[barend]

the Goths of my day didn't cut themselves (well the few that did finished the job).

The makeup is far too much. Especially all this fake blood stuff. When I was their age I went to pubs where people where actually bleeding from their head.

There's nothing wrong with wearing black. I'm no goth, but my wardrobe is 90% black. It was once 100% black for many years but that was just... I'm not sure. Maybe it was all those ninja films of the 80s maybe it was Luke skywalker rocking up at jabbas palace ready to fuck everyone up, but I always liked wearing black even as a llittle kid. Had nothing to do with "goth" though... it was just me. I step outside and every jerk and his dog is wearing blue jeans and t-shirts with overlapping print. It looks like a prison courtyard when you go out anywhere or to a club. I feel a bit more comfortable in in my black fatigues and a t-shirt of some band or whatever thing I like. I don't do it to be different I do it because I have a specific taste and don't need to look at what everyone else is wearing to know what I should be wearing. And that's what really upset me about the whole gothcrowd, back in the day they didn't have dress codes, and they didn't play exclusivley "goth" songs. Faith no More and Helmet would be snuck into the playlists along with others. Now it's just seems like a scene to be seen and not heard. They're totally elitist but have no idea what their all about.

If anything I think the popularity of the goth movement ruined wearing black for me. Not at first when they were cool, but about the time marylin mansons second album was doing well it all started going to shit.

[Snake Logan]

the Goths of my day didn't cut themselves (well the few that did finished the job).

The makeup is far too much. Especially all this fake blood stuff. When I was their age I went to pubs where people where actually bleeding from their head.

There's nothing wrong with wearing black. I'm no goth, but my wardrobe is 90% black. It was once 100% black for many years but that was just... I'm not sure. Maybe it was all those ninja films of the 80s maybe it was Luke skywalker rocking up at jabbas palace ready to fuck everyone up, but I always liked wearing black even as a llittle kid. Had nothing to do with "goth" though... it was just me. I step outside and every jerk and his dog is wearing blue jeans and t-shirts with overlapping print. It looks like a prison courtyard when you go out anywhere or to a club. I feel a bit more comfortable in in my black fatigues and a t-shirt of some band or whatever thing I like. I don't do it to be different I do it because I have a specific taste and don't need to look at what everyone else is wearing to know what I should be wearing. And that's what really upset me about the whole gothcrowd, back in the day they didn't have dress codes, and they didn't play exclusivley "goth" songs. Faith no More and Helmet would be snuck into the playlists along with others. Now it's just seems like a scene to be seen and not heard. They're totally elitist but have no idea what their all about.

If anything I think the popularity of the goth movement ruined wearing black for me. Not at first when they were cool, but about the time marylin mansons second album was doing well it all started going to shit.

So it’s not cool to wear black if everyone wears black?

[civilian_number_two]

Don't tell the Amish!

[Cyzyk]

I tend to think of myself as a Goth, but I suppose I'm really more Bohemian than Goth. Goth is just easier to fit in a blank.

Oh wait, we're talking about subcultures, not antique ethnicities?

dammit..why cant everyone just look and dress normal? why? why?..why do people insisnt on dressing up like every damn day is halloween?

I resemble that remark... Seriously though, while I'm not a Goth or Emo or Cybergoth (although I'd like to wander around in a gas mask sometime, too bad it'd probably make people think I'm some kind of terrorist and that would ruin the fun), I don't look or dress normal. I stagger around wearing what I can buy cheap in black, because I don't do colors. Colors mean things to some people, and apparently some do not go well with others.

I don't have time for that. So, screw the white after labor day, or pink for gays, or blue for Jews, or green for Arabs, or whatever it is for breast cancer/autism/wiccans or whatever this month in PC world. Black is always seasonal, formal, and appropriate. Also, it matches everything especially itself, and absorbs light to keep me warm.

I do think people are being a little hard on goths. Face it, a lot of these are people who don't fit in with the "normal" materialistic culture of social abuse. So they hang out with each other, and use clear labels (makeup, clothes, etc) to mark themselves as part of a group. Driven to conform by their society, yet unable to conform with certain people who think they are above others, they conform to each other.

Throw out the musc, the clothes, the makeup. Yes, it is silly. So are Aberzombie and Bitch outfits and the latest cell phones. Someone mentioned goths cutting themselves. If whole groups of people are in a situation where they consider self-mutilation a good idea, there is something seriously wrong with society as a whole. The last thing you need to do is pick on them more and try to damage their sense of belonging to something.

If I had gone to public schools and wasn't such a hardline nonconformist and lunatic by nature, I'd probably have ended up a goth. Just another nerdy guy, too skinny and with a stutter that makes his bizarrely complicated conversation even harder to understand. I'm something else entirely, but I can at least sympathize with them.

Pick on their music, their clothes, and their makeup. Those things are silly from your perspective, and mine too. But don't attack what and who they are.

And yes, I loved Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines video game, but who didn’t? It was a great game!

Actually, it was a horrible game. Great fun, and with a decent plot, but I don't know anybody who could get it to run at a normal framerate or play for more than 45 minutes without it crashing. Still, I played it four or five times, so who am I to complain? And Zelda is totally goth.

[Spoon Poetic]

I agree with you, Cyzyk. I hung out with the "goth" kids more than anyone else - they just were cooler people. The poseurs were the irritating ones, and we smacked them down off their high horse pretty quickly. The "true" goths or whatever actually didn't label themselves as goth, they got labeled goth by everyone else that felt like their own existence was threatened by this handful of kids that actually accepted people for who they are and not what they had; that liked pretty things like corsets and black ribbons and lace; and that expressed themselves creatively through their makeup. And if they cut, they didn't go around showing it off, so no one knew. No one was elitist about music or clothes or anything, they just followed their own preferences.

However, this kind of "true goth" is getting harder to find, and instead, poseur emos are everywhere. Now that I can make fun of.

[Cyzyk]

However, this kind of "true goth" is getting harder to find, and instead, poseur emos are everywhere. Now that I can make fun of.

Definately. I was in one of my uni cafeterias (meeting with someone; I sure don't eat in 'em) and some emo-wannabe kid walks by, his emo (AKA girl's) pants hanging off his underwear by friction and the grace of God.

Well, he forgot to say his prayers to either God or friction, since they fell off smack in the middle of about 50 people. If you had self-esteem issues of some sort, would you wear pants that fell down? Heck, if you didn't have issues, would you? That's not a fashion statement, that's just stupid.

And greatly amusing.

[barend]

So it’s not cool to wear black if everyone wears black?

No it's pretty much always cool to wear black. black is the coolest apparel shade there is. Wearing black, however, just to be affiliated with a movement copying the dying remnants of another subculture and think that the act alone will be what makes you that is utterly retarded and try-hard.

Don't tell the Amish!

The Amish already know they're cool. They seperated themselves from mainstream society bacuase they are just that cool.

I don't look or dress normal. I stagger around wearing what I can buy cheap in black, because I don't do colors. Colors mean things to some people, and apparently some do not go well with others.

Black is always seasonal, formal, and appropriate. Also, it matches everything especially itself, and absorbs light to keep me warm.

I agree. Colours are generally for stage dancers and people who want to be coreagraphed in one form or another.

My only real problem with current goth culture is that it's too superficial. It's about wearing black, and that's it. They still listen to mainstream music. The Pepsi corporation tells them that they're rebelling if they listen to linkin park or evanes.. efavesance.. or whatever and they believe it. They take the word of everything they're meant to be rebelling against. It's still mainsteam slave music. There's alot of cool music out there and alot of cool films and books that are all the things they would want if they were who they claim to be, but generally they are not.

All they are doing is alienating themselves from other people who are exactly like them.

Don't get me wrong, I just don't like it when people use the name of something that doesn't really represent them, because before you know it everyone says "no, that's what it is now" and it becomes so. I don't mind things evolving, but when scenes get hoodwinked by the mainstream and become another easily controlled market, all independant art gets swept under the rug for ever.

[Heccubus]

Definately. I was in one of my uni cafeterias (meeting with someone; I sure don't eat in 'em) and some emo-wannabe kid walks by, his emo (AKA girl's) pants hanging off his underwear by friction and the grace of God.

Well, he forgot to say his prayers to either God or friction, since they fell off smack in the middle of about 50 people. If you had self-esteem issues of some sort, would you wear pants that fell down? Heck, if you didn't have issues, would you? That's not a fashion statement, that's just stupid.

And greatly amusing.

Then he's just a retard who doesn't understand the concept of "fit". I wear women's jeans because I'm so thin that men's jeans usually hang off of me and I look ridiculous. I'm sure a lot of people think I look ridiculous in tighter fitting jeans, but I have no desire to wear anything baggy. All of my clothes are form-fitting to a degree that I'm sure many would find uncomfortable. That said, however, I recently discovered the glory of "skinny fit" mens jeans, which are more or less my dream come true. They fit the way I like, and there's room for...you know....places.

And I too wanted to say something about the cutting thing earlier. That's a pretty grand stereotype that gets thrown around a lot. And it's not even remotely true. I've had a number of goth friends over the years, and a number of friends that cut themselves. Coincidentally, none of the goths flowed over into the latter group of friends. The same with my emo friends. In fact, the goth/emo friends I have are probably the happiest people I've ever met. The fact that most of them are coke fiends is probably beside the point, right? RIGHT?

(To clarify, the coke thing is more of a regional issue. A lot of people in Hamilton, my old stomping ground, are into that particular nasty substance.)

This post has been edited by Heccubus: 11 December 2007 - 07:22 PM

[Snake Logan]

No it's pretty much always cool to wear black. black is the coolest apparel shade there is. Wearing black, however, just to be affiliated with a movement copying the dying remnants of another subculture and think that the act alone will be what makes you that is utterly retarded and try-hard.

I wore all black in high school because it made me thinner. Does that count?

[barend]

Yes...

Yes it does.

I wear black because it helps me dissapear into the shadows. Also, I'm a suprisingly quiet mover. I have to clap my hands when moving through bat country or they fly into me.

[Snake Logan]

Yes...

Yes it does.

I wear black because it helps me dissapear into the shadows. Also, I'm a suprisingly quiet mover. I have to clap my hands when moving through bat country or they fly into me.

Our walls were colourful in high school. Some would say too colourful.

[Heccubus]

I wear a lot of black because....well I just like black. It's my favorite colour (and don't give me that "it's not a colour" nonsense). I've always worn a lot of black. Which I guess would explain a brief foray into an almost goth-type-phase a number of years ago. Me with long dyed-black hair. Shudder.

[Snake Logan]

I rebelled, sort of. My school told me that I could wear my favourite colour which was blue, so I decided to wear all black just to spite them… and because it looks thinning.

[Spoon Poetic]

... How is doing something that's perfectly allowed spiting them? If all they did was say, "Sure, blue's alright to wear," but then you go and wear black, I don't get the statement that is making. I doubt your school did, either. If they had said, "We don't like students to wear all black," then wearing all black would be spiting them.

[Snake Logan]

... How is doing something that's perfectly allowed spiting them? If all they did was say, "Sure, blue's alright to wear," but then you go and wear black, I don't get the statement that is making. I doubt your school did, either. If they had said, "We don't like students to wear all black," then wearing all black would be spiting them.

I am just making excuses for wearing all black throughout high school. Now if I can only justify wearing women’s underwear then we are all set!