'What is Goth?' Afterword: Goth's Resentment

A subculture clings to the past while time forces it toward the future.

Originally posted via Patreon July 19, 2021. This essay will be featured in the forthcoming hardcover edition of 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝑮𝒐𝒕𝒉? (& 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑬𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒔): 𝑨 𝑻𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑮𝒐𝒕𝒉’𝒔 𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 & 𝑰𝒏𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆.

When I started writing the unpolished versions of essays that would end up in my books, there were already solid spaces for Black and other alternative people of color to gather. They've existed for longer than we care to admit--in small pockets across small towns throughout the world, as a way of communing with other people over shared experiences. And for each space, there's multiple origin stories of how someone got into goth subculture. There's multiple perspectives on what being goth means to the Black and brown people within these spaces. 

That makes white trad-goths very, very uncomfortable.

There is a large effort by white gothic gatekeepers to make what defines the subculture this rigid, unchanging force when in reality, like most things, goth is pretty fluid. Before the term came to categorize a gloomy soundscape, it was a literature movement that coincided with the customs of the period--when mourning was public and ingrained in the culture. That literature movement was inspired in part by the architecture, which was in turn inspired by the Gothic people. For the elders who grew up with Siouxsie & the Banshees, Joy Division, and D.I.Y. clothes, goth's evolution into the 1990s with minimalist, vampy fashion trending in pop, the rise of the "mall goth", and horror elements creating a subgenre in hip-hop surely made some white goths feel the aesthetic was being "wasted" on people who had no appreciation of the subculture. The fusion of goth with metal, and eventually goth with emo, also had the same effect; a fierce desire to preserve what was and still is perceived as the "purest" form of goth. But this is unrealistic. Goth has had to change and evolve to get to the point where people are wearing black clothes with dark makeup, and listening to Bauhaus. So why would they expect goth's evolution to ever stop there?

It has only been within the last five years that the goth subculture has had to take a hard look at itself and realize so many people have been forgotten, or purposefully left out. But just acknowledging Black and brown people in the subculture, or curating lists of artists who have contributed to it over the last 40 years is only the beginning of the journey to me. There is an active refusal to acknowledge what I like to call the "goth-adjacent," even among non-white goths. To consider the goth-adjacent is to consider how the gothic has manifested itself in other cultures across the globe. It is rooted in a consideration and empathy towards the experiences of others. That's why I take the gothic back to times of enslavement in the United States; so much about our culture and the way we operate as a country has been born from it, from plantation ghost tours, to lynching postcards, to body cam footage. To me, it's more than a t-shirt slogan, social media visibility, or a hashtag. It's about connecting the past to the present, and realizing we've always fit into the narrative.

Since the cool down from a turbulent summer of protesting in the middle of a pandemic, Black and brown goths have seen major subculture brands take a hit for their shallow PR-made stances, their lack of effort, or their blatant racism. We've also seen small but impactful changes, like brand deals and other opportunities for our community. But for the most part, unless it's being forced by the sociopolitical climate, the white goth community would rather not think about what it could do to regularly include and engage with people of color in a meaningful way that doesn't involve lists, afterwords, and afterthoughts.