Teen Gothic

My first dedicated goth look as a new member in the community (to go see the Backrooms movie yayyyy Kane pixels!!!)

Question for you all:
Goth is music based, but not entirely music — what else do you believe makes Goth what it is?
I heard a take I really liked that said it's also an outlook. To be goth is to embrace the strange and morbid and taboo, to be weird and to love that you are.

p.s., just joined this subreddit so I'm still getting familiar with the rules. trying my best to follow them, but please point me in the right direction if I'm doing something wrong!

okay so i just want everyones opinions on this. i feel like the community is so insanely split? like people saying "oh its music based" (which it most definitely is) or "you have to wear _" or that you cant buy fast fashion etc etc. i feel like it's important to discuss but along the way we seem to lose a sense of community? like it feels like no one agrees on anything and we stopped having fun and enjoying ourselves. was it always like this or is my perception warped? i dont really know. thoughts? hope this is on subject enough lmao.

i've noticed on social media that the comment section on 90% of a goth-related post is just people arguing between about what is goth and what isnt, the difference between goth and gothic, what music is goth and what isnt, etc. dont get me wrong, i believe that it is very important for people to help educate others in a respectful way. but i feel like a lot of the times the way its done is either mean or straight up spreading misinformation.

i just watched a makeup transition video of someone most-likely outside of the subculture but i have no way to know. she did a "goth look" and it definitely wasnt trad goth but it looked very romantic goth. and almost every single comment was people correcting her – in a mean or passive-aggressive way. some were super condescending, explaining the difference between "goth" and "gothic" and others were saying stuff along the lines of "you arent goth do some research" but really, at the end of the day, does it matter? yes and no. most people outside of the community dont know the difference between certain words or phrases within the community, and its great to help inform others who dont know. but the way its done is just so… mean :/

also someone commented (and i quote) "you cant just do goth makeup. if its a one off thing, sure!". this was so weird to me because who is going to stop her? quite literally lol. like is someone gonna go up to someone and say "hey you have to take off that makeup look because you dont listen to the music"

i hope one day we all come together and fully respect others, and embrace this subculture as one. informing others who are curious, and not gatekeeping a beautiful thing. for right now i think im going to step away from the online goth community – and local community and embrace the subculture by myself for awhile.

what are people's thoughts? am i overreacting?

** Please note that i'm merely speaking about my own personal experience and not trying to diminish other people's experience within the community *\*

As someone with Iranian heritage who has been in the scene for a long time, i've never felt unwelcomed at all. I never got racist or ignorant comments thrown at me. Not in real ife, nor online. I honestly never felt like my ethnicity ever mattered. It didn't cross my mind once. And i also never felt like making my ethnicity a part of my goth identity. I was in the goth scene because i loved the music and loved the fashion and lifestyle that came with it. I have also found that out of all the alt scenes, goths were the kindest and chillest people.

I don't know if my appearance played a part in this, as i'm someone who is already naturally quite pale and have natural dark hair. For instance, when i stopped dressing goth, some people still thought that i was a goth.

I'm honestly shocked and also saddened hearing of poc goths who don't feel confident enough in joining the community. And what makes me even more sad and especially angry is when poc goths face scrutiny from other pocs and how they're being accused of acting ''white'', these kinds of ignorant remarks seems to be specifically thrown at black goths and it makes me so sad.

Goth is universal and for everyone. From the dark and ancient mysticism, folklore and sounds coming from the Middle East, to the spooky and eerie tales and aesthetics hailing from New Orleans. Goth has found inspiration from many corners of the world.

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.

Hello. I'm doing an assignment for school about misconceptions or stereotypes about the goth community and how they affect us as a community. I would like to see what misconceptions you would all like to see be discussed more often or are harmful, but others may not see it as such. Also, I might use your responses in my essay and I'm happy to post it here after I've completed it. 🙂 Obvi I will credit and mention those who's points I may use in the essay. 🙂

Edit: Also how do you all think these misconceptions impact us as a community? Thank you to everyone who responded to my post! I will be asking those who made a particularly detailed point to use their comments in my essay. Thank you!

I recently found out that I love goth music. I mostly listen to Corpus delicti, twin tribes, Bragolin, Linea Aspera, Bauhaus.

I had a tendency to dress in black clothes (I know that dressing in black does not makes an outfit gothic) since I was a child.

I do not feel like I should label myself as goth. I am sayingthis bc there is an high probability that after a few months of listening constantly to goth music I will be tired of this tyle of music and I do not want to consider myself goth and then after half an year I won't even listen to this genre.

It happened to me that I listened to a genre for a few months like a crazy amount of time and then, on one day I just stopped listeningto that type of music.

And for some reason I feel unease when I see these gothic outfits that a lot of goth people wear.

So is it ok to just listen to this type of music whitout labeling myself as goth ? And maybe incorporating some ideas from goth outfits into my own style ?

For some reason people around my age ( 19-20 yo ) either call others posers if people just want to listen to goth music whitout other implications posers, or they just sexualize this subculture.

Am I a poser if I listen to goth music without labeling myself as goth ?

on the spotify wrapped it said people who also like the music i listen to (mainly goth music) was in berkeley california, what is the most active goth community

I'm in a fairly conservative area of a South-Eastern European country and while alternative and goth people are not unknown, there are virtually no spaces for us, no goth clubs of any kind and if any exist they're on an entirely informal basis. On top of that i'm kind of androgynous and i get weird glares for my outfits and long hair anytime i walk out, including whispered comments. I feel severely disconnected as a result.

Watching people here post images of their goth club experiences, being able to dress up and have fun, listen to music and dance is heartbreaking for someone who is in the closet and has no real venue for this. Anyone else in a similar situation?

I'm 28 and recently started to listen to gothic music genres. I found that I enjoy Dark wave and Ethereal Wave a lot and love the vibes of the genres. I'm trying to learn about about history of gothic culture. I feel like I'm to old to join the community, as many seem to find the genre/community in teens.