the other way. I’m probably the most punk person on this whole board (miles punker than you, anyway*). The Electric Eels, The Urinals, Bloodstains over Dunedin, I got 'em all. And yet, just because I dress like a square in a shirt and tie, all the guys with three foot mohawks behind the counter of my favourite stores look at me funny when I ask where the Circle Jerks records are.
It aint easy being an adult punk, I tell ya.
[sub]*joke[/sub]