Teen Gothic

Nostalgia kills the modern goth scene. When you have older people telling young people how great things were and how today doesn't measure up, it leads to inactivity. After all, why bother if it is going to suck.

Oldy McOldface is certain things were amazing back in their day and even after not going to a single modern event (or in many cases disappearing for years and resurfacing wondering why everything has changed) and age means superiority. But it doesn't always work like that.

How do you know things suck now if you haven't tried it? And I don't mean going to a single night and declaring all is unwell. A proper go for a better informed opinion. So maybe it does suck. So why does it? Are the DJs recycling the same old setlists out of nostalgia? Are younger people running the event like an older one because they have been told that is how it was when goth was better? Maybe the events don't suck at all. Maybe you suck.

It is worth noting in a lot of the world, goth events are attended by an aging population. We need to get younger people involved. Show that goth was alive back then and is still alive now. Older people tend to have the knowledge and resources to make things happen. Use age and experience to guide, not to shout get off my lawn and out of my clubhouse.

Young people can also fall into nostalgia for something they never experienced. By thinking the past was oh so wonderful through the nostalgia lens. How the music was so great, the events/venues, the people. But that same nostalgia lens distorts things.

The music has been filtered by time so the good stuff is well known. Obscurities are usually obscure for good reason. Most of it is generic or just not that good. Information was sparse back then and varied region to region, city to city. Now it is a lot more uniform worldwide.

A lot of events were held in dives that were death traps. And the people… you think elitists are bad now? You have no idea. On top of that you have how badly alternative people in general were treated. Gay and trans people copped it even worse. When someone tells you metalheads used to beat up goths they aren't lying. Then there is the difference in sexual assault laws and sleazebags getting away with a lot more shady behaviour.

Change is inevitable. Change had to happen and for the most part now is far better than before. And all eras have their pros and cons. But there is only one era that really matters : now. If now fails because people are too focused on thinking about past glory the goth scene will die and there will be no future.

Some nostalgia is fine, we should respect the past and the people who built up the goth subculture so we can have it now. Listening to old music and telling old stories are fine. But a good DJ doesn't just play the old music everyone knows, they also play new music as well as trying things that may be the next wave of the future. Old stories can inspire good things to happen today and light a fire under people's arses to do something. We can have it too.

"But I don't have a local scene!" – guess it sucks to be you if you lived back then. But wait… now we have the internet and social media! We can access almost any song in the world right now without postal delays or the inconvenience of leaving the house. I can talk to other goths right now if I wanted to at any time of day without people picking up my phone call with "Why are you ringing at 3am on Tuesday, you weirdo!" and that includes talking to goths anywhere in the world. Yeah, it isn't the same as having a local scene but it is a far cry from having nothing at all.

So let's focus on now and making goth an enriching experience for all of us, one we can have together wherever we are.

Source : https://www.facebook.com/gothgothygothgoth/posts/1231022077427377

Before I first got into goth exactly a year ago, I had no idea goth was a music genre. Before, I had been convinced it was some sort of aesthetic, mindset or fashion, and that it would be something I could never pull off. I'm not a very attractive person, and I'm quite literally the opposite of a brooding goth stereotype.

When I got into the music finally, goth no longer became cool to me, but in a very good way. My expectations were subverted, and what I found was a very authentic community with a passionate love for music. I finally belonged. This was much better than something I thought was previously too artificial for my liking.

And that's what I want to say: goth isn't "cool" like you think it is. It baffles me that people view me and others like we're mythical creatures of the night or something, which couldn't be farther from the truth. We're nerds. Music nerds. We gush about post-punk music, we attend clubs and dance like goofballs with our friends, we make memes about Robert Smith and puns about Bela Lugosi's Dead. But it's so fun. This is what goth is to me.

I just want to say that you don't need the goth label to be popular. Goth styles do not exist. We don't all dress like Victorian vampires and hide in the shadows. We don't always wear black. We don't hate people and the world. Goth is about being yourself against a world that wants you to put on a mask and pretend to be someone else. And most goths, shockingly, are just like you and me; regular people just living life to the best.

So then, why do we care about the goth label so much?

It's how we find our music. It's how we find our local scenes. It's how we find each other. Goth is the music that binds us together and celebrates what the music has done to change our lives. It means something very specific to us. That's why we get frustrated when you use "goth" in contexts that don't pertain specifically to our subculture. It makes it harder to really find each other. Worse, some people may never find us because of it.

You may not like it, but you're either a goth, or not.

And it's ok to not be goth.