gothiccharmschool:

spookyloop:

rebel-without-a-cunt:

doctor-segmentium:

rebel-without-a-cunt:

gothiccharmschool:

spookyloop:

spookyloop:

Destroy the idea that goths can only like super-gothic-dark-things-hail-satan-and-misery in order to be considered ~tru~ goths. 

Wear pastels. Listen to pop. Watch rom coms. Get excited about sunshine.

Your non-gothy likes don’t cancel out your gothy likes, and there is no point in not being true to yourself and suppressing the things you enjoy in order to fit a stereotype!

What’s wrong with being authentic? The goth style was an extension of certain attitudes and sensibilities. Just because you wear pale makeup and get a nose piercing that doesn’t make you goth. It’s only superficial, an artifice. Subcultures have been bastardized to the point that they no longer have meaning for people. –

joecrossjr87

This misses the point entirely. This post was aimed at people who get bullied or discouraged by elitist attitudes of not fitting into the stereotypical goth box. There is nothing “authentic” about bullying people because they have traditionally un-gothy likes and choices in fashion, especially since the subculture is in the end built on music, not clothes.
Additionally, nowhere in the post has it been implied that people who do not wear pastels, do not listen to pop, don’t not enjoy rom coms or don’t like sunshine shouldn’t to be that way. There is nothing wrong with looking like the stereotype, reading Dracula by candle light while drinking absinthe and listening to Bauhaus with a black cat on your lap (or whatever it is that people think “authentic” goths do). If that’s your thing, go or it. But there is no reason to discourage people who want to be a part of the subculture by reinforcing the idea that one has to be all-dark-and-miserable to be goth and all other, “happy” likes need to suppressed in order to fit in. (I’m pretty sure lots of the original goths enjoyed pop, rom coms, summer, and colours as well.)

Goth might have derived from punk but it quickly became its own branch with no religious or political affiliations. The attitudes that carried over were basically gender (or the lack of thereof) expression, sexuality in fashion, and yes, colours, to name a few. Looking at pictures of goths in the 1980s, it is easy to see that there are tons of colour and colourful prints being used, it’s not just black leather, velvet and lace. Even a lot of tradgoth looks (that are supposed to be closest to the original looks) nowadays don’t perfectly match with the 80s look because styles evolve and people have their own takes on them.
And yes, pale make-up and a piercing doesn’t make one goth, just like wearing pastels doesn’t make you ungoth. Robert Smith is a goth icon but wears big jumpers and colourful prints. Andrew Eldritch is a goth icon but completely dismisses the affiliation with the subculture even though he checks everything on the stereotypical goth list. Siouxsie Sioux is a goth icon who wears fishnets with leather but also baggy, colourful print t-shirts. The list could go on. What is “authentic” varies hugely even during the subculture’s first years.
While fashion is the most noticeable part of goth, it is but one fraction of the entirety.

The subculture has no meaning for people who only see that one side of it, but for us who listen to the music, read the literature, enjoy the aesthetic, and just in general find beauty in the “dark”, it is very meaningful and provides us with a community.

Some goths have no money, some goths have no time, some goths have no energy, some goths have no opportunity, and some goths have no desire to have a “goth look” and they should all feel accepted in the subculture despite that.

Fashions change, subcultures branch out to microcultures, and so on. That is evolving and creating new things from the old, not bastardization. (One could argue about the use of the stereotypically gothic look as inspiration in mainstream fashion or the increased amount of gothic clothing labels cheapening the meaning of self expression and killing the DIY culture in the subculture, but that’s a whole different topic with loads of pros and cons.) No fashion is so holy it should stay untouched and be kept from evolving with time (how boring would that be) and the old styles are still alive and well, they have just gotten company from the new styles. If the subculture has been bastardized by anything, it’s people who think everyone in it need to act and look like an “authentic goth” 24/7/365 and go around giving grief to those who don’t meet their standards. That’s what this post was about. Not what is authentic and what isn’t, or what is the right or wrong way to be goth but the fact that as many goths as there are, there are that many ways to “do” goth and it is okay to like ungothy things because your non-gothy likes don’t cancel out your gothy likes, and there is no point in not being true to yourself and suppressing the things you enjoy in order to fit a stereotype!

Also, paging @gothiccharmschool in case an Eldergoth wants to give her two cents.

Sooooo I’m super-tired and perhaps a tiny bit incoherent right now (words? how do they work?!), but I absolutely had to chime in on this. 

1. @spookyloop is absolutely correct. It is okay to like ungothy things. Liking ungothy things does not cancel out the gothy things you like. Goth Points aren’t real, neither is a Goth Card, and there is no Elder Goth Cabal waiting to pass judgment on people.
2. Back In The Day [TM], the Goth Style [TM] was still not a uniform look! There were goths wearing colors! Or no makeup! Or sporting their natural hair color! Frolicking at the beach and in parks! Gleefully discussing whatever caught their interests, and smiling while they did so! But because there aren’t as many photos of those things floating around Teh Interwebs, not everyone is aware of that. 
3. Anyone who claims that someone needs to be 100% Goth 24/7 is wrong. No one, not even Dave Vanian and Patricia Morrison, could manage to be 100% Goth at every moment.
4. Goth contains multitudes. What one person considers beautiful or worthy of celebrating may be another person’s squick. AND THAT’S FINE.
5. (Speaking of “may be another person’s squick” – if you are NOT a fan of extreme gore, crime scene photos, or images of violent, bloody trauma, do NOT visit the tumblr of joecrossjr87 . Trust me on this. That’s his thing, and that’s fine. But there are other folks who choose not to view such images, and I want them to be properly warned.) 

Am I seeing legit Goth Culture discourse on my dash? Like, are there PERG’s out there?? (Pastel Exclusionary/Exterminatory Radical Goths??)

on one hand I’m like “why” and on the other hand I’m like “a lot of Goth Rules™ associated with the established culture as it is today can and are often twisted into gross racist/transphobic/ableist/whathaveyou nonsense that really hurts people” 

so my verdict on this post? oh thank fuck someone is talking about this at length

I mean I’m sure like every subculture has nasty tendencies toward those it can’t be denied, it just seemed so surreal to read a post that was specifically about how the purity of people’s goth identity is policed. Like, are there intolerant ass radgoths out there making posts like “we cannot deny that pastel Goths have prep socialization…” ?

Sadly yes. During my time in the subculture (13 years or so now) I have personally been given a lot of grief about the fact that I openly like pop and my hair is plain and brown. I was literally not accepted in the group because my hair wasn’t black and I jam to Michael Jackson. I still some times get anon hate for it, as well as my glasses which is just odd. (I’m blind as a bat, surely that adds to my Goth Points [TM].)

When I started being on Tumblr I started noticing this on a bigger scale: babybats getting hate for their wardrobes not being full of label clothes, people not having great make-up skills, people not being white (goth is for everyone, people, you don’t have to be pale), people wearing colours other than black… There even used to be a blog called something like “This is not Goth” dedicated to reblogging people’s selfies if they didn’t meet the admin’s ~goth standards~. And when the pastelgoth look was trendy, people were attacking both the trend-following people and goths who preferred to wear pastels calling them names and automatically shunning them out.

Even if the posts outright attacking people aren’t as prominent anymore, these attitudes can be seen in a way a lot of alternative people talk about themselves. I see it most often in tags with people saying things like “I wish I could dye my hair/get a piercing/wear these clothes so I could call myself goth” or “I really like goth music and the aesthetic but I’m too happy to be goth”.

Long story short: I’ve come across those negative attitudes so often during my years in the subculture that I feel like it’s important to remind people (especially babybats) every now and then that being a goth does not mean having to reduce your personality to a one-dimensional stereotypical character.

As the Resident Eldergoth around here, let me tell you: while there has always been a nasty thread of gatekeeping and elitism in the subculture, it became more … noticeable? Loud? With the rise of social media. Because then the elitist gatekeeping types were able to point at other people’s pictures and try to enforce their arbitrary, exclusionary views.

Even if the posts outright attacking people aren’t as prominent anymore, these attitudes can be seen in a way a lot of alternative people talk about themselves. I see it most often in tags with people saying things like “I wish I could dye my hair/get a piercing/wear these clothes so I could call myself goth” or “I really like goth music and the aesthetic but I’m too happy to be goth”.

The majority of letters that I get, either at the Gothic Charm School site or any of my social media accounts, are ALL variations of this. People who are interested in goth, but feel that since they can’t tick off all of the bat-shaped boxes, they’re not goth enough and shouldn’t even try. Which is so, so far from the truth that it hurts.

Again: There are no Goth Points. There is no Goth Card to be stamped. There is no Elder Goth Cabal waiting to judge you on your gothness. If someone dares utter the phrase “A real goth” at you, laugh at them. Goth is especially for the misfits, the outcasts, the people who don’t fit in.