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Pretense: This is a commentary on the dialect
between "old-school" goths that glorify Batc-
ave culture and the new "eGoths" that are
"tarnishing" goth culture by merely...existing?
I'm well aware that many goths don't try to
define what goth is and are generally unconcer-
ned with the feeble squabbles from within
this social infrastructure. These are the views
and opinions of me and me only, any expressed
views or opinions of others are based on my
observations of others.
--
Old heads want to say that you need to listen
to the music to be true goth. They say to listen
to the late 70s stuff like Alice Cooper and the
early 80s post-punk stuff like Velvet Under-
ground. To the old-schoolers, this is the only
way to be real goth, or at least as close to the
real thing as possible, as the new kids will
never be batcavers.
So the eKids did. Thanks to Molchat Doma
being popular on TikTok, all the eKids swarm-
ed on the post-punk sounds like flies to shit.
They started getting obsessed with post-punk
and meme'd it out on Instagram and TikTok.
The makeup users also heavily transferred
their stylistic influence to looking like Siouxie
Sioux. Suddenly we had the consequence of
the post-punk renaissance...eGoths. Take the
eGirls/Boys of TikTok...give them a
Batcave-wikipedia-page-skim paintjob... and
you now have the audience members of post-
punk renaissance DIY tryhards.
The issue with this is that the kids did exactly
what the batcavers were running away from.
Batcavers were sick of commoditized music
and art scenes, so they wanted to make some
new art via the Batcave. NEW art. Not recy-
cled art. "Post-" subgenres intend to think
outside of the box of their genre, typically sick
of the long-standing tropes that confine the art-
ists. They saturated themselves in "genuine
retro" goth culture, by cosplaying as "true
goths" as hard as completely possible (beyond
style; cosplaying by also living lifestyle choic-
es in order to fit an aesthetic. Examples include
baselessly reading Edgar Allen Poe without un-
derstanding historical context/taking photos in
cemeteries but not actually spending time in
them out of genuine interest). They are doing
exactly what post-punkers and batcavers were
innovating against, encouraging traditional
cultural conservatism in art scenes! The once
gatekept become the gatekeepers, as the
eGoths are now enforcing the rules that the
old-schoolers once enforced on them.
The eGoths of today are also going against the
grain of what the Batcavers wanted. Zoomer
goth is a highly consumeristic goth, contrary
to the original ideals of finding beauty in a wo-
rld so hideous and void of meaning. With mak-
eup tutorials accessible and stores numerous,
one practically has to do makeup nowadays to
be accepted, God forbid you go to clubs with
any facial hair or no makeup. Due to the abun-
dant selection of handmade alt clothes and
kinkwear in online marketplaces, you will get
the cold shoulder from the eGoths if you are a
"band shirt and skinny pants" type of dresser.
Skate shoes? What is this, 2009? Where are
your $300 designer boots? Don't even think
about buying Docs. Check out my collection
of vintage post-punk records and cassettes.
These aren't even everything, I have a whole
box of limited reprints in my basement. Not
like I listen to them, Spotify/Apple Music has
all the playlists I need. Gone are the days of
knowing artists & albums. Omg and you don't
even have a TikTok? You need to have videos
of you in your overly-accessorized outfits that
you would never wear to a club standing at
your university that your mommy and daddy
are paying for next to your "normal" class-
mates that "stare and scorn" at you with a pre-
dictable tongue in cheek caption about how
you're being persecuted for not dressing
like a normal person!
This isn't a slam piece against my dear and be-
loved zoomers, for the "true" and "old skool"
goths are to be held in contempt for creating
the eGoths. The original batcavers were often
following sociological ideologies, against
consumerism they were. Yet, the old school
goth gatekeepers glorifying their culture
turned that culture into a commodity. They
created the demand for people to try their hard-
est to live Batcave culture. If they had never
told people "don't listen to x, listen to y" over
the years, we wouldn't have the normie-
tization and commodotization of post-punk
sounds. If they hadn't made fun of cybers and
scene/emo kids, then there wouldn't be such a
push for everyone to put Molchat Doma on
their story 3 times per day. If they hadn't gate-
kept so hard, they could have let the new
generation take on the responsibility of
defining goth in their own modern tongue.
Need I write twice in the same piece about the
definition of "post-" movements? Batcave glo-
rifyers don't know shit about post-punk if they
aren't telling newcomers to be post-goth.
So back to what I meant about the paradox:
The old-schoolers insist that Batcave goth is
the only true goth; yet this is heretical to the
original post-punkers that insisted on freedom
of art direction and the breaking of boundaries.
The eGoths insist that they are true, genuine
goth, or alternatively that there is no true goth;
yet their views about the world are equally
misguided as the gatekeeping old-schoolers.
They live consumerist lifestyles and serve as
proxy goths.
Both old-school goth and eGoth fail to be
goth in my eyes because they break the holy
tenant: They are not finding beauty in an
ugly world; they are creating ugliness in a
potentially beautiful world.
I'd like to end this piece on a high note by sho-
uting out cybergoth foos and mall goth foos.
Yall are the real heroes; just out there having
fun, making funny memes about the culture,
and being welcoming and accepting to anyone
curious about the lifestyle. I've always had a
soft spot for mall goths and cyber goths; they
were bullied hard by their own heroes in the
late 90s and learned how to overcome the
hatred and difference that plagues social infas-
tructures by being more warm and welcoming
than any old-school goths or eGoths I've ever
met.
Comments
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Trashboy_br@1n
I just searched up Goth in spacehey and already this is one of the best things I've read here so far. I see this behaviour all the time, and sometimes worry I see it in myself. So now when I'm trying to emerge myself in goth subculture I am trying to cater to both I feel. I only wear eyeliner so I feel I'm not 'goth enough', but I do love reading Edgar Allen Poe and understanding why he writes how he writes. I'm also a fan of graveyards, not because they're cool but bc I feel like they're a peaceful place to respect the dead, but I'm also a huge fan of the gothic churches which loom over said graveyards usually.
Again, great essay I really loved it.
Thank you so much for replying, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wish I had friends like you that would be down to go find some goth churches to pass the time at. Keep on being you, friend <3
by DJBLASTUM; ; Report