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?

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.

So, as many of you may know… The Shaggs are one of the best (worst really), bands of all time. They basically were forced by their father to play music, having no real talent and desire to play and basically their music is horrible. I mean I personally love them and will defend them to the death as one of the best bands to have ever existed. But yeah, their musicianship is shit and to the average listener, they probably couldn't listen past the first 15th second of their record.

Having said that, my question to you is this. Are there any goth bands out there similar to this? Just a really, really bad goth band that is just some weird cult following, which was built/made out of some weird circumstance like The Shaggs, where for whatever reason, even though they aren't very good, had continued to play and gig and now are some weird novelty/cult following goth band that only the really cool goth kids know about?

Ok Thanks! 🙂

Looking specifically for lesbian goth songs but any lgbtq+ related songs would be appreciated as well

Who was at Whitby Goth Weekend back in the 90s? Please share your memories and what it was like!

Siouxie and the Banshees & Bauhaus are my 2 favourites right now. I just want to dance in an abandoned graveyard under a full moon, with no one for miles. Its such a special vibe that I've never ever had with any other music.

Please give me more artists/bands reccomendations! Or you could tell me your favorite songs from the either that I've listed!

The title basically, can be death rock, dark wave or gothic rock

I’m a huge shoegaze fan and we have our good few movies that are a part of the holy shoegaze canon (Araki stuff, Lost in Translation), but do goths have any? They don’t necessarily have to have goth music, but if you do know any movies with goth songs, I’d love to hear them. Movies that capture the atmosphere of goth music, have a visual style relating to goth music, or just have successfully written goth characters. I’ve heard Lisa Frankenstein may fit.

Are there any movies that come to mind?