Teen Gothic

I have an immense appreciation for the Victoria era and have been wanting to dress basically like a Victorian vampire for some time now, on the slightly more historically-accurate side. I've seen a few decent items on websites like Shrine of Hollywood and Dracula Clothing, namely their waistcoats, shirts, and a couple tailcoats, however when it comes to measurements, I don't even make it to their smallest sizes. I'm 5'0, of average weight, and wear size five shoes. I truly am in quite the predicament. Do I have any other options? If I must I am willing to take up sewing, though I'm not sure I'll be especially proficient, and I can imagine it might take me a long while to become adept enough to make the pieces I truly desire. I'd be willing to wear women's sizes as well, however I doubt there are many particularly masculine options. I'm not particularly put off by higher prices either, as a fellow artist I acknowledge that good craftsmanship is expensive.

(English is my 2nd language) A friend recently asked if I want to come with her to M'era Luna this year. I've been living in the area for many years but never considered myself "goth enough" to go there. Moreover, my friend is even less goth than I am. Not only style-wise but also musically speaking. I feel like it would be kind of brash to go there as metalhead (me) and a "normie" (my friend)..? As if I'm invading a space that I am not meant to be in. On the other hand I know that I am more concerned about offending strangers than I should be (anxiety, yay), so I don't know what to make of this situation. What do you think?

Yesterday in my philosophy class the theme of metal and goths and emos came up. We got deeper into the topic and there’s an activist in my class who asked questions relating to the work and i explained that most of my research and people ive talked to have said that being goth means more in personality and if you like the music. Then you are goth (correct me if im wrong im more recent).

He started to bring up how the scene is racist and perdominantly white. I said yes that’s true but there’s no place for racism in punk, metal, emo, goth spaces. If there are goth people who are racist, they aren’t goth they’re just appropriating and wouldn’t be accepted by anyone but those alike, it completely defeats the purpose of those genres.

I live in a city where our goth count is very, very low lol. Our metal scene is pretty loyal but i have a hard time finding goths here. And as far as i know you don’t have to look any kind of way to be a goth, but sure there is a theme among the most of us which is anything black.

I have always been “darker” in character and goth doesn’t run in my family at all. I’m an African American male from a high crime rate city. I am the first to be, compared to anyone i’ve grown up with. It’s hard to be alone but hopefully i’ll be able to travel and visit places where i can feel welcomed.

I say all this to say thank you to those of you in this sub who are so open about everything. And fuck whoever taints the image of these communities 😉 Thank you if you’ve read, just wanted to vent i guess.

It seems like a lot of these discussions, specifically on tiktok resort to trying to see whose "more valid" than the other person rather than actually coming to a fair conclusion. I've had accusations thrown at me about not being "Goth/alternative" enough with no real justification besides ad hominem, strawmanning, or maybe even projection at best from the other person.

My reaction to it has more or less been doing my own personal research, withdrawing from the online community on and off, flip-flopping from label to label, and further tuning my musical tastes.

The Reddit and YouTube community are a lot more bearable. Even then, there are a few people who still get argumentative for no real reason other than to prove very common information in a really defensive and pretentious manner. Already under the impression that they're speaking to poseurs with no real evidence. The term "e-girl" has become the new word for poseur to a lot of these people.

If I were to put my concerns into words. It'd be this: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/750764200380474363/. This "virgin bad, chad good" dichotomy which obviously takes on a comically exaggerated version of real life people.

A lot of these gatekeepers my age fall under the impression that every other alternative person they come across is an e-girl and over-correct for the sake of "protecting the community" perhaps. Though the over-correcting does more harm than good, and reads as virtue signalling in my opinion. Even if they don't intend to do harm, it comes off as offensive to people like myself who put in the effort only to be shut down by know-it-alls who don't know me at all.

All and all, I don't run into these issues in real life or with eldergoths online, only on sites and apps with a large concentration of people my age and younger were misinformation and circle-jerking is rampant, which is most of the internet.

Has anyone else dealt with this? I've only been in the online community for about 3-4 years and this has been my general takeaway as a young person into the Goth subculture and over-lapping subcultures.

Gonna be a lot of Theater Of Pains in here but I just want to say that the best for me is the very newest one. Evil Becomes Rule. A sin? That's fine. It sounds so much like a band rocking but still so dark and not retro sounding. Guitar has hardly any, if any, effects on it which seems to be what I want in goth rock.