Why gatekeep when it’s all already ruined?

I sometimes wish I could time travel back to when goth meant something—when it wasn’t just an aesthetic curated for engagement, but a lived experience, rooted in alienation, art, and actual subversion. A time before TikTok makeup tutorials, before everyone and their algorithm thought “goth” was just fishnets, eyeliner, and whatever they saw trending.

When short form content didn't exist, there wasn't all this tendency towards trivialization and mishmash of meaningless e-girl-style subcultures. 

Back then, individuality mattered. No two goths looked alike, and there was a spirit of experimentation and rawness that you just don’t see now, not in a feed designed to reward sameness. Now we’re stuck in a digital culture of regurgitated aesthetics and irony-poisoned mimicry. Goths have become content. A meme. A lookbook. Something to try on. They want the aesthetic, the sex appeal, the softcore version that won't threaten their algorithmic reach.

It makes me wonder: do we need gatekeeping again? Not in the elitist sense of "you can't sit with us," but as a way to protect subcultural depth from becoming completely hollowed out. Because how can something stay alternative if it’s constantly being broadcast, commodified, and reabsorbed into the mainstream?

Web 1.0 had its problems, but at least it allowed for genuine subcultural isolation—forums, fan sites, LiveJournal pages with 12 people who got it. Social media has stripped that away. Everything is visible. Everything is shareable. And in the process, everything starts to look and feel the same.

If everyone can access everything at once, without history, without context, without cost—then what even is a subculture anymore?