'Goth' and 'Gothic; A Disambiguation

Most of my readers probably already know the difference, but I commonly see the two words used interchangeably, so I feel like a disambiguation could be useful. I guess part of the reason is that the Goth subculture is built upon the Gothic, but Goth is a more complex layering.

The term Gothic comes from the name of the architectural style, which itself was a misnomer. The pointed-arch style which is called Gothic was named so after Neo-Classical styles became fashionable, where the pointed arch style was misattributed to the historical Germanic tribes, whereas it mostly originated in France. The application of the term to things that were a specific kind of 'spooky' came a bit later, with late Romanticism bringing about a certain sort of horror novel, where an atmospheric setting was an essential component as much as supernatural elements, and the setting was often something like an old castle or abbey or such building, and often those buildings were Gothic - because by the 18thC those buildings were already centuries old and a good few had plenty of myths and legends already attached to them. That genre of horror, at that time primarily literary, but with a few illustrations and artworks beginning to emerge, which became the 'Gothic novel'.

As time progressed, the elements of the Gothic novel - the conflict between good and evil, the idea of there being a secret or mystery to uncover, the supernatural entities such as ghosts, vampires and werewolves (or the 'explained supernatural' of the likes of the works of Ann Radcliffe), and the atmospheric setting - got applied to more works in other mediums, such as paintings, poems, plays, music and into the 20thC cinema.

It is this Gothic genre which underpins a lot of the Goth subculture - it has given us a fashion aesthetic, an attitude of dark Romanticism, and plenty of subject matter for songs - however, it has also influenced aspects of metal, and there's plenty of people who enjoy aspects of the Gothic without being members of any subculture too, they just read a lot of Gothic novels and watch vampire movies. Those elements have permeated pop-culture, as well as subcultures, and are very prevalent. Often, when something is misidentified as 'Goth', what has been identified has been an element of the Gothic.

So, what makes Goth different to the Gothic?
I would say - in general terms, with exceptions - that all Goths are Gothic, not all Gothic things (or people) are Goth. The Gothic is the fertile ground from which Goth grew, but Goth is more than just an appreciation for the Gothic, and it has a very specific manifestation.

While Goth is a manifestation of the Gothic, Goth has more elements to it than just the Gothic, and it is something more specific. Most obviously, it has the Goth genre (and it's subgenres/similar enough genres) of music; the stuff that evolved out of '80s post-punk. You can see the influences of the Gothic in the lyric content and imagery of that '80s post-punk ("Bela Lugosi's Dead, Undead..." playing vampires in Gothic horror movies), but there are other visual, philosophical, and musical influences in that genre. Goth as a subculture is an eclectic amalgam of other aspects of primarily Western culture - it's taken from fetish culture, it's got fuzzy borders with the realms of metal (Fields of the Nephilim... ), it's taken horror tropes from outside the Gothic genre of horror (a I know a lot of Goths that are interested in the murderous psychopath sort of horror stories, for example), and it balances nihilism and Romanticism. Goth came about in the '80s, so there's stuff in the Goth fashion/style that's just a darker adaptation of what was popular in the '80s, such as angular makeup and back-combed hair. Goth also grew from punk, so there's aspects of punk thinking, although somewhat less political, in Goth, too, obvious in Goth's emphasis on the resistance of individuality despite external pressures to conform.

For example, while I'm a Goth because I like Goth music, try and make it to gigs when I can, participate in the club scene (as dwindling as it is where I live), have an attitude with roots in those movements outside of the Gothic that influenced Goth, and I take aesthetic cues from Goth fashion as well as Romantic fashion, I'm fundamentally also Gothic because that is the underpinning mind set - which, in me personally manifests itself in a love for the Gothic as originated in Gothic novels; the ruined architecture, the spooky castles, the ghosts and vampires, the cemeteries, the ancient curses and that dramatic, Byronic sort of decadence... 'Gothic' is the broader umbrella under which Goth shelters. It's also probably the term which should replace 'Goth' in terms like 'Pastel-Goth' or 'Cholo-Goth' which seem to have very little to do with the Goth subculture, but do have a connection to the darker things in life and, at least with Pastel Goth, I've seen Gothic elements like vampires, ghosts, bats and zombies as motifs.

I've seen terms like 'Darksider' and 'Schwarz Szene' to describe the broader miasma of dark subcultures (I'd say 'cloud' but we're being spooky here!) including Industrial, Cyber-Goth, and some parts of Metal, and I don't think Gothic can really replace that, because certainly some of the darkness embraced  in these subcultures is from quite a different angle than that within the Gothic genre - lots of dystopian, science-fiction inspiration exists in Industrial and Cyber-Goth especially, and again, the sort of horror that explores themes of madness, psychopathy, and a generally more 'clinical' (for lack of a better word) look into why people do terrible things, rather than a philosophical or supernatural/religious angle. There are still elements of the Gothic, however - songs about demons, devils, vampires and ghosts, supernatural motifs and a sort of Gothic-meets-science-fiction reminiscent of things like the 'Doom' gaming franchise, it just seems to be less of a thematic core, and certainly less of a strong underlying principle or aesthetic.

[An aside on Pastel-Goth: I've seen the term 'Creepy-Cute' used for what is known as 'Pastel-Goth'and I know that this is probably related to the play on words  in Japanese between 'kawaii' (cute) and 'kowoi' (scary), so maybe that is a better term altogether? I also don't know what this aesthetic is called in Japan, which appears to be where it originated.]

I think the word "Gothic" as a term to describe a person whose personality includes that sort of mind-set, those interests, that sort of aesthetic, is under-utilised, and is the answer for a lot of people who aren't Goth specifically, but want an umbrella to identify with - 'Gothic' is probably the better term. Certainly, it's an adjective rather than a noun, and lot of us are used to rolling our eyes (perhaps discreetly) when asked "so, are you a 'goffik'?" but I think it's the perfect term for people who love spooky things, but aren't so keen on the sound of the genres considered 'Goth' and would rather listen to say, metal or darker classical works, or maybe darker folk or similar, and just can't get into fishnet and backcombed hair, and hate clubbing, and as all Goths are inherently a bit Gothic anyway, we're all under the same spooky umbrella, so it's not excluding anyone by saying they're not a Goth, rather including a wider range of people by saying 'we're all Gothic', and most of the arguments over the term Goth don't really stem form what Goth is or isn't, but whether someone is included or excluded from the category. 

Subcategories - A Discussion

This is a response to my ::previous article:: being discussed in part on the Cemetery Confessions internet radio/podcast, in the most recent episode, ::here::. I suggest you listen to it - both because Cemetery Confessions is an excellent pod-cast, and because otherwise this post won't really make much sense. 

I don't intend this as an argument in any personal term, this is just my riposte in the debate, and I don't want anyone to misconstrue this as an attempt on my part to start any drama - I see this as a debate, where I've raised points, the Count and those on the show have given disagreements, and I give counter-arguments in the debating sense of the word - and I hope this conversation keeps going! 

The first disagreement discussed is in relation to Romantic Goths.  To them, Romanticism is only an underlying tenet of Goth, rather than something that can be considered a separate aspect of it - I agree that Romanticism is indeed a major contributing factor to the Gothic mindset and the Gothic Subculture in general, and it is an underlying tenet indeed  - the distinction I was making is that there are some people who gravitate more to that specific aspect of the subculture. All of the things I mention as being apart of a subcategory are not exclusive to the subcategories- and they shouldn't be - and the way I see a subcategory, it is more about from which perspective you approach the subculture, rather than an separate group within Goth that is a bubble divided from the other parts. Everything that I see as a subcategory has to be within Goth already. 

The second is that I think my take on the Megan Balanck stereotypes has been misconstrued - I don't actually agree with the way Goth is broken into subcategories by Megan Balanck, and I don't think I am all those labels that I fit according to her list - as my original article explained. I know they had to cut down from my original article because I do write a LOT, but I feel like at this point is was cut down in a way that lost my original point - listing all the subcategories I would fit under according to her was meant to be an example of how I find her framework overly labels things. I think labels are something that, like many things, are good in moderation. I don't think her 'Goth Stereotypes' accurately describe how Goth works (and I don't really think it was intended to), so I tried to give my own take on how things do work - and how many of things that Ms Balanck gave are making subcategories out of things I wouldn't consider to be subcategories as how I would define that - things that are hybrids with other subcultures, that are just an aesthetic, etc. I didn't really want to write an extended critique of the 'Goth Stereotypes' in my original article, but there are quite a few things I disagree with her on, especially her treating hybrids and other subcultures as part of Goth - 'Rivethead'/Industrial and Steampunk may have ties to Goth, but they are their own subcultures!

[Tangent: One particular thing I didn't like in her 'Goth Stereotypes' was her including 'mopey' and 'perky' Goth, because I think that someone's personality, or mood, aren't really subcategory at all, especially when these things are often subject to fluctuations, and especially when the idea of us being 'mopey' or depressed is an externally imposed derogatory stereotype, and I have never seen it reflected from within Goth, and feel like that unlike the others, which even if they aren't necessarily about Goths (Lolitas, Rivetheads and Steampunks aren't Goth!) do at least have a grain of truth, and some level of "it's funny because it's true" - they do at least reflect the world a little, and people can see themselves or people they know in them. The idea of 'mopey' Goths, or 'perky Goths' (usually with the latter as a deliberate contrast to the expected former stereotype) just doesn't seem true to human nature, let alone Goths.]

I think that labels can definitely be too "sticky" as The Count said, and that they shouldn't be used to box people in, or compel people to box themselves in. I've been a Romantic Goth for nearly as long as I've been Goth, and I've been Romantic for a lot longer - and I have never personally found it limiting or something which has become stale for me. The label shouldn't be something you act to fill - it should just be a description for how you already are - one thing I will always maintain about life is that it is more important to be yourself than to live up to the expectations of a label. 

I actually prefer the term "Classic Goth" that was proffered in the podcast to the term "Trad Goth". I didn't coin the term "Trad Goth", and I too am no fan of 'traditional' being contracted to 'Trad', but I just presumed it was an Americanism in this instance. I was using the term as it is the one I see most frequently used to describe people who are more interested in Goth from a perspective that is closer to its origins in music, club-culture and '80s creativity, rather than from a Romantic perspective, or from a perspective that is more ingrained with a different culture. I also think it is very important that all Goths understand their history, and the roots of the subculture - I just think that for some, both people who were there the first time around, and people who are Post-Punk revivalists of a sort, they find themselves drawn more to those aspects of Goth, and to looking at it from that perspective. I know that Goth had an ideological shift from its punk roots, and I would agree that perhaps my notion that "Classic" or "Trad" Goths are more into being deliberately subversive is more a reflection of the ones I know personally than of people who are interested in that era of Goth and that perspective on Goth in general. 

One criticism I would give of myself is that instead of trying to define what I see as subcategories, I tried to give examples of aspects -both in relation to aesthetics and in relation to music and perspective - of what sorts of things can come under that umbrella, and perhaps I would have done better to set actual parameters, even if nebulous ones. What I wanted to do was give examples of how it is more than just clothes, but what I think I actually did was further confuse the issue. 

I am not a sociologist - dilettante or academic - so I do not really know enough on that to argue the sociological framework of whether Goth is a culture or subculture, and whether Goth is influenced by its parent culture, or not. I think it's only right that I acknowledge that I'd be out of my depth there. 

J-Goth

I think the part where I disagree most is in relation to Japanese Goth and I will give my opinion as the author of the original article, and as someone interested in that aspect of the scene, but I really feel it would be better handled by a different blogger, someone like ::La Carmina:: who is more intimately connected with the scene (and has already written about how the scene is different there, and how yes, it can be more aesthetic in many ways, but that doesn't make it less sincere), or even better, someone in Japan from the Japanese Goth scene itself. I know that Cemetery Confessions has been interviewing Goths from around the world, as I was part of that, and perhaps this could open up an opportunity for the show to interview a Japanese Goth in Japan on this topic! I really don't want to talk for Japanese Goths here, because I'm a 'Franglais' person who has an interest in Japanese culture and as a Goth, an interest in how Goth is there, not someone living there, but I still feel like I ought to explain my reasoning, however.

If you're a Goth in Japan or another person with an interest in J-Goth who knows more than me, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - I'm not the font of all knowledge, and I certainly know that my perspective has limitations, plus I love to be educated! 

I think that part of the reason that Goth is fairly consistent in many places is because that there are a lot of similarities between the parent cultures - there, obviously, are differences between American, and say, British culture, but there are also a LOT of similarities, especially in our pop-cultures. Japanese culture has its similarities too, but it also has more marked differences. I don't think that I did a very good job of describing what I meant in my original article - the comment about manga, anime, etc. was more to indicate that Westerners into that part of Goth a) often come to be interested in how Goth is in Japan through depictions of Gothic themes in those media, and b) that they're into aspects of Japanese pop-culture other than just Goth in Japan, rather than this being all it takes to make someone a J-Goth (and anime and manga are examples that I expect my readers to be familiar with). 

I do think there are fads in Japanese subcultures and street-fashions (just as there are here! I see hipsters walking around in dressed in fashion that borrows a lot from the Goth aesthetic!) but I don't think that all Japanese pop-culture is all inherently faddish - just like anywhere else, if someone finds something to be a thing that they genuinely connect with and enjoy, they are likely to retain it. Yes, Japanese Goths have taken inspiration from Goths in Europe and the US, but I don't think it's a cartoonish pastiche, I think it is Goth seen through the lens of Japanese pop-culture and culture - and this makes it Goth approached from that perspective, and with its own distinctiveness. I think the "ideological influences, pop-culture influences.. ...purely aesthetic influences, moral normative type claims being either subverted or embraced in alternative way", from both directions, are precisely why Goth from Japan has evolved a little differently, and noticeably so.  

If it was just limited to Goths in Japan, I probably wouldn't call it a subcategory, more a regional distinctiveness that's a little more marked than others (and perhaps, as I mentioned, Deathrock is like that, different in its own distinct way from Post-Punk in the UK, or in Europe, because it developed in a different culture), but because it has produced a lot of tangible culture that gets consumed by, and influences a lot of Goths outside of Japan, many of whom have become very interested in Goth from a Japanese perspective because they have an interest in Japanese culture and pop-culture in general, I feel that it probably does deserve to be termed a subcategory - I can certainly see the ways in which my friends like ::K:: approach the subculture than from how I do, or my friends who could be described as 'Trad' or 'Classic' Goth do. I also acknowledge that a Goth outside of Japan approaching the Goth in Japan from their own culture and subcultural framework, and then ingesting a Japanese interpretation of Goth that in turn has been inspired by Western Goth is going to be a different perspective again to someone who is part of the Japanese scene itself. Also, aspects of Goth from a Japanese perspective have filtered into Goth in general - taking inspiration from Lolita fashion, listening to 13th Moon, discussing shinigami as psychopomps, or blending kawaii and kowai aren't limited to Japanese Goths or Goths elsewhere who have a big interested in Japanese Goth. 

I have definitely observed that there are both differences and a LOT of similarities - there has to be, otherwise it wouldn't still be Goth! Goth does have its own culture which does transcend national boundaries, but that does not mean that the culture you come from doesn't have any influence on how you interact with Goth - otherwise, using my local scene as an example, Goths here wouldn't be talking about bean sìth, the Cailleach of winter and kelpies as well as vampires, witches and werewolves, or incorporating the local folklore and history into how they interact with Goth, and wearing black kilts to club nights - for the obvious examples - although it's often far more complex than that, and harder to tease out, and I think the same applies to Goth in Japan, it's just that its more pronounced than with the differences between Goths in the US and the UK, or Goths in different parts of Europe, etc. (although I would say there definitely is a difference between continental Goths, and US and UK Goths) because the parent culture, especially in terms of pop-culture, is a little more different. 

There are definitely people in Japan who don't just put Goth on as a club costume, or just to be photographed on the Jingu Bashi bridge, garnering attention and ending up in street-snaps of Fruits or the Gothic & Lolita Bible (those things actually have become less popular with time, and the Goths there remain). I think it does Japanese Goths who are committed to their scene a disservice to see Goths in Japan all being likened to kids in the late '90s and early '00s getting into Marilyn Manson because he was different, darker and edgier, and it was cool and rebellious - especially when within western Goth we've seen plenty of people join the subculture because they think it's cool and edgy as teens or young adults, and then stuck with it for the long haul - all the 'mall-Goths' who grew into the subculture rather than out of it! Although I do think there may be more pressure in Japan for people to 'grow out of it' than in other places, that doesn't mean that everyone does, or that it is just something that is momentarily popular with some more rebellious cool kids and then vanishes again. 

Bands like 13th Moon, Neurotic Doll, and Madame Edwarda, are what I meant by 'Gothic bands from Japan' - I think there's a little more hybridisation going on when it comes to Visual Kei bands, etc. but that the influence of Visual Kei bands needs to be considered too. I do think that aesthetically, and musically, there's a lot of referencing Deathrock rather than UK Post-Punk and Goth bands (eg. Phaida has a lot of similarities with Christian Death), but that doesn't make it a pastiche of Deathrock, it just shows the path through which inspiration has flowed. 

The Part There Wasn't Time To Discuss

I really wish there had been time to discuss the last part of my article, as I think it relates more to what the actual problem is with labels - whether or not they are limiting and divisive. 

I think the way people approach labels is probably where a lot of the contention arises from. People don't want labels because they think they are innately harmful. People are, and with legitimate cause, worried that it will cause people to box themselves into narrow definitions that eventually lead to them feeling trapped, or that the way that hybrids and other subcultures (especially Steampunk, Industrial and Emo) get mislabelled as 'Goth subcategories' will confuse people, or that newcomers to the subculture feel like they have to pick a bunch of terms. All of these things do happen, but I personally don't think they have to happen. 

I think a lot of the issue is that people see the labels not as a description for how perspective, tastes in music, aesthetics and interests come together, but as bubbles, and fragile ones, that only encompass a narrow set of things, and that if you expand beyond that, the bubble will burst and it will be terrible - there should be no real consequences to outgrowing a label, or to finding that with time you better fit a different one, if you don't get cliquish about them in the first place. If you start of primarily interested in the Gothic and Romantic, but later come to be more interested in '80s revival, find you've more general interests, or in any way change how you approach Goth, then all that happens is you change a few words to describe your interests - it's no betrayal to whatever way you identified before, and unless you live somewhere with an unfortunately cliqueish scene, shouldn't have any real-world repercussions. People changing and growing is natural, and no label should seen as a boundary, just a description. 

As I keep coming back to - it's more important to be true to yourself than to create expectations based around a label. You should never pick a category and then decide to best fulfil it - you should be yourself and just describe yourself with the terms that are most accurate. 

It is human nature to try and categorise things in order to understand them, and I don't think we can ever escape that with time, and as things become more diverse and distinctive, labels will arise - what we have to do is be responsible with them. Over-labelling becomes counter-productive, as things become too specific - and similar terms used in too many different ways - to really be meaningful; overly rigid categories leads to people boxing themselves in, feeling like they have to conform to an expectation of what a category should entail; not enough labels mean that people don't have a vocabulary to express precisely what they mean without giving lengthy descriptions. A balance needs to be struck, and I think the key is moderation. 

I also think that a true subcategory - originating from within Goth, and being about how one approaches various aspects of what is Goth - will always be authentically Goth. I know that the hybrid subcultures, such as Cybergoth, Gothic Lolita, etc. will always be contentious because they're always going to be a mixture of things, in varying proportions, and because there's this external element it will never really be wholly Goth - and the debate is to whether that should be embraced alongside what is Goth, and see it as a positive diversifying influence, or whether it risks overly diluting the subculture to the point where the term 'Goth' just ends up meaning 'darkly alternative'. Those debates seem to answer themselves with time, as time either confirms or denies the possible consequences, and as people hash it out until eventually an approximate consensus is reached - it happened with the Marilyn Manson influx, it happened with the Cybergoths and the rise in popularity of Industrial, and it's happening with Pastel Goth and Nu-Goth, and I'm sure it happened with other things before my experience of the subculture and will continue to happen in the future as things change and new things arrive. 

I also don't think that subcategories should translate into social cliques. I have been in places where this has happened - those into the '80s way of seeing Goth acting like those with  a Romantic sensibility were just misguided LARPers with a fondness for vampires and not 'real' Goths, people into Cybergoth refusing to even talk to people who weren't clad in goggles, PVC and neon, and people saying that those who like metal as well as Goth have no musical taste and aren't proper Goths either, just 'Mansonites' - and I thought that all these cliquish attitudes were terribly immature, even moreso when I joined the Highland Goth scene, because the scene here - especially as it is so small - has just become a refuge for people who like the Gothic, the Goth and generally dark, and has welcomed all the hybridisation and the unique perspectives of each individual as a positive attribute rather than a reason for division - something I hope to to illustrate aesthetically with my photography project (especially as I photograph the same people again in future, in ways that show different facets of them, using fashion, location and photography to try and convey something that is more than aesthetic through a visual medium). I've seen first-hand that it doesn't have to be a scene where people only talk to those who have identical interests to them, and that it's healthy and keeps things interesting when they talk to a variety of Goths and people with interests outside Goth, people who blend and hybridise subcultures, etc. 

As I concluded the first time around: You do not need to pick a category, you do not need to fit a category, and it is far more important to be true to yourself than to be as Goth as possible, or as <insert specific type of Goth here> as possible. It is healthy - and good for the subculture- for us to be diverse people with diverse interests, and to not just be clone-like and striving to fit in to some social group as neatly as possible.

Goth, Individualism and Conformity - 5 Years Later

Eight years ago I wrote ::this:: article, then re-posted it in 2011, five years ago, on conformity in the Goth subculture - and while I still agree with the main gist of it - that just because we don't want to conform to mainstream society, it does not mean that we are against societies in general or against having our own norms - there are quite a few things upon which my perspective has changed over time, and some things I feel I should have addressed and didn't. In 2012 I wrote ::this:: both echoing these themes of conformity vs. individuality, and also specifically targeting the accusation or assumption that Goth is 'middle-class rebellion'. This article was inspired by listening to the September edition of Cemetery Confessions, which discusses in depth the seeming paradox between individuality and conformity within the subculture, and which can be listened to ::here::.

Firstly, I still think that the notion of Goths being failed non-conformists because while we sometimes vocally distance ourselves from mainstream culture, we still have norms within our own culture is a flawed notion - I've never felt that Goth has been about pure individualism, and that it has always been about a group of people with shared interests, primarily musically and in terms of an aesthetic and a mindset that is both cynical and Romantic in terms and which finds beauty and interest in darker and more morbid themes. I still think that just because we don't want to participate in mainstream pop culture and dislike any form of mindless consumerism, it doesn't mean that we disagree with the notions of cultures and sharing interests with others, in general. We often find that mainstream society devalues the things we like, and often devalues us for liking them, and that we also don't have much interest in many mainstream things, but this is just why we do something different from the mainstream. However, it is not that Goths can't like the odd bit of popular culture too! Also, some things many Goths like, such as The Addams Family or Tim Burton's better films, are part of popular culture as well as Goth culture, so there is no clear separation. 

(I've been a geek and a nerd since I was a child, and a lot of what I like were considered fringe interests 20+ years ago, but have now become mainstream - especially in terms of science fiction and fantasy franchises; it's no longer weird and uncool to like something like Star Trek, and Game of Thrones is thoroughly mainstream! I still like these things, and I'm not going to suddenly stop liking them because they gained mainstream acceptance and popularity.) 

Goth does not define itself as the antithesis to something; we don't exist in opposition to the mainstream, we exist alongside it, and to some degree independent of it, but we're not there to simply oppose whatever is currently popular in some sort of contrarian stab at rebelliousness. We like what we like, regardless of whether or not its popular.

Sometimes we lament when something we like is suddenly trendy, because of those who like it only because it's trendy without any deeper understanding or appreciation, but that is really railing against consumerist misappropriation rather than at popularity. Most of us agree that if something becomes popular, but people who now like it become genuinely interested in whatever it is, then that is fine - it's only when people are hopping onto the metaphorical bandwagon without any real care or consideration that we have a problem. This isn't something that just Goths face - it's a general issue, and is part of the problem with any form of cultural and artistic misappropriation; something becomes a trend, lots of people do something to be 'cool' and a few big corporations make a lot of money off someone else's work and culture, usually in a tacky and misrepresentative way, and often while whoever originally had the thing were previously denigrated for it, and may continue to be denigrated for it... It's the same mechanism, but at a variety of scales and level of severity depending on what is being misappropriated and who from.

I think it is also important to acknowledge that Goths are fully aware that they're being to a greater or lesser degree, like other Goths. We are not involved in search for pure individualism, we're looking for other people whose authentic selves are similar to our own. We pride ourselves on being our true selves, and on not being dictated to by outside forces, but we are also happy to socialise with likeminded individuals. Yes, a certain amount of cattiness and peer-pressure can occur, but one refrain I hear over and again from Goths to others interested in the subculture is that it is more important to be your truest self than it is to be as 'Goth' as possible. Also, outsiders may see a monolithic group of people all dressed in black as 'the same' but really, someone into something like Cybergoth (which I think was better termed 'gravers' and is a hybrid of electronic, industrial and Goth, not a sub-style) may have common interests with someone that is an Elizabethan-esque Romantic Goth, but their modes of personal self expression are probably going to be quite different!

Another thing that is worth addressing is that many Goths (but not all), feel like mainstream society rejected them - one common thing I find when talking to other Goths is that even before they joined the subculture, they were somehow 'different' and felt alienated, even ostracised, by their peers and mainstream culture. This could be because they were considered 'overly' academic  - "nerdy", interested in weird or unusual things - "geeky" or "freaky" - or maybe they were just a bit sensitive ("emo" used as a pejorative rather than as a subcultural group), or maybe there's other intersectional factors, but a lot of us feel like we've been marginalised for having a personality that isn't what mainstream society demands, and instead of bending to the will of the majority and trying to become someone more acceptable, we've met with people who like the same music as us, like the same books as us, the same aesthetics, and share a similar underlying mindset, and joined with them. Why we have become Goths rather than joining any other subculture is because our interests happened to be those of darker nature,  and our personalities those with at least a hint of morbid curiosity, and a blend of Romanticism and cynicism. As I've written about before, once we're Goth we often encounter prejudice, intolerance and plenty of negative stereotypes about us, too. Some people remain angry and bitter at the world for constantly rejecting them, others find that in meeting others like them, there is enough community and solace, and others find different ways of processing past rejection, and some people find that as they get older, the world judges them less for what music they like and what books they read, and maybe more on other criteria - what sort of car you drive, how financially successful you are, where you live, etc. 

Some people within the subculture, and in general, react to mainstream ostracisation defensively - "You can't sit with us" say the preppy high-school girls "I wouldn't want to, anyway" says the teenage babybat - but the purpose of the subculture isn't to oppose mainstream society or sneer down on the "conformists", it's to give us a haven away from it, a space where we can express ourselves to others who appreciate similar things - and while we don't expect to do that without challenge (after all, challenging ideas helps hone them, as does constructive criticism of creative endeavours, and it is unhealthy to live in an echo-chamber), there's a difference between challenge and hatred.

The things I would disagree with in my earlier blog post is just how negative my opinion was of mainstream society was - I think 8 years ago I was a lot less worldly and travelled, and most of my experiences with mainstream society had been profoundly negative, and I had been exposed primarily to its ugly side, and this had given me an overly negative opinion. I still criticise aspects of mainstream culture - primarily celebrity worship, mindless consumerist capitalism and the 'throw-away society', and the parts of society that still denigrate those outside of a narrow spectrum of 'acceptability' - but now I know that actually, quite a few people criticise those aspects of society, and from a variety of view-points.

I think I also still carried the dregs of defensiveness from when I was a teenager, trying to distance myself, defiantly and provocatively, from those who were trying to push me into being something I simply cannot be.  I don't think criticism of society in general is mere teenage rebelliousness, but I think the way I was doing it at the time was immature, and more about my personal anger towards the alienation, bullying and abuse I had experienced than a productive criticism. Even by the time I wrote the article in 2008, when I was a then an adult, I still held on to some of that bitterness - unaware that while I may have been significantly less angry at the world than I was an angsty 14 year old, I wasn't free of bitterness. I must admit I am probably still a little bitter at the world - but I recognise this, and try not to let it contaminate my being Goth. Bitterness is something I talk to my therapist about, not lash out at the world with.

My Reaction and Analysis of Lisa Ladouceur's 40 Years of Goth Style Video

This is a response to ::this:: video by Liisa Ladouceur, author of 'Encylopedia Gothica' and 'How To Kill A Vampire'. It is entitled '40 Years of Goth Style (in under 4 minutes).

Originally I had a (not much) shorter version of this as a comment on YouTube, but it was still pretty long for a YouTube comment, and I don't anyone wants to read a miniature essay as a YouTube comment, so I am posting my full critique here.

Personally, I didn't really feel like the video fulfilled its own purpose. I think for the most-part it's a good show of different sub-styles, but it's not very chronological and doesn't really seem to show 40 years of Goth fashion. It's vaguely chronological about when the various sub-styles came in, or peaked in popularity, but that's about it. Part of the problem is that Goth fashion is not a linear procession, but a complex 'family tree' of interrelated and divergent styles, so it will not fit easily to the format, so I feel like the video is trying to force it into a sense of linearity, of one thing following on from the other, rather than concurrence, that was never going to work. I am certainly not first to notice this.

I understand the decision to include Punk as the progenitor of Goth, but I can't really comment on its accuracy because it's outside my knowledge base. I would like to have seen some sort of information on screen informing non-subcultural types about Goth and Punk being separate, but related.

The Batcave look is definitely more Batcave than general 1980's Goth - when I see picture of 1980's Goths outside the specifically London club scene, I see mostly thrifted or DIY outfits which definitely share aesthetic inspiration, but which aren't sourced the same way. That DIY creative spirit is something I hear 'Eldergoths' mention so much, and which is still an important part of the scene, and I would loved to have seen this video honour that personal creativity, that 'if you can't buy it, make it' ethos. Personally, while I understand why the PVC-and-bondage gear sort of Goth look would be chosen as both being a leading edge in fashion at the time, very reminiscent of what musicians of the period were wearing, and in being more easily replicable in the age of Goth-specific clothing retailers, it just does not seem really reflective of the period as a whole, more of those who had the money and the means to access things like PVC skirts and bondage harnesses, instead of wearing pet-shop dog collars and thrifted clothes dyed black. As far as the wigs go, I think the foofy back-combed effect wig doesn't look too bad, and I think the make-up is definitely good. I would love to have seen a few chunky bangles and thrifted silver necklaces on the model, too.

The Deathrock look was more a hybrid of Deathrock Revival and Nina Hagen's hair than Deathrock to me. The hair style is definitely Nina Hagen inspired, but doesn't quite seem right even for that. It's certainly not a style that comes to mind when I think of what was happening in the US at the time, and the braid wrapped around the cone seems more 'Madonna' than Nina Hagen. The make-up, however, looks about right to me. The clothes seem far too recent and made-for-Goth, which is what makes me think 'Deathrock Revival', although I'd say that usually involves far more layering than this style. I certainly wasn't around for the original Deathrock era or its parallel evolution before it began to cross over with Goth, and unlike with British Trad Goth, I don't have the option of asking to look through the archives of various 'Eldergoths' to have a view of photographs of the style, but from what I have managed to research online and in a few books, the fashion at the time seemed to owe more to punk, and the outfit shown in the video looks more like what I'd see in a UK Goth club 5-10 years ago. The inverse cross print skirt, especially, seems just too recent. I think the bat necklace is from the '90s, too. It is an Alchemy Gothic piece, and one of the most ubiquitous of their designs (I have one), but I think it's too late to be Deathrock, and perhaps would have been suitable for the next outfit instead.

The Romantic Goth look has the perfect sort of dress - initially I thought it was a skirt and top, but it's clearly a gown now I've seen it the second time. I know how coveted the corsets were in the '90s (and how expensive...), but I do wonder if the gown without it would have been enough? However I think it's still pretty representative with the corset, and would be either way. My main criticism is that Romantic Goth is pretty broad and long lived category, and this isn't communicated or displayed in the video. Romantic Goth certainly existed before that, although I think it probably was most popular in the '90s. I'd have loved to have seen an evolution of the Romantic Goth look from the Morticia Addams inspiration and medieval/fantasy-inspired to the elaborate baroque and Victorian stuff that is seen now at Whitby or WGT or Me'ra Luna. There's been a definite evolution and diversification of Romantic Goth, something I would partly attribute to the more and more professional seamstresses/tailors/people making the elaborate historical and fantasy inspired dresses/clothing, and the headdresses, accessories etc. I'd also love to have seen some of the directly New-Romantics inspired Romantic Goths. Romantic Goth has evolved as much as any other Goth style, perhaps as much as the every other Goth style combined. I do the whole goblet and vampire novel thing... I definitely do that!

There needed to be a late '90s Goth with the big Tripp trousers or those layered miniskirts, New Rock boots, lots of chains, mesh or striped gloves and a Marilyn Manson t-shirt! That was such a big shift in the subculture, the whole shock-rock and Gothic Metal addition, at least as big as the influence of industrial/EBM and cybergoth. It might not have been something that all Goths are proud about, because I know some of the teens, especially, at the time were seen as 'mall-Goth, as pretentious teenagers trying to shock their parents and society, divorced from the origins of the subculture, especially as Manson's music isn't Goth (I'd say that he's a Goth, but his music is shock-rock/metal), but they included other hybrids such as Cybergoth, Gothic Lolita and Steampunk, which arguably could be said to have just as little, if not less in common with the '80s origins, but a lot more of that style, in terms of fashion, has become more ubiquitous as to how the average Goth dresses now than any of the more niche hybrids.

The Cybergoth definitely looks like the sort I'd have seen at clubs in the middle '00s onwards. Good job on that one, but no explanation on how it evolved from a mixture of the industrial/EBM scene, Goth and rave - it is its own branch, not just a time-specific look. The wig/falls look a little on the cheap side, however, and I don't quite get the dots above the eyebrows; I would think gluing down and obscuring her real eyebrows and putting dots over them would have been more accurate. Combining two accent colours is definitely not unheard of, but my personal preference would have been for more black and to pick either green or pink as an accent colour, but that is probably more my personal tastes than historical accuracy. Years before I ran this blog, I had a Cybergoth phase, but I found it very expensive, and also too futuristic for my tastes - it was fun for the odd club night, and I got into some of the music but it's not something I could wear regularly or the branch that was really for me. My partner Raven on the other hand...

The Steampunk look is pretty good, but it's own subculture, and although there's a lot of Goths who also like steampunk, there's a lot of people in Steampunk who have nothing to do with Goth - especially people who've come to it through geek/sci-fi/LARP culture rather than spooky Victoriana. Personally, I think it is too distantly related to Goth to be in the video. It's a bit like Emo, or certain genres of Metal; definitely plenty of people interested in both Goth and that subculture, but still a separate subculture.

The 'pin-up' is a Gothabilly/Psychobilly. Looks correct to me, but again, it isn't a branch that I am familiar with to be certain. Not entirely sure if that's considered Goth, however. The whole vintage thing is something I am not very knowledgeable about, as I'm not generally particularly interested in it, so whether it's Goth or not is something I can really say.

Lolita is a separate subculture - Gothic Lolita is where Goth and Lolita overlap, but the other styles of Lolita are quite different from Goth; Sweet Lolita for example, is probably the most popular Lolita style and is pretty much the polar opposite of Goth. A lot of Goths did get into Gothic Lolita, and there's a lot of influence in both directions, so I feel it does have a place in this video, just perhaps with more explanation. What really irritated me, however is that the version shown has utterly wrong make-up; even Mana didn't do anything like that. The eye-makeup should be more subtle and smokey, and definitely NO KISSY DOLL LIPS. I get what they were going for with the wig, and it's the right style, but either the lighting is too harsh and making it look awful, or it's a cheap wig. The bow on the head is the right idea, but the wrong design. The co-ord (Lolita term for outfit) is approximately there; if it was posted to Closet of Frills it would get constructive criticism. It certainly looks like it was done by someone only relatively new to the aesthetic rather than a Lolita; the dress and shoes were right, but the socks would have done better with ruffles at the top, and the gloves swapped with lace wrist-cuffs, and the red contrasting petticoat is not something often done in Lolita; petticoats are usually discrete, hidden under the skirt and only there to give shape. 

Pastel Goth looked right (I'd have added a pastel strapped spiked necklace, but that's nit-picking), I am a little surprised at there not being anything galaxy print involved. Personally I would have swapped the leggings for either galaxy print or those ones with the cats or bats at the bottom. The glittery hair-clips were perfect.

As to the Nu-Goth look, it seemed more like it was 'Strega' or whatever they're currently calling 'witchy' fashion on Tumblr - Nu-Goth would have plain black leggings or perhaps the kind that look like they're wrapped up your legs, but the boots with spikes on the heels look right, and the top's about right with the hood, but the big 'Lydia from Beetlejuice' hat might have been more appropriate. Those big felt hats were SO popular last year; even I got one! Nu-Goth is more minimalist than that. Also one of those chokers with the heart at the front or an o-ring connector would have looked good. Also, a lot of actual witches, myself included aren't very happy with the 'witch' concept being used as fashion statement when that uses our religious symbols inappropriately and with 'edginess' as a primary concern. Prancing around with the black salt circle and red candle really grated on me as an actual witch.

Something that It's Black Friday mentioned in her reaction video (::here::) is that there's quite a few styles that were left out - I would definitely say that 'CorpGoth' was one of them, and that the hippie/Goth hybrid also.

I think perhaps the styling errors were more about what was available at the making of the video than Liisa not knowing how to do it; perhaps this is another fault of following the format set by Buzzfeed. Liisa's a very knowledgeable person, and I really enjoyed 'Encyopedia Gothica'. Personally, I think it would have been better to find people who were willing to model for the video who wear each of the styles regularly rather than make-over one model, or at least find people from each sub-style to style her. The wigs didn't look right at several points. The V-fringe on the Romantic Goth one, for example, looked frizzy at the edges rather than crisp, and the Lolita wig looked VERY Hallow'en and not suitable for the fashion at all. However, I also know that good quality wigs are expensive.

I understood what was meant to be conveyed, but I just don't feel like the video fulfilled its brief, and that in places there were errors in the styling. The Romantic Goth, Pastel Goth and Steampunk styles were pretty accurate, and the 'Nu Goth' and 'Pin-Up' styles were very good representation of 'Strega' and 'Gothabilly/Psychobilly' even if misnamed, but I think it did also have its flaws.

The usual response to these sort of critiques is that I should do it myself if I think it's so wrong - firstly, I don't think it's awful by any means, and secondly, I am planning to do my own 40 years of Goth fashion, but to avoid the practical issues that come with trying to style a model, I will instead illustrate each style, and probably produce eventually a blog entry, and perhaps an infographic. I know the sub-styles have already been explored in illustration by Black Waterfall as the 'Goth (stereo)Types' ::here:: but I plan on both a more realistic and detailed illustration style, and adding more information both on history and on the fashion.

Obviously, to do the best possible version of this is, I am going to be doing a lot of research. I've been talking to a lot of Goths who have been around in the subculture longer than I have, looking through archives of photos from the scene (I recommend 'Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace' by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje, and the associated Tumblr ::NOWTHISISGOTHIC:: run by Marloes Bontje as a starting point).

I'd love to hear other people's responses to the video, and if Liisa Ladoceur's reading this, feel free to rebuff my critique! I'd love to discuss the history of Goth fashion in the comments, and I especially want to hear from '80s and '90s Goths who were actually there. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to correct me, too.

[edit: fixed for improper accreditation for NOWTHISISGOTHIC ]

How I Came To Realise I Was Goth

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is "How did you become a Goth?", but I don't think I became anything, I think I just followed the road marked out by the things I like.

I think my preferences happen to align with the Goth subculture in many ways, but when I decided "I am going to be Goth" it was not really with any understanding of what Goth was, and what I became was a pretentiously 'rebelious' teen for a few months, and then over the next few years discovered more and more of how this subculture I had chosen for all the wrong reasons was actually home for all the right reasons. Usually, when I am asked this, I have to either explain in conversation, or at best get a paragraph or two to write - I wanted to write out the story of this chapter in my life a bit more fully. I've written thousands of words here, I know, but even that has not touched on everything.  

One of the things I have written about in the past was ::this article:: on how Church music, and spending a lot of my childhood in various ecclesiastical buildings has influenced me. I looked at these incredible structures towering over my head, lit by the sun shining through stained glass, interiors often painted white or beautifully decorated with murals, filled with richly carved wooden furniture, the music of the choir and the sound of pipe organs, and to me this was the closest to Heaven you could find in the human world - I always felt the wild was the closest you could get to Heaven while still alive, as far away from the rest of the human race as possible, but the beauty I experienced in church made a close second. I rarely felt spiritually connected by church services, but I felt something close in singing old polyphonic choral songs with the choir, when the harmonies rang out just right and summoned a glimpse of something holy and glorious. If Heaven had cities, in my imagination, they were entirely built of medieval Gothic architecture, like the illustrations in old manuscripts of white shining cities of spires and towers, and filled with music of angels singing. I was never entirely sure there actually was a Heaven or a Hell, but I liked to imagine that there might be, just so there could be somewhere perfect and untainted.

It was never cool amongst those I encountered to have this sort of imagination, especially as a child, not even a teenager. It wasn't something I could share with other children - even my more religious peers seemed to think there was something a bit dorky or strange about my feelings, and very few seemed to have any sort of personal religious experiences. I was starting to have more and more of those sorts of experiences... but outside of Church and the framework of Christianity (but this would diverge into the territory of "how I became Pagan"). 

I definitely became aware at quite an early age that my reaction to this sort of thing was unusual, and as my peers became teenagers, and my spirituality diverge further from Christianity, I felt quite isolated and unique (in a bad way) in my reaction. I don't think I actually am unique, just that during that point in my life, there was nobody I knew who seemed to have the same reaction, to feel the same way and as strongly. Perhaps they did, but those people were probably adults and felt uncomfortable talking to a small child about these sorts of things, or perhaps other children who felt like this had the social understanding to realise that speaking up about these sorts of things wasn't considered normal. I seemed to see jewels in the pictorial windows where others only saw painted glass, and the glory of the Divine glittering in the candle light where others just saw fire, and heard the voices of angels echoed in the practice of the parish church choir where other people just heard accidental dischords and humble harmonies.

This difference between how I felt about Church was one of the many things that taught me the bad habit of not talking about what made me happy because it would often just be something else that set me apart and probably get me into trouble. Being able to openly talk about what I enjoy is probably the greatest blessing of the Gothic subculture. I have this blog, I am a member of online communities, I have Goth and Goth-friendly friends, and I can actually rejoice and talk at length about what I love, openly, freely and with enthusaism, knowing that others feel the way I do about these things and share that passion and interest. 

I didn't feel any connection to the Christian concept of God, but I could see there was something genuinely Divine in truly spiritual art, and the first spiritual art I came across came from a Catholic and Church of England context, so I wasn't aware yet that I would feel the same when I came across Buddhist chants, statuary and artwork, or that I would feel completely humbled by the sky at Stonehenge rather than the stones themselves. I guess in some ways this sort of strong emotional connection to the art, architecture and music of medieval to Victorian Britain and Europe gave me a direct connection to the Gothic in the art historical and literary meanings of the word.

When I was at primary school and the other girls in my class started caring about being pretty and fashionable (or at least wearing the kinds of clothes popular with other girls their own age, rather than fashionable in terms of what grown women would have considered fashionable in the mid 1990s), I was more interested in wearing tomboy clothes and my big black duffle-coat, and a bit later, when I tried experimenting with make-up, I decided I wanted to look scary rather than pretty and drew my eyebrows in arched and pointed, and painted my lips deep red; when other girls wanted to be a Spice Girl, I wanted to be Morticia Addams. Later, in my early teens, I decided that purple and black eye-makeup like a tonally-shifted Cleopatra was what I wanted - not a long distance from the Siouxsie-esque dramatic make-up of Trad-Goths! I think this is when I started to realise that a) what I cared about in regards to my appearance was not really in line with what most other people cared about or thought was the "right" way to look and b) that not looking "normal" was going to get me bullied even more.

For a while after I started boarding school, I decided that as it was a clean start that I would at least try and look normal and fashionable, but I could never quite get the look done 'right'. Like the rest of my attempts to pass as normal and give the impression of normalcy in order to try and fit in, it just added to my fears and anxiety, and left me feeling constantly worried about when I would be "found out" as a "weirdo" and "freak" - something that came about soon enough. My feigned interests in popular culture was always caught out as faked when I just didn't have the shared cultural knowledge base of those genuinely interested, when I couldn't pretend to be enthusiastic convincingly enough, when I made a constant stream of little faux-pas, when I accidentally let slip my genuine interests... 

I eventually gave up the pretence for the sake of my sanity, and it was at this point I used my mistaken idea of Goth and attemptedly Gothic fashion choices as a way to signal that yes I was a "weirdo", a "freak" and "creepy", but that I was PROUD to be those things, and that maybe those who had been bullying me and ostracising me ought to be a bit afraid - of course, with my attempts at Goth being so poorly executed, I think I managed to be more pathetic than intimidating, but at least I felt confident at the time, which is more than I had ever been before. I would imagine that this last paragraph resonates with quite a few of my readers, as this seems to be quite a common experience amongst Goths and other Alternative lifestyle folk.

Of course, I was not really a Goth at that point, or really part of Gothic culture - I had grasped onto something through which I felt I could resist the pressures around me - both by rebelliously trying to appear as the antithesis of what was expected of me and the opposite of what those around me lauded as good and proper, and by doing something that felt very freeing, as I decided to shed all that was conventional and desired of me, and do something outrageous, something that meant I would never again have to pretend to be "normal" by the very narrow standards of those around me. This initial "Goth" phase was short lived, but I had thrown off my shackles through it, and it started me on the path to actually becoming a Goth. 

After that point, I became more interested in actually Gothic things - I had always loved science fiction and fantasy, and had already a tendency towards liking the darker parts of what I'd had access to - the latter Harry Potter books had plenty of rather Gothic themes in them, and out of all the strands in those books, these were probably the aspects I had liked most, and I had loved books like Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. I loved the worlds these authors had crafted, full of magic, Gothic architecture, monsters, villains and people who had to accept that their world wasn't perfect and good, just as ours is not perfect and good, and as I became a teenager and started reading more books aimed at adults, I looked towards more books that would satiate this. I began with Michael Moorcock's Elric novels, with the sadistic Melniboneans, the strange and beautiful worlds, the cursed sword and other elements that while still High Fantasy of an almost surreal nature, were definitely erring towards the darker and more bloody. 

I then got into vampires and started reading the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice and their lavishly described dances through time and place as the long and fascinating lives of her vampires were recounted just drew me in - even her latter novels, which I now recognise as not necessarily being her best, drew me in as a teenage fangirl. I wanted to live life for the experience, travel the world, and have grand adventures, and long centuries to do so, like one of her vampires, and of course, have some torrid romance with a beautiful creature of the night (oh, how foolish of me!). I was also reading comics at this point, especially things from the Gotham world by DC and also Witchblade, which I initially thought horribly violent, and then thought was actually pretty cool. 

I didn't deliberately choose my reading by "what is Gothic", otherwise I would have probably read far more vampire books at that point! I just read what I found interesting, what fed my imagination, what transported me to worlds far away from the life I currently had, from my depression, from my isolation, from everything that made me unhappy. It was escapism, but at least it was imaginative escapism full of creativity and full of themes that introduced me to stuff that I probably would not otherwise have found to be interesting. I tended towards more traditional high fantasy when miserable, and then darker fantasy when I was more cheerful and thus not liable to end up morose from reading too many novels full of sadness and tragedy. 

Whether it was books (which I read a lot of), comics (which I read a few of), films (which I was rarely able to see), video games (which I think is an anachronistic term, and which I only got to play at friend's houses as we were too poor for such things) or TV (which I hardly watched), the themes, characters, imagery and setting I kept being drawn to was what I would later come to identify as the Gothic in the literary meaning of the term. I don't think that it was that these things influenced me to like more and darker things, it is that I seemed to like dark things anyway and went in search of them; these things connected with me on some inner level. 

Gothic novels are so named after the architecture that often serves as the setting, and which is often a part of the plot, or even almost a 'character' itself (I think of the the great citadel-castle of Gormenghast, for example), and that itself stirred a chord, reminding me of all the cathedrals, churches and castles that I loved (and still love, as a quick look through the 'architecture' tag in the sidebar will show!) and I felt at home there, even if these versions were haunted by monsters and ghosts. A lot of the time, in my social alienation, I felt like I might be the monster doing the haunting, not quite human, never truly acceptable. A bit melodramatic, I know, but as a teenager I think I was prone to melodrama. 

Often times, the horror of the Gothic is brought about through an atmosphere of menace, of the anticipation that something horrible is coming - and that tension drew me in. I felt like the world was closing in on me in real life, and to have fictional characters survive more terrible (and often more supernatural) terrors and live in dread of what was to come was something I could identify with, and as the good overcame the evil through personal strength, I hoped maybe I could overcome the things that were troubling me. I still struggle with anxiety issues, and, often feel like everything in my life is about to go wrong, like I am always on the brink of the next disaster (perhaps because I have gone through so many things that have severely impacted my life in a negative way, and I find it hard to believe that any respite from that is anything but temporary, even after years have passed) and as such, that ominous atmosphere was something that seemed familiar, but at the same time was distanced enough through fantasy to be safe, manageable. 

A lot of Gothic novels address the supernatural, some more realistically than others. Most opt for terrible monsters that are quite fantastical (for example, the traditional werewolves, vampires and zombies), but others are stories of magic, ghosts, spirits, and curses - things that I have experienced in the real world, perhaps not always as they are written about in fiction, but they certainly  seem very real and very much a part of our world. I am, after all, basically a witch (even if I'm not overly fond of that word). I have been having supernatural (or praeternatural) experiences since I was a child, and while modern society in Britain is often very secular, atheist and disbelieving when it comes to such occurrences, I have had too many strange things happen to me to claim they do not exist. I guess some people might think me credulous, gullible or perhaps mentally ill for those experiences, or decide that they are a subconscious expression of childhood trauma or something, but as far as I am concerned, they are as real as any ordinary thing. I am not afraid of them, nor think that experiencing them makes me special, they are just another part of the world, alongside more mundane things like trees or cars or toasters. Reading fiction that actually addressed these things, written sometimes by people whose accuracy in what they present compared to what I have experienced, and what I know about things like the occult and witchcraft lend me to believe that the authors have experienced something similar, let me feel a little less alone. Anyone who has seen The Sixth Sense knows that you can't just tell people that you see ghosts! 

(Nobody can talk of why ghost stories are still relevant quite like Neil Gaiman in ::this:: article for the New York Times)

While ghost stories and vampire novels were giving me an introduction to the Gothic in literature, and to contemporary horror writing, I was still not that much of a Goth yet, and my musical tastes were rather eclectic and I didn't encounter Gothic rock of the post-punk, darkwave, French coldwave and similar varieties until my late teens. The first music that really stirred me, from outside of classical and ecclesiastical music, was the prog rock, folk rock and psychedelia my Dad would occasionally play in the car. I was brought up with Joni Mitchell, Yes (I have my own Yes compilation CD set...) The Moody Blues (before they went commercial), Jefferson Airplane, The Strawbs, Spyrogyra, etc. etc. There are songs from that era that spoke to me, and which I still adore - especially Moody Blues songs about the emptiness of space, the vastness of the universe, melancholia and the transience of life. A turning point was when I heard Melancholy Man by the Moody Blues for the first time, when it goes into the second section, with booming synthesised organ, wailing chorus and dirging guitars - I was transfixed. A song had grabbed hold of something in a way that had not happened since the soaring descant in Allegri's Miserere in church, but this time I felt like a song was singing about someone I could empathise with. I felt like the outsider, who could not see the world like others do, and in my minds eye I was watching something halfway between the rapture and a science-fiction apocalypse as they sang... Sure, it certainly was not Goth rock, and it wasn't even the symphonic metal I started with when it came to attempting 'being a Goth', but it is that same sort of reaction to a song that I have sought after ever since. 

The next song to really change my musical perspective was Severance by Dead Can Dance. I wasn't really into any form of Goth music yet at the point where I encountered Dead Can Dance; I found a CD of theirs that looked atmospheric in the school's archive of music for theatrical performances while working on a production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller (a play about the Salem witch trials, and a metaphor for the McCarthy-era 'witch-hunt' for possible communists). The CD was 'The Serpent's Egg' and the cover and name looked a bit spooky and witchy, so I stuck it in CD player and had a listen. I'd struck shuffle instead of repeat by accident, and I think the second song I heard was Severance - again, I got transfixed by music, my head filled with visions of wide and open spaces, leaden skies, and a solitary tree with its last leaves caught on the wind, birds flying in migration formation high above me... Dead Can Dance became my new favourite band, but I didn't know how they fitted into a musical context, or what bands might be similar, so I unfortunately did not end up getting into Goth via Dead Can Dance as an entry point. 

A few years later I did finally encounter proper Goth rock - in the intermediary years  I did however get into symphonic metal (Nightwish, Within Temptation, etc.) and the kind of music that got labeled 'Goth' by mainstream media that doesn't understand what Goth is (Marilyn Manson, Evanescence, Rammstein).  While I was doing music in my late teens, my teacher/lecturer (I was studying at the local community college) a very classically minded and trained fellow, was also a bit of an ex-punk and knew quite a bit about various rock genres. I think he got a bit fed up with my ignorance on Goth, so when we had to write about an album that marked a changing point in music history, he encouraged me to pick something out of Goth rock history... I ended up listening to a big chunk of the back catalogue of the big-name 'original Goth bands' (Siouxsie Sioux, Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus, etc.) and was torn between writing about Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division and Press The Eject And Give Me Tape by Bauhaus... so wrote about JuJu by Siouxsie and the Banshees as I felt it was their first really Gothic album (I tried arguing that in my essay, and now when I look back on it, I'm not sure I was right - but we go to school to learn, right?). I fell in love with this genre of music I hadn't really explored before and I think finally became a proper Goth that understood what Goth actually was, where it came from, and learnt about what the subculture was like beyond the other babybats I had encountered so far. JuJu ended up the first album I bought on vinyl, and my fashion, which went through phases of experimentation with other subculturally affiliated styles but had returned to mostly Goth, fixed itself firmly in black, and my love for all things both Goth and Gothic just grew. 

About a year later I went to a Goth club for the first time, and I started mixing with the Goth scene outside of people who went to college with me or school with me in the past, and suddenly met all these wonderful people and was making new friends - actually making lots of friends rather than having only a small handful of people I talked to. I had a proper social life, I had a community I was part of, and I think I realised that this was where I belonged, and I have never looked back. 

Goth Is Not Inherently Satanic

I got harrassed for being a Goth by a stranger professing the grounds of Christianity, and attempting to convert me away from Satanism as reason to berate me. 

Yesterday, I was out busking in town, in relatively Gothic clothes, wearing my red wig, and playing my usual fare of traditional Scottish, Irish and other European folk tunes, and this  middle-aged man who was clearly drunk came up to me, and started going about how I play "mystical stuff that goes back to the 12th century" (a reference to an incoherent comment he'd made about Greensleeves at me several months ago; I'm surprised he'd remembered it, because I had, until that point, forgotten about it) and then started going on about how I "don't have to wear black, and dye your [my] hair red" (I pointed out that I was wearing a wig, but he didn't seem to be listening) and then went on to get into my personal space and loudly and aggressively deride being a Goth as Satanic, and tell me that he's a Christian and that I should, to paraphrase him 'find my Saviour'. I tried my best to explain that Goth has no religious affiliation and that it is simply an aesthetic preference, but he kept insisting that it was indeed Satanic. As he later went on to inform that he'd been an alcoholic, and then "clean for 2 years" but had "done a runner three days ago", I decided that his words and actions were the product of mental illness and addiction, and not to take them to heart. He said he would pray for me, and I thanked him for his prayers. I decided silently that I would pray for him too, for that after 2 years clean and then relapsing, he finds his way back to sobreity, and that he would get the help and support to do so, and find the inner strength too, because I know addiction is a hard battle to fight. Just as he left, two of my Goth friends came up to me, saying they weren't sure whether to intervene, as he had just harrassed them for being Goths too, asking them questions about their religious beliefs and condemning them to Hell for not matching his. 

It was a complex situation, and even though he railed at us and condemned us, his actions were clearly a sign of his own struggles and I could not bring myself to be harsh with him, and he did give me a £5 note, so at least he was generous as well as religiously harrassing (not that giving me money ameliorates bad behaviour, and I do wonder if he thought giving me money was simply a way to get my time). I didn't know what to do about the situation; I felt cornered because busking generally means I have to stand with my back to a wall to avoid being in the way of pedestrians, and although people were walking by, nobody helped me and I could not see any security guards or police, although I did feel that they might just treat him as another obnoxious drunk, when he probably needed more nunaced help than that. 

This got me thinking that it is a common misconception that Goth is synonymous with Satanism, or at least that it is inherently Satanic, and I feel like it would be productive to break down that misconception.

Goth is simply a subculture that is focused on having an appreciation for the morbid, dark and spooky in music, fashion, art and literature; it has no religious affiliation at all, and Goths come from all religions as well as agnostic and atheists. 

That is the short response, but does not really contain any nuance, not does it explain why Goths sometimes use Satanic imagery, or gives any differentiated understanding of how occult themes tie into the Gothic, and as such does little to shed light on how Goth is not Satanic even though it looks like it could be.

Satanic imagery is used within the Gothic subculture for several reasons.

Sometimes Satanic imagery is used for shock value, especially by those who feel constrained by a conservative cultural backdrop and wish to differentiate themselves as other, as part of something taboo, dark and frightening. Often it is teens who do this, and it is not representative of the wearer's/displayer's true religious or spiritual beliefs, but part of a more complicated process of wishing to separate themselves and create their own identity. Often, this is a passing phase - either because all interest in dark and spooky things is a passing phase, or because they mature into somebody more onfident in their identity, rather than identifying themsleves oppositionally to others. Some people carry this behaviour on into adulthood, but usually this is a behaviour that people mature out of. Often, Satanic imagery used for shock value is not used in a way that is coherent with the actual uses of those symbols within Satanism or the occult, and is often mixed up with symbols from other religious and spiritual groups (I have seen the Star of David and Wiccan symbols appropriated into this sort of shock-value pseudo-Satanism, but that is another matter entirely.)

Some Goths actually are Satanists, but they are a minority even within the Goth scene - these people will use Satanic symbols correctly, and tend not to advertise their Satanic affiliations. Most of the actual Satanists I know personally are not Goths; they tend to be more "nerdy" and less into the theatric and ostentatious aesthetics of Goth. Most of the Satanists I have met subscribe to a version of Satanism where Satan is an archetype of independence, hedonism and suchlike, rather than a deliberately Anti-Christian worship of the Devil. I have never met an actual Devil-worshipper, someone who subscribes to a Christian theology and cosmology, but looks towards Hell and the Devil rather than to Heaven and Jesus - I am not saying they do not exist, just that such people must be quite rare, even amongst Gothic and Occult circles.

Sometimes people mistake Neo-Pagan iconography and symbolism for Satanic imagery, for example confusion can arise over the use of pentacles and pentagrams (and their inverted variations), and this is exascerbated by the misuse of these symbols (please read ::this:: article on the 'occult trend' I wrote earlier this year). Neo-Paganism is a religion that has no concept of an adversarial dichotomy, with no Hell or Satan. Some people hold the belief that all things other than their specific religious path are Satanic or at least a distraction or deception from what they see as the truth, but outside of that belief structure, there is little in Neo-Paganism that could mark it as anything Satanic, any more than say, Buddhism or Hinduism; it is a completely different belief system to any of the monotheistic faiths. As Goths often have an interest in the spiritual, and are apt to look outside conventional spirituality for answers, there are quite a few Neo-Pagans within Goth, but again, not all Goths are Neo-Pagans, and not all Neo-Pagans are Goths (quite a few dress very 'mainstream' and others -a significant proportion- are more inclined towards Hippy and 'Bohemian' aesthetics.).

There are some people who feel badly hurt by Christianity, or who see it as a destructive force, and who use Christian symbols and anti-Christian symbols as a critique of Christianity and the power of organised religion; sometimes this falls into the territory of shock-value, and sometimes it is done with more refinement and nuance, but this is not unique to Goth, even though it does exist within the Gothic subculture, nor is it something you have to engage in as a Goth. Goths tend to be people who have been outcast by the traditional community structures, and that can include the Church, and/or people who use Christianity as an excuse to harasss people they disagree with (a bit like the man in my opening paragraphs) - as such, there are probably a greater percentage of Goths who do this than non-Goths. Personally, even as an apostate, I find this sort of thing can often be more harmful and rectionary than productive. I don't think religions should be beyond criticism or critique, but I do think that there ways to go about doing this, and there are ways that are just rude and mean, where the message is lost in the missive.

There are, of course, more than these four contexts, but these are the four most common contexts and reasons for the use of Satanic imagery within the Gothic subculture. Sometimes it is used in the traditional way it was used within Gothic horror; as a symbol for various evils or villainry that a good person can come across, for example.

The use of Satanic imagery is not inherent to Goth - the use of dark imagery is, but not all dark imagery has to come from the cultural/religious context of Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil - there are plenty more traditions to draw from, and a lot of Gothic imagery comes from European folk-tales, sometimes more entwined with Christianity. The imagery of death, decay, transience and similar are part of the human experience, and appear in different ways across all cultures. There is plenty of positive Christian iconography used in Goth as well - but that is a topic for different blog entry entirely (and something I would quite like to write about, and get some of my Christian Goth friends to write guest posts for, but that is for a different time). Not everything dark is Satanic even in a Christian context; the Bible is full of stories about people who had to overcome pain, suffering and violence, and the very concepts of martyrdom and Christ as crucified saviour involve death and sacrifice; not everything that is dark is inherently negative.

Goths are not synonymous with Satanists, we are not a group who worship the Devil or are anti-Christian; we are diverse with diverse perspectives outside of things that are actually Goth (of which specific religious affiliation is not). There are quite a few Goths who are Christians, and there are Goths who are Jewish, Muslim, and members of other monotheistic faiths. There are even Goth priests - check out the ::Priestly Goth Blog:: for example. You cannot tell someone's religion by their subcultural affiliation. 

Side note: if you wish to convert someone to your faith, condemning them and berating them will have the exact opposite effect; you are more likely to drive that person away from the religion you profess than convert them. 

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.