Ehn. Who cares.


After some kids shot up their classmates, and were labeled 'goth', I went into a short period of righteous indignation that the media was acting like they were examples of what would happen if a kid listened to such evil music as goth (not that the media wouldn't have said the same thing if they'd been labeled metal heads or most any other musical genre).

In an ill conceived flurry of typing, I wrote the following text, and am leaving it up despite my complete lack of reasoning and immaturity at the time of writing.

Oh, and I retract my comment that I'd be called goth. I'm now going to pretend it was solely for solidarity with a group repressed little rich kids (like they'd need my support) and has nothing to do with me.

> How's that for mature?

 

I used to protest that, no, I am NOT goth, but after hearing all the anti-goth backlash over 2 idiots that somehow got that tag, I admit that were I still in HighSchool, I'd immediately be labeled "Goth". I was goth; I still am, and at this point I'm PROUD of it!

Why? Because not a single one of the multitudes of goths I've know would EVER have committed the abuses that are being levied against this loose affiliation. Sure, many of the goths I've met were depressed, and some would hurt themselves but the only way I knew them to hurt others was with biting wit. In fact, I was (and still am) more likely to want those sort of people as my friends than the 'straights'.

Still, if I am am going to discount the individuals that the general public will categorize as 'goths' -- if I'm going to make broad and sweeping generalizations rather than admit to the diversity of gothdom -- then I would say that the largest fault of the community is its propensity to attract preening, self absorbed kids that obsess on appearance rather than substance. To my mind, that makes them nearly identical to the 'in' crowd they are supposedly rebelling against.

I mean who is more clique-ish? The cheerleader/jock types with their varsity jackets? Or the black clad sun skirters whose every accessory screams Look at me! Look at me!! I am NOT one of them!!!" ? Which?

Everyone wants attention.

What I know from my life is this :
When I was merely an outcast in Jr/Sr High, I was miserable, I got bad grades, I hated myself, the world, and most everything in it.
When I discovered Bauhaus, Siouxsie, 'shows', and most importantly, others who could not conform, my whole life changed. I found peers who accepted me, my grades when from boreder-line failing to honor roll, I gained self confidence, I found my own voice, and my whole spirit felt lighter, unburdened, and finally could accept the concept of hope.

While I'm still prone to a more negative attitude towards the world than a positive one, I've long outgrown the seething frustration of being a young teen -- feeling alone and persecuted, and beyond understanding.

Sadly, most the the goths I knew are now in their 30s, and the younger crowd seem to have lost the edge that old goths once had. In all likelihood, it isn't that goth has changed so much as that I have. As I get older, the goths I meet seem less educated, less quick, and more into fashion. I remember the let-down I experienced upon overhearing a goth-ly clad teen talking about blowing cash in Vegas on a slot machine style after the Sex Pistols. She expressed the absolute 'rad'-ness of this, and I groaned; hanging my head in shame that she had been led into a blatant marketing scheme. Worse, she came away from it thinking that giving her money up to a corporate entity was cool just because some marketing executive put the semblance of Sid on their money machines.

It it was at that exact moment I began trying to distance myself from the abstract notion of 'goth'. It is only now that I hear the media screaming ugly and hopelessly inaccurate epithets at goths that I have the urge to admit that I've always retained the ideals established in small shows; amid a sea of white faces and black cloaks, and fabulous hair.

I'll get off my high horse now and return to other things.

If you linked here from my main page, feel free to ignore my rant and get back to slightly less useless things.