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The Goth culture: its history, practices, stereotypes, religious connections, etc.
It seems to me that once more goths come under the hammer of jugmentalism due to the actions of a minority.
Dark Reign
"I find it deploarble that a human being that follows a lifstyle such as Goth has the nerve to quote the bible." --Vince Wylde, Massachusetts
Do these people really think that you can ascribe to a fasion that started in the mid 80's in London England the status of hell worthy tesspass or all defining lifestyle? I have yet to meat two people who define goth the same way. The term only ever came into existance because the media put it there in the first place. Goth is within cetain indefinable boundries and ranged within a certain scope an experimentalist and exploritory culter that examines the darker and moodier parts of life that the main stream refuses to address. It has always been something for the individulistic and a rough umberlla term at best. Over time certain symbles have become popular within the goth communities dispite the great differences between these communities. This symbles have become iconic and easy to recognise and even as they have done so they are regected by goths as pase, pretentious or even mockable. This is when others take up the icons and can at last form a charicature of the goth sterotypes. To say that you understand goth via that is like saying you understand God because you've met the local vicar in the pub once.
The Goth culture: its history, practices, stereotypes, religious connections, etc.: "The perpetrators were apparently not Goths; rather, they had incorporated some Goth symbolism into their group's unique image. Similarly, they held hands in school; not because they were bisexual or homosexual, but in order to shock other students. Their goal was to disturb their fellow students and distance themselves from the school jocks who ridiculed and harassed them."
The media is keen to label everything in neat boxes. so what happens when they see people with icons they assosiate with goth?
They lable this new eliment goth too.
and the next...
...and the next...
...and the next, ad infinitum.
So if the pool of dark clad local alternative rock fans calls itself goth does that make it the truth?
Goth has no real cread because there is no such thing as the corporate-goth direction, becasue it has no direction. What it does have is lots of individules acting out a form of social browninan motion. the result is movement no one can control.
Right now "goth" is bloating on all the slipnot, manson, corn and skata rock being knocked out by the media. The result is worse confusion than ever.
Worse as Goth is not international each "pool" of black clad "goth" is nothing like the next. Go to holland and the goths ware Pink and bright green and listen to EBM and thrash metal. Go to germany and the goths listen to death-metal and have a tendency towards army serplas. Go to belgum and goth is ultra underground in the main. Keeping looking arround and in that area you will find goth that is like a chilled out slightly anarchic black-hippy movment. Go to the UK where goth was born and this all mixes as the word on the vine is that THE goth club to go to is slimelights in london, here revellers from all over the world tend to do speed to stay up untill the club closes (it closes when the last goth exits the building at about 7:30am).
But also visit Gosips on traditional night and everything changes again. On the whole the UK has two types of goth Old school and new. Old school or traditinal goths are the original 1980's goths and have a tendency toward a commanding presence.
The new wave goths are still experimenting and discovering what they like. It is totally different to old school to the point that nothing is the same.
Visit the fetish scene and you will find more goths of a totally different nature - they will look unlike any of the other goths you have met.
Now visit the US. 99.9% of goths in the us have no idea what they are talking about. There is no Old school because the new romatics and (art) punk never married up out there because this was a purely British phinomina. The teddy boys happened and again a small ammount infused into British Goth. by the time Sisters of mercy and Cure were doing the scene it was already well astablished. It was a Punks, Goths and other art students multi-cultural event even the hippies were joining in.
In the US the goths formed from Death metal, hard punk, heavy rock and the steriotypes the brits were sending over. goth is a vauge concept that the Britsh media tried to put on a music and artisic revelution started by punk. Everything else is aftershock. You will notice as you examine the origines of punk that classic and untra-retro clothes were the norm and this developed into a new experiment - edwardian and victorian dress codes. Goth, therefore is a unequly british export. To understand goth is to understand britsh art culture of the 80's and early 90's and more importantly to know intimatly the university city that's took part such as London, Birmingham and Notingham.
Ultamtly it was just a heavy backlash against the residue of beatle mania
It was the british post-punk inovators that were first called gothic and it is they that uniquly formed it. Everything else in every other country is only goth-influenced heavy metal and rock.
Even more devistating for those who wish to build there lives with goth as the foundation is that it is only a by-product of an existing musical experimentation going on since the blues became a popular art form.
If you want to know more about the early years and the whole punk story then you would do well to read "Punk: the illustrated hostory of a music revolution" by Adrian Boot & Chris Salewicz.
here I even found an amizon link for you:
# posted by Matt the Hat at Saturday, July 03, 2004 | |
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