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Before venturing into the live report of The Mortal's tour (which will be coming, by and by), by popular demand, we have posted a new article on This is NOT Greatest Site, entitled, "So You Want to Be a Goth?" Explaining the entire goth subculture in the space of one tiny article is probably impossible so we probably failed, but y'all seemed curious about gothness, so we have thusly endeavored to deliver you some education on the matter.
But if you haven't got the attention span to read the full article, this is how to be goth, folks. This, right here.
Yes, that is really Peter Murphy skivving out of his knickers. Thanks, internet. You're welcome.
I'd say more, but it's almost dawn here in the Land of the Rising Sun, and I must be getting back to my coffin.
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One of my friends once told me about a book on depression she was reading at that moment. The author had an interesting if not unusual outlook on people with tendencies for 'negative', 'dark' or 'unhappy' views in life. Although we treat a lot of mental disorders related to anxiety and depressive states these people were considered to have a more realistic and true image of the world we currently live in, in opposite to optimistic folks who are probably way more 'nuts' considering everything that's going on. So finding beauty in darkness while everything goes of the rails might actually be the most sensible thing to do even if you don't think of yourself as goth.
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr. Sakurai also mentioned this in his interview with Dave Fromm...but when you look objectively at the world, it looks pretty terrible, so negative thoughts would seem to be a rational response (I completely agree with this assessment). But as Mr. Sakurai and myself are both card-carrying goths, we are indeed biased.
Delete#crocs_for_goths
ReplyDeletehttps://goo.gl/RTzVbT
https://goo.gl/jT855K
Just sayin´
Crocs are horrible and I won't allow them in my house.
DeleteI have to say that I have a very critical standpoint towards all that "Goths do that and don´t do this"- talk. It´s just stupid in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteDespite me being quite young I´ve already heard enough of it.
When I go to a gothic flee market in a dusky pink long frilled skirt with black nails and a creamy white vintage top, people would often critisize me for not comforming to their style or because they can´t categorize it. Same goes for mainstream people.
Getting shit from both sides can be a bit tiring, you know^^.
Did you actually read the article? I believe I stressed the point several times about there being no specific rules. As Norton Juster pointed out in The Phantom Tollbooth, if you jump to conclusions you have a long hard swim back through the sea of knowledge before you can return to the shore.
DeleteThank you so, so much, Cayce. Beautifully written and packed with information! And not only on music, clothes and make-up, but on history too.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
So... when can I buy that Goth Bible you are going to write? I just love the way you're using words. It would be bloody melancholia to read it all from your point of view.
Glad you enjoyed it! Writing the big bible would be a project indeed, but maybe I should get the hang of this crowd-funding thing and give it a go...
DeleteThank you for this, it has been an utter delight to read. I think I knew most of the stuff here, but seeing it in one place really put goth into focus.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I think I have more affirmatives than negatives on the questions, yet still I don't think I'm anything close to goth proper. Whatever I am though, goth must be its older, cooler cousin. I feel like I can learn a lot from you guys. And I have, in my last two years of being a B-T fan; I keep talking and talking how much discovering them meant to me and how much they have changed me, and a lot of that influence should go under goth influence. I would listen to Bauhaus before, but it never clicked like B-T did. Well, of course there's much more to B-T than goth, it is its own strange planet ^^
Anyway, I hate clubbing, but I would love to go to a goth club some time. I promise I will put all the care in the world into dressing like I mean it.
Something I didn't mention in the article, but probably should have (and may add in) is that gothness isn't really an all-or-nothing situation - there are degrees of gothness. Some people are 100% devoted to everything about the goth lifestyle, but other people mix and match shades of goth with shades of other things. Since I'm using Mr. Sakurai as one of my prime examples - plenty of B-T fans are less goth than Mr. Sakurai (it's hard to be as goth as him!) but still gothically inclined, so I wouldn't say those people aren't goths, just that they're not goths to the same extent. The people who are not goths at all are the people who play dress-up in the clothes without having any interest/knowledge in the history behind them and the culture surrounding them. Other people who are not goth are people like metalheads who belong to another subculture entirely but mainstream people mislabel as being goths.
DeleteMany people who hate normal clubbing find they enjoy goth clubbing, so I encourage you to give it a try. Earplugs are great if you can't handle loud music and in Japan there are a lot of people who can't physically process alcohol so they go clubbing sober and have fun anyway (if drinking is not your thing.)
Yes, pleas add the part about people mixing styles with goth. I believe it´s one of the most important points.
DeletePeople usually don´t consider that there might be something inbetween and feel like they won´t get accepted no matter where they go.
Readers may notice that I updated the conclusion section of the article with some of the points I made in the paragraph above, though with regard to the idea of there being many shades of goth, I was not simply talking about clothing style.
DeleteI think if other people's comments on whether your wardrobe is goth really matter so much to you, you should ask yourself why you're suffering from such a gothic insecurity complex. If the goth scene is your scene, it doesn't matter what anyone says about your pink and white ensemble (see the mention of "white goth" in my article - image search it on Google if you don't believe me that white goth is a thing...though it's not like just any old white will do, either.) True, gothic events should warrant gothic dress, but if people are telling you that white can't be goth, then respectfully, they have no idea what they're talking about, and you can laugh at them. But then again, maybe you're merely exploring the fringes of goth culture and not quite sure yet whether it's something you want to devote yourself to...and that, too, is fine.
So I can happily be 39% goth XD Anyway, "Butoh, tribal fusion, and pole dancing" <3
DeleteI don´t feel insecure about it, I just see that there are people who´d like to express their style through clothing but don´t dare to because it´s too much for mainstream but "not enough" for goth peeps.
ReplyDeleteI´ve always considered myself as a loner, so I don´t care, but most people need like-minded people around them to feel secure, so being somewhere inbetween and not having a scene might feel very uncomfortable to some of them.
I don't know who you've been talking to but these sound like the words of people who don't understand goth or dress goth but for some reason demand to insert themselves into the subculture without actually engaging in the activities of the subculture. Usually, it seems people do this because they wish they were more interesting than they actually are. Among the people I've known who have fit this description, none of them have ended up satisfied.
DeleteTo paraphrase Enigma:
"the principles of Goth
are easy to understand
do what you feel
feel until the end"
Yeah, I don't know where you've been hanging out either. I've by no means had the opportunity to hang out in goth clubs as much as some folks, but when I have it's always a pretty mixed crowd. Back in the day, there was very little actual "goth" music, but an awful lot of "goth adjacent" music, so most people had fairly broad musical tastes and those also influenced their individual styles when it came to clothes and hair and whatnot.
DeleteSure if you went to see some bands there would be am element of tribal dress among the fans (hello The Mission!) but in general I've always been aware of a mix of people in the goth arena, as its brushed cheeks sexily with other types of music like house/dance/rave, punk, grunge, grebo, industrial etc. There were even people rocking the Victorian edge even before the advent of steampunk.
Like-minded does not equal Like-dressed. I doubt I'd have ever been attracted to the goth culture at all if I'd had to follow a strict dress code. I don't really "do" those kind of rules :)
Sounds like you've been interacting with certain cliques in the Los Angeles goth scene. If so, don't take it personally... That's just LA for you. No one's ever posh enough or good enough for certain LA natives. It's the one thing I don't really like about LA goth clubs. Step away from the city and goth clubs are much more accepting about what you wear and, I find, a little more down to earth? Maybe it was just the difference in the amount of people I knew at each place, but that's sort of my experience. Some people can definitely be like that.
DeleteI'm 24 years old and thanks to your enlightening article I found out that a hidden Goth has lived inside of me since high school times without even realizing it! I've never considered myself a part of any subculture because I have almost no interest in fashion, I don't prefer black colour or a specific music genre, I like many different genres, it depends on my (mostly melancholic) mood. Here I'm getting to the point.I've always been inclined towards music or literature that explores the dark side of the human psyche. I like many artists you have mentioned in the list although not all of them are clearly associated with goth. Oh and I love Poe's and Wilde's work to death! When Buck-Tick and Sakurai's ideas found their place in my heart, it's only a logical consequence of my heading for the gothic philosophy of life. Thank you again for broadening my horizons!
ReplyDelete"Mr. Sakurai in Crocs would still be goth as fuck."
ReplyDelete*facepalm* Though he surely would be... just... no. Please stay classy, Mr. Sakurai!
"Goth is in the soul, and the soul burns with a livid black flame."
That is a very powerful line, Cayce! True words.
Rule 34: some fangirl somewhere has fantasized about Mr. Sakurai wearing Crocs and nothing else.
DeleteDear Heavens, please blind me to this unholy fantasy! It's abominable...
Delete*headdesk*
Well Mr. Sakurai looked goth even in a fuchsia tee, so I guess he was one of those who were born goths.
DeleteI really enjoyed this, way more than I thought I would. For me, I was sort of raised goth. My sister [older by nearly 10 years] is definitely goth and I grew up knowing things like who Bela Lugosi was and singing "He's dead, he's dead" every time his name came up. When I turned 18, my sister immediately shipped me off to a goth club and despite a pretty dead night and a terrible DJ, I had a blast and started going to another one regularly for the next three years. I was 10-20 years younger than nearly everyone there but I ended up knowing just about the entire club [and laughed really hard when people tried to educate me on bands like And One and I had to inform them that I'd been listening to them longer than they had]. Despite this, I never really considered myself goth. It wasn't in my soul as much as everyone else I knew so it didn't feel right. Having drifted from the clubs [which I miss TERRIBLY, the laughter, the deep conversations, the hold-that-thought-I-must-dance, the silliness!], I think I've actually become a little more goth than I was when going to clubs. People generally just call me goth and I can't really deny it, but I don't really call myself goth either. And I've realized that's probably the most gothic thing I could ever do... refuse to label myself as goth.. Haha I've given up. Yeah, totally a baby bat still.
ReplyDeleteI really loved the club section of this. Next time someone asks me to describe a goth club, I'm just going to direct them to that section because it was perfect. [Do not. ever. dance on me, what are you doing? You get punched accidentally, if not on purpose.] Also really enjoyed the history. Pretty much knew it all already but I've never seen it organized. I skimmed through this with my sister afterwards and we had a pretty good laugh at the accuracy.
And yes. All the yes to adding Cinema Strange. I think I squealed when I saw them listed. I've been listening to them since I was 7ish? So nearly 20 years. I've had the opportunity to get to know them and they are incredible people. A band very dear to my heart <3
In similar fashion, if you haven't heard of The Deep Eynde, you should give them a listen, too. I often lump the two together even though Deep Eynde has a more rockabilly/punk feel at times.
I'm so glad to hear my article met with your approval. Honestly, for the longest time I didn't like the "goth" label either and tried to distance myself from it as much as possible - why are people so fond of label and categories and putting everyone away in neat boxes? I despise this tendency and didn't want to be a part of it. But goth is undeniably a subculture and it's quite a long-lived one that this point as subcultures go, and it needs a name just to make it easier to talk about. So I gave up and embraced the label. But it seems to me that many of the gothiest goths still vehemently resist being labeled as such, while the people who are keen to label themselves goth at the first opportunity are generally not actually that goth at all and merely seeking attention/compensating for something.
DeleteAlso if you're in LA you probably remember Newgrave Magazine. I still have the Cinema Strange poster they published once upon a grave...next time you chill with them you should ask them what they remember about their trip to Tokyo (I think it was 2006).
I'm ashamed that I probably left out at least a hundred bands I should have listed but it's surprisingly hard to come up with a comprehensive list on the fly. There are so many.
Haha that's exactly what I think too. A lot of people who are quick to label themselves tend to be little teenagers who really don't know the first thing about the subculture they're claiming to be and it seems like they often discard it. Like 'Oh I was goth once, back in high school'. No, no I don't think you really were because in my experience it isn't something you can be 'once'.
ReplyDeleteI believe my sister's friend worked on NewGrave? Could have the wrong magazine but she seems to know everyone and their mother [she has a memory for faces so even if she isn't friends she can name people. It's ridiculous.] I haven't seen the boys in years though. We used to meet up at Disneyland and Daniel or Mike would go skipping off hand in hand with my little niece haha. My sister probably has that magazine somewhere in her closet. She has at least one copy of the magazine with Dir en Grey in it, their first US magazine interview or highlight, whichever. I guess one of the clubs she goes to had a picture of them from way back when in the bathroom so whenever she sees them she goes "Wow, that's not how I remember them!" and it freaks me out every time. She doesn't do Jrock haha.
Ah, yes, the old "I was a goth once in high school" dismissal! I don't believe I ever met anyone who was really a goth inside and then gave it up later. Some people are into the fashion only and then give up on it. Others remain goth but stop dressing up as much as they once did, or stop going to clubs, but that doesn't mean they've left the subculture as far as I'm concerned, since they probably still enjoy the music and Sunday picnics in the graveyard. The elders I am pleased to call friends here in Tokyo are still in 100%, even the ones who are well over fifty.
DeleteAnd yes, Newgrave was the first US magazine to interview Dir en grey, back when hardly anyone outside Japan knew who they were! I can only imagine that they loved being in LA back then.