What on earth is going on with the goths?

20 years ago, you could clearly define a person belonging to the goth community: dark, scary appearance, being drawn to the occult and other habitually tabooized themes. But most importantly, this particual human being displayed a huge interest in post-punk, gothic rock, heavy metal and such. As time went by however, the border of what the society considers "goth" or "gothic" started to slowly dissipate, resulting in people who have nothing to do with the original community at all labeling themselves as goths.

To understand the background of the entire issue, we should first take a peek into the history behind the term, skipping the medieval period for architecture and such. "Related to music, the terms "goth" or "gothic" were first used to describe the atmosphere of The Doors in 1967, later followed up by Velvet Underground in the same year. The song "All Tomorrow's Parties" created a kind of "mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece" according to music historian Kurt Loder." (indirect quotation from wikipedia)

With the rise of the punk and later post-punk subculture, along with the music developed the fashion style as well. Black, distressed clothing from second hand stores with tons of DIY elements, heavy, durable boots, leather. Basically the staples of the style you can see to this day. For the reason behind affordable and durable clothing in the community clearly stands the fact these people were often being pushed at the edge of society: no one would hire them, so they had little to no money. And most of them liked it. Because what's more punk than spitting on the collective values that opress people?

Sharing similar roots, goth later evolved on one hand side by side the punk movement, on the other hand began implementing it's own elements into the mix. Unlike punk, goths didn't express their distinct personalities with bold colors, but instead chose the very bottom of the color spectrum, often limiting themselves to only wearing black and shades of gray. Another thing that punk had originally nothing to do was the romantization of the darkness within the world. Themes of death, the afterlife, tragic romance or the macabre became the staple of goth music and at some point even the philosophy.

These days, maybe because of the progression of society and acceptance for distinction, more and more people have the chance to express themselves not according to the traditional values. However with this arised a new problem: corporations. Something that absolutely butchers the original idea of the community, such as a crappy Netflix remake of your favorite TV show.

What corporations absolutely love to do is targetting troubled teenagers, eager to express their "unique" personalities and sell them the culture they find edgy and cool through horrible music, clothes made by poor asians working for a few cents and labeling it with a term that has nothing to do with their ready-to-use package, but sounds appealing: goth. And that drives the og's absolutely nuts.

What we are experiencing now is the rise of corporate musicians singing about bitter flavoured nonsense, labeling themselves as goth, even though their intention is not to spend their time creating an artistic masterpiece, but to appeal to the masses and earn a shit ton of money. The same goes along with fashion. How many times have you seen the exact same black top being worn by thousands of people who call themselves goth? (I'm talking to you, shein.)

In conclusion - the goth community nowadays is experiencing a heavy corporatization that will unfortunately progress further and further. As someone who is a diehard in the community, it makes me both angry and sad that we are experiencing our culture being taken away and reshaped to appeal to society's standards, despite the fact this is the exact opposite of what had been paved by the og's of the previous century. So if you're a corporate dog trying to infiltrate between the rest of us: shame on you! And for the rest of you - hopefuly, something can be done about this.

If you desire, you can share this post between your friends, it would make me really happy (´꒳`)♡

Take it easy, Kris.