Teen Gothic

OK I won't lie, I had no idea this was a music based culture till 2 months ago, but now that I'm listening to the music, now I'm noticing when I dress up (even in highschool) people would call me goth, what if I dressed like this and never listened to the music like I did in high-school, would that be an insult to the goth culture, do u think there should be an education system of goth culture vs stereotyping cuse u wear all black and spiked collars?

Mine’s November Növelet.

Why is goth considered a strictly music based subculture? This is a genuine question I’ve been curious about. I don’t mean to offend or devalue the importance of goth music, but it seems like being goth was a thing before the music came into play but there just wasn’t a name for it. It says online that it started in the 80s (though the term gothic rock was coined in 1967), but what about gothic literature and architecture from the 19th century? Or some aspects of the victorian era? Another small example, a lot of people consider Elvira goth and she took inspiration from the Vampira show (1950s).

I really favor this subculture over all others, there’s so many aspects I love especially the fashion and architecture. I feel disappointed I can’t be apart of it if I don’t favor the music above the other things (I do like it, but I like many other genres better I don’t have much time to get into it. I also have a hard time finding songs with lyrics I like, I like heartfelt songs). Please inform me, I’d love to know more. Again I’m just genuinely asking because I love goth!

Before I started listening to and became thoroughly familiar with Goth, I had zero clue what it sounded like and thought maybe it was either really loud and clangy almost similar to metal, or that it was still loud but quasi dancey like Industrial, and people danced to it at “dark raves” or underground nightclubs and such. And then I discovered it and I thought wow this is hella good music, no matter what subgenre it is. And that’s the other thing I like about goth, is that there’s quite the number of subgenres and they can sound very different from one another and yet we can still identify that minor chord or that distinct tone of dread that makes them all similar to each other. What about you guys? Did you already have an idea what goth music was like before you got to listen to it?