Scene Drama

I was just reading ::this:: post by The Everyday Goth, and I thoroughly recommend it - especially if you are a younger Goth in your teens, and are first encountering drama within any scene or subculture. I wrote a fairly long comment on the article, and I think article struck a chord with me. I am not going to repeat what The Everyday Goth has already said; I agree with all the advice she has given and certainly think it is good advice to follow. 

My first observation on scene drama is that there appears to be two kinds of drama - the kind where there is no underlying actual problem other than a person who likes to create drama, and people deliberately wanting drama are creating a storm in a tea cup over nothing much, and the other kind where whatever the underlying argument is, feelings run deep and the actual issue needs to be resolved at some point for it to stop continually resurfacing. 

The first type can be ridden out, and with careful observation those who are either starting or perpetuating the drama for their amusement or for some silly convoluted social politics will be evident, so you can know to avoid those people and their drama. This sort of drama is usually either entirely fabricated with the use of rumours and gossip, or a deliberate escalation of what really ought to be a minor and private matter. A key sign with this sort of drama, and those who start it is that it makes private disagreements as public as possible - people involved will post their personal fallings-out on social media, on forums, and tell everyone who will listen, provide you with screen-caps of sections of privately messaged conversation to "prove" who is in the right, and try and get as many people as possible to join in with the airing of grievances. Whether this is done to deliberately damage someone's reputation or simply because the person in question is wanting to be the centre of attention, similar methods are used, and the dispute being aired is either nonsense or something minor that has been inflated, and is absolutely not worth getting involved in - getting involved will only make matters worse, and is best ignored and left to die of attention starvation. 

The second type is trickier, especially when it is an issue that actually involves the local scene instead of just an issue affecting the personal lives of certain members - say an argument over the management/mismanagement of club nights or the organisation of an event or some such (for example there's been big drama recently in the Lolita community over how certain large Lolita events in America were run, with online petitions being written, and people in communities world-wide getting involved if even as distant commentators). These sorts of dramas are not empty, and while people's personal grievances often get dragged into them, there is usually a larger underlying issue. 

Sometimes it is worth getting involved to get the issue solved, but it has to be done in a way that is constructive rather than causes a rift. These sorts of issues are certainly where The Everyday Goth's advice of picking your battles is important, and knowing where the boundaries are between constructive disagreement and causing a vicious schism. Certainly, if you feel there is a real issue in your community, do what you can to further things, but make sure your behaviour in trying to achieve results does not degenerate to petty tactics. I often see people who think they are campaigning on the side of some variant on righteousness acting in ways that really are not right at all. If there is a problem in your Goth, Lolita or similar community, it needs resolving so that you are a stronger and more cohesive group, not becoming the starting point for a major and divisive issue; divisions in the community will weaken it, will make it harder for people to collaborate and organise things, and generally more difficult for any form of progress to be made, whether it relates to the issue that caused the division or not.

I should not have to really write this guide to good conduct, but as these issues constantly resurface, and often times those perpetuating them seem like perhaps they really have lost touch with what is reasonable in their endeavours rather than are simply nasty people, here it is:

Don't result to personal insults, threats or wishing misfortune on people. It is incredibly childish. I work at a primary school and this is literally the sort of behaviour I sometimes witness in the playground. If you are older than 13, you have no excuse to be acting like this, and even if you are younger than that, you should be learning to make better choices. If I expect better conduct from a child at primary school than what you are doing, you have really, really, stooped low. "You are lower than scum" is just a more elaborate way of saying "You're a poop-head" and no less childish. 

No giant internet battles/flame wars! This is where the entire forum, or even a large section of the online community for a scene, are arguing over the internet with each other. We probably all have better things to spend that time on in our offline lives! Sometimes people on the internet are wrong, and you do not have to make it your personal mission to correct every wrong person. 

No getting an e-posse on side to troll and harass the opposition. It is tempting to tell all your friends about how bad something is and urge them to take action, but be careful about who you are talking to. There are those people who, on hearing about an issue, will take time to look at both sides of the problem, and consider their stance - and only then take action, and if so, will do so with reasoned arguments if participating in discussion, or maybe with signing a petition if it is a big issue, or perhaps write an article on their position that is not vindictive or denegrating the opposition. There are also those who will only have listened to, or understood, half of what you have told them, have no interest in the other side of the matter, jump to conclusions, act purely on a knee-jerk emotional reaction rather than take time to look into things more deeply, and will immediately start with the hateful words and the "I hope you die in a fire" type comments. Think before you tell people things; if a person falls into the second category, telling them may unwittingly escalate things. If you are deliberately inciting the second category of people, that is deliberately provoking drama and it is a) counterproductive to your cause and b) very petty. 

No screaming matches. If you have got to the point where you are actually face-to-face yelling at each other, you have both lost. No progress can be made when emotions are running that high and people are too hurt and too angry to think straight. At this point it is better to walk away and let somebody else take on the role of trying to fix the issue. If it has got as far as a real life argument, then both people arguing are probably very firmly fixed in their perspective, and it is often a complete waste of time arguing with them, especially as the more emotionally attached someone is to an issue, the more likely they are to disregard any reason or evidence that goes counter to their stance. 

Certainly no attempts at trying to bring harsh real-world problems onto those you disagree with. This means no doxxing, no telling people's employers or similar institutions with authority over them that after hours they are goths/fetishists/Pagans/whatever misunderstood group, etc. (something similar happened to me when I was a teen about me being Pagan...). I have even seen petitions to have people fired from their jobs where the issue has absolutely no relation to their employment. Those who start these actions are often being vindictive at worst, or at best hugely misguided in an "the ends justify the means" attempt to improve things, and those who join in to support these actions need to thoroughly consider how destructive the rammification of these actions are. Sometimes the ends do not justify the means, and it is real people being hurt at the other side of a computer screen. 

If there is a real issue in your community that needs to be addressed, try and resolve it like mature adults with discussions, compromises, and simply refusing to participate in events you don't think are run right, or if you think you could do better, actually DOING that. The phrase "I could do better" often crops up in complaints about club nights, amongst the perennial complaints about club nights "the music selection is awful! The venue is awful! The timing is awful! I could do better!!" - but rarely does anyone actually try and do better, because they are just wanting to moan, and neither do they request better tunes, actually contact anyone about improvements to the venue ("the toilet door's broken, it's been that way for years" - so has anyone told the management about this? Has anyone contacted the venue owners? Has anyone made a proper complaint? Maybe even volunteered to fix it?) or suggest better dates - for example, if a club night is mainly patronised by students, it is probably best to host a summer event AFTER university exams are over, so those running the club night need to know when that is. Communicate issues clearly, speak up to those who have the power to change things, and if you honestly think you can do better, have a go; maybe you could be the start of something good!

5 Things I Would Tell My Babybat Self

I watched ::this:: video on "3 Things You'd Tell Your New Lolita Self" by 'The Adventures of Rhon and Quinn' and it inspired me to think about what I would tell my Babybat newbie-Goth self. I started off with just 3 things, and ended up with 5... I've had over 10 years of hindsight to recognise my mistakes, and I'm sure in another 10 years I'll be able to write a longer list! 

1) Just because something is black, that does not make it Goth.

This happened mostly because I could not afford to buy from proper made-for-Goth shops, and I was not very good at thrifting yet, especially as I was 14, 15 years old and didn't have much of an income, and not allowed to go internet shopping, plus I was at boarding school and not really allowed in the Goth shops in town... not that this actually stopped me from sneaking off anyway. I would eagerly grab anything that fit me and was black, and try and put it together into an outfit, with accessories that were as close to Goth as I could manage... really, I just looked a mismatched mess. I should have given some more thought to what I was wearing, and balanced desperation with patience, because I was unhappy with how I looked in what I thought was 'Goth' and this put me off fashion part of the subculture for a while (during which I experimented with hippie, Steampunk and anachronistic fashion) and not looking the part made it hard for me to get the confidence to talk to other people about my Goth interests, because I presumed they'd be cliquish as teenagers can be, and dismiss me for not looking Goth enough. I think this held back my exploration of the subculture. If I had put together flattering Goth outfits earlier, I think I would have stayed with Goth for a while longer, but I guess then I would not have learnt how to gather the medieval and fantasy elements from hippie fashion and use those in Goth, or bought some of the long velvet skirts I later dyed black, or got into Steampunk (while cross-dressing) and learnt how to do a shirt + frock-coat + waistcoat + trousers + hat outfit properly quite early on (good practice for wearing Ouji and Gothic Aristocrat fashion!). Either way, it's still good advice, and perhaps I needed to explore other subcultures anyway, and would have done that anyway. 

2) Try and get inspiration from the make-up of some Gothic icons - don't try and 'just make it up' yet!

My teenager-self's make-up skills were thoroughly awful. Dire does not even cover it. I had no idea how to blend pale foundation, no idea how to do neat eyeliner, no idea how to pick colours for my skin-tone, no idea on contouring, no idea even on how to properly tidy up my shrubbery eyebrows! Compounding this lack of skill was treating my face like a sketchbook and basically scribbling swirls on. I like swirls, but they are NEVER going to be well-achieved with a blunt kohl pencil and no real idea on how to swirl. (I feel like one day doing a make-up tutorial SPECIFICALLY on how to do snazzy swirls with different kinds of liquid eyeliners). I looked a bit like a panda that had been attacked with a Sharpie marker. Part of the problem was that I had no real idea what I was aiming for, and while there were a few Gothic make-up tutorials on the internet back then, there were far few than there are now. Modern newbie Goths - be glad you have the resources on the internet to learn from! At the time, I was probably better off having a good look at what the various female vocalists I liked were doing, and working from there - and not taking inspiration from drawings I'd found of "Gothic" characters on Elfwood! 

To newbie Goths now, I would suggest watching and looking at as many make-up tutorials as possible, and always look at the end result and try and find tutorials with good, clear photographs and clear instructions. Not all make-up tutorials are created equal. Look at several tutorials for the same sort of design and see which works best for you. Also, do not try and cover acne with foundation - it makes the acne worse and does nothing to cover the texture, just the redness. 

3) Don't take every opportunity possible to rail against the failings of the world.

I really should have learnt not to rant about the "terrible conformist world that makes everyone try and live robotic lives", why "the patriarchy is RUINING EVERYTHING" and anything else I had strong opinions on and little information about when I was a teen. I was on the right side of the argument, but I wasn't right. I also felt that being angry at "the world" and "the system" was the rebellious Goth thing to do, and I was genuinely angry at the world as I started to break out of the bubble of childhood innocence  - which was more when adults tried to shield me from how bad the world beyond my life really is; I always seemed to be a bit more aware of what was going on than most of my peers, and that wasn't always a good thing. On the receiving end of a lot of injustices myself (I'm not going to go into the details, but life growing up was hard, painful and not very pleasant), I tended to be very quick to notice other injustices in the world. I could see a lot of things were very wrong, but I didn't know enough yet to get beyond the surface reasons as to why they were wrong, or to have any idea of what I, personally, could do beyond rant to everyone who would listen about how everything was wrong, wrong! WRONG! I mostly made an idiot of myself, I didn't change anyone's opinions, effect any change in the world, or even properly ally myself with those who knew more about these things than I did. 

I actually see a lot of young keyboard 'social justice warriors' who have access to reading about a lot of issues via the internet, but seem stuck at the same place - it's easy to call people out on accidental slights, or write long blog posts on the problems you see in the world, and it helps you vent all that righteous anger that is mostly justified, but it doesn't actually do much to fix the problem. Ranting at people alienates those who might otherwise come to your side and grow to be allies. I would suggest volunteering for charities as soon as you're old enough, and trying to listen to as many perspectives as possible. It's important to have compassion for the people who disagree with you, and who are on the side of wrong, because they didn't end up there for no reason. Often, hatred is a reaction to a deeper underlying problem, often an injustice they have received. Always individuate, and try not to generalise; those particular thuggish yobs who threw stones and called you a "Goth freak" are prejudiced and bad people for throwing stones, but they do not represent everyone in a tracksuit, and they probably have hard lives themselves - not that this justifies their actions, but it does give a starting point for understanding them, and it is only through understanding that change can be wrought. 

Also, being angry at the world is not a prerequisite to being Goth. 

4) Try to listen to a wider variety of music genres.
I was into Marilyn Manson, Within Temptation, Evanescence, Nightwish... and pretty much only Marilyn Manson, Within Temptation, Evanescence and Nightwish. I was very narrow in my tastes, and oblivious to how qualities I liked (and still like in music) aren't genre dependent; right now I love Hozier's "Take Me To Church" and Coldplay's "Cemeteries of London" - not exactly Siouxsie and the Banshees or Joy Division! 

I went through a phase of almost ignoring the classical genres I actually really like because they didn't seem Goth enough... oh, if only I had put together then my playlists like the "Gothic Classical: Dinner Party" one I put together a short while back - excerpts of Léon Boëllmann's "Suite Gothique", plenty of Arvo Pärt's works ('De Profundis' is a masterpiece!), the absolutely divine and heavenly "In Paradisum" by Gabriel Fauré from his Requiem mass... I put together over 2 hours of amazing classical music with  Gothic atmosphere very rapidly. If i wanted to put together something all dark and stormy but classical, I'm sure I could easily look to lots of Liszt (Totentanz?), 'Night on Bald Mountain' by Mussorgsky or a whole heap of Sturm und Drang period music (Beethoven!). 

Also, the music I was listening to wasn't Goth - it was shock rock, Gothic metal, symphonic metal... And I didn't even know it! Goth as a music genre is a specific thing, and these artists while certainly Gothic, weren't Goth, but I thought they were. I still like Marilyn Manson's music, I still like Evanescence and Nightwish, but I feel that genres should be properly categorised. If you are a newbie Goth, try to listen for that Gothic influence in a variety of different genres of music, and try to get a good grasp of the musical history of the subculture. Without the bands of the late '70s and early '80s the subculture would have probably never crystallised into existence. 

5) Don't try and deliberately be "shocking" as a method of rebellion. 
I was a bit antagonistic and argumentative as a teen - I tried to be deliberately "scary", to mention witchcraft in a way that was probably dishonouring my religion, and make inappropriate criticisms of the faith and institutions I was surrounded by. I was lashing out at what I felt to be a very constrictive set of circumstances, but all I was doing was provoking people in a way that was counterproductive to my interests, and giving Goth and Wicca a bad name in the process. I was a very badly behaved babybat in this respect, and I am glad I did all this before social media really took off, so my impact was geographically and socially limited. I was young, emotionally immature for my physical years, dealing with partially treated mental health issues and very, very angry at the world, which to some extent explains some of my behaviour, but does not excuse it. I felt at odds with the "establishment" world, and felt like I was being pressured to conform to a set of standards and expectations that I had no interest in (and still don't) and that as I was heading to the age where I was expected to choose a career and what university I was to attend, that my whole life was going to be shaped by these pressures from my family and those around me, to become something "sensible" and "respectable" and most of all "normal" - and as I felt powerless to take any real control over my life, I decided to just try and antagonise all those who I perceived as trying to control me. All I achieved was to create more battles for myself, more unnecessary struggles in a life already full of unavoidable struggles; I made life considerably harder for myself.

My reaction to what I saw as "being forced to be what I'm not" was to try and deliberately be the opposite of everything expected of me. Most of these opposites were all exaggerations of myself, pushed to extremes in order to be that antithesis; I was really just being childish and contrary, these things were not who I really was. If I was able to go back and tell my teenage self some advice, I would say that I should definitely remain true to myself, but I should not react to the pressures to conform by deliberately being the antithesis of everything they wanted, because that was NOT being true to myself.  With time, I learnt that I was not always going to be under the control of others, and now I am very keen to be mistress of my own life, and to be in control of the various aspects of how I live. By the time I was 19, I ended up with a part-time job, doing creative things at college (after I had to leave school a year early due to health reasons and then take time out to recover), and I am still Goth, still alternative, still proudly freaky and very creative over 10 years later. Some of this happened 13, 14 years ago now! I have not had to buckle to 'the system', I have not been forced to conform, and I have learnt that I do not have to live the life that other people felt was best for me. 


Hindsight is 20/20. I made my mistakes, so now you don't have to!

What Does Goth Mean To Me

Goth has been my sanctuary, my bridge connecting me to others, and is something I love being a part of. 

I've already written a post about how I define Goth ::here:: - this isn't about that, this is about how Goth has been a positive influence on my life, and why I love being part of the subculture. I'm posting this today as today is World Goth Day which seems like the perfect day for an article like this. One of my friends on FaceBook asked me this question, and I think it's a really good one, but also one I can answer in quite a bit of depth. Be warned: wordiness ahead!

One thing that is probably obvious is that I am hugely passionate about the Goth subculture and the broader Gothic aesthetic. I run this blog, run one group and participate in several online communities, organise tea parties within the local scene, try to attended every event in a four-hour travel radius (and fail when I need to be in three places at once) and am working on a Secret Gothic Plan (or three) that I will only unveil when complete. I dress Goth every day - even my work clothes have a Goth or Gothic edge even if it's very toned down - and everything from my home decor to my work-out music has been touched by the Gothic aesthetic whether musically or visually or whatnot. I'm currently burning some incense called "Vampire's Blood" so my apartment even smells Gothic! :P  Most of my interests are dark, macabre or somehow tie in with the subculture. I am pretty much a "lifestyle" Goth, down to graveyard picnics and structuring holidays around what ruined castles I can visit.

I don't think this makes me a better Goth than someone that only participates in a few online groups, or only listens to Goth music sometimes, or doesn't get to dress Goth most of the time - just one with more opportunities to express myself, and perhaps a slightly more enthusiastic one. 

Goth means an awful lot to me for a lot of reasons. I am passionate about my subculture because I am driven to give back to an entity to which I feel indebted for how it has bettered and enriched my existence. 

The subculture has been the first group into which I feel I have been accepted. Within the Goth subculture I have found other people with similar interests to me, and people who are very accepting of differences too. I have found people who genuinely understand me. In Goth I have found a group who rather than being freaked out by my "creepy" interests or laughing at my "outdated" tastes in music, or prejudiced against my "occult" spirituality accept these things and actually think such things are interesting too. Other Goths will have actual conversations about the history and social context of vampire mythology or about how the style of architecture termed as "Gothic" is actually an umbrella for quite a few stylistic variances and centuries of building, or even something like whether Patricia Morrison or Siouxsie Sioux had the cooler hair!

For reasons I would rather not go into on my public blog, I have always had trouble with socialising and being "normal" in many ways, and I have my quirks in terms of personality and in terms of how I think and am, and whereas many mainstream people treat me like I am stupid or insane for my innate eccentricities, within the Goth subculture people have been far more accommodating and accepting of how I am different. Within the Goth subculture I have finally felt like I am no longer an outcast - and as someone who was severely bullied and ostracised by their peers through out their school years, that meant a the whole world to me as a teen when I was first getting into the scene.

Spotting another Goth is a good way of spotting someone I will probably have at least one thing in common with beyond simply being in the same place, and while not all Goths have the same interests or compatible personalities, it has been a good way for me to find like-minded individuals, many of whom have become very good friends indeed. I am also not the best at striking up conversations, least of all with strangers, and it has been a blessing in making it easier for me to actually talk to someone, knowing that they probably won't freak out at how I look and probably has a few things in common with. It can't magically improve my social skills, but it does improve my confidence. 

I have made so many good friends within the subculture - I'm sure most of my best friends I met either at Goth events or through just bumping into someone with a similar dress sense and getting chatting. Many of the friends I made at college and school are folk who were good friends while we were studying together, but we left we have drifted apart. I'm still friends with my Goth friends from England even since crossing the border, and some of my Internet-based friendships are across thousands of miles with people I will probably never be able to afford to meet -in Canada, America and Australia- but we're still good friends. 

I also owe meeting Raven in part to my Goth and Gothic interests - one of the things that brought me and Kate B together was a mutual fondness for the dark, creepy and Gothic (even though we initially met through mutual geekdom) and if I had not become friends with her, she would never have introduced me to Raven, who himself is partly Goth (although mostly a Metalhead and Industrial fan - I'm a firm believer that you can be fan of more than one genre at once, and certainly participate in several related subcultures) and I'm sure that sharing a love of the macabre has strengthened our relationship - we go clubbing together, we watch supernatural and Gothic horror movies together, we borrow each others' black nail polish and half the time I'm wearing either one of his coats or something, and he appreciates being given the darkest roses I can find, or a resin skull to decorate his side table, or whatnot. 

Goth is something I got into as a very troubled teen going through a lot of confusing and painful experiences. It gave me a subculture in which I could find sanctuary and acceptance, and helped me forge an outlook on life that sees the beauty in the darkness, and has helped me to see times of suffering as something to learn from and transform into creative out-put rather than as something to overwhelm me. Since then my circumstances have much improved, and like most people, I have come to know myself better and have resolved things like figuring out my sexuality, knowing what I want to do in life, dealing with the complex issues within my family and accepting a lot of who I am. I no longer have the same worries, the same problems with bullying and boarding school, the same problems at home, the same mental health problems, etc. so I don't need that safe haven as much as I once did, but I am glad that it has always been there for me. 

Within Goth it is more acceptable to acknowledge and express the darker emotions, and the response I got was mostly supportive. Certainly there were those who dismissed me as a histrionic teen full of melodramatic angst, but for the most part people were non-judgemental and prepared to listen. People outside the subculture often say that Goth is depressing, but I think it contributed in improving my mental health and making me a generally happier person. I still struggle with depression, and it is probably something that will recur throughout my life, but I am by no means in as dark and horrible mental place as I was as a teenager and have not had any episodes as dark as that in the years between then and now. 

One of the central themes of much Goth and Gothic art is acknowledging the darkness and facing what lies within it rather than running away. I think that attitude, both to my personal problems and to life itself, has really helped me be a more grounded person. Life has its troubles and strife, but trying very hard to push it all away eventually becomes counter-productive, and problems are best solved by facing them. Reality may often suck, but it is the only reality we have, and to best cope with it and to best see its brilliance as well as what it can inflict on us, we have to appreciate it in its entirety. 

Goth also helped me out of that very dark time by showing me replacements to the thoroughly dysfunctional methods I used to try and keep my inner turmoil at bay. The two most prominent things I can think of are almost teenage angsty Goth stereotypes, but I can honestly say they actually helped. 

I learnt to use my (very badly written) poetry as a vent rather than keep things pent up - it was work I would never share, and certainly had little literary merit, but the act of trying to express myself through words and metaphor helped me to better understand my own emotions and think about whatever problem was at hand in a less anxiety producing way. In writing plenty of bad poems, and reading plenty of good ones, I also slowly learnt to write better poetry and to write poetry for more than just to vent emotions. I was not trying to be as dark as possible, or write genre poems, I was just trying to turn the complex mess of emotions and thoughts in my head into something more concrete and understandable, and it worked. 

Much of the music I listened to was very helpful, too, even if that is a complete cliche and even if my first 'dark' bands and music was not actually Goth, just often thought of as Goth by those who do not know it as a musical genre, like Marilyn Manson, Evanescence and Nightwish. It meant something to me that other people felt their own pains and wrote songs about it, rather than hiding it and pretending to be happy, and while those musicians are often dismissed as the stuff for babybats or just plain not part of the subculture, they're part of my history of becoming Goth, and they are something that really helped me get through some tough times, and inspired me to write my own songs - another creative process that helped untangle the chaos. Since then I fell in love with actual Goth, Post-Punk and Darkwave stuff (and a good bit of French Coldwave) as my regular readers will know. 

I believe that my life would have taken a much more negative path out of my teens if I had not become a Goth, and for that I feel hugely grateful that the subculture exists and that all those good people were within it. Goth has also been a useful umbrella for all the interests that draw me in - I am sure I would still love vampires, historical architecture, macabre artwork and suchlike if the music scene of the late '70s and early '80s had not coalesced into the subculture we know today, but the subculture's existence has given me a framework for those interests, and an easy way of finding those that share them. I have discovered so many things that I have come to love through the subculture, and met so many brilliant, accepting and supportive people. Goth changed my life for the better. Yes, humans are inherently variable and my experience has not been a completely good one, but I feel that the overall contribution has been vastly positive. Some people grow out of the subculture, but over the last decade or more I have grown into it, and long may I continue to be part of it. 

World Goth Day website is ::here:: and all the W.G.D. artwork and graphics were produced by DJ Cruel Britannia and are available to share to promote W.G.D on their website.