Teen Gothic

So I wanna start this off by saying I’m a big history nerd, I especially love the history of the goth/punk subcultures. Most goths will agree that goth is anti-bigot. However recently whenever I talk about this outside of goth spaces, I’ve gotten odd comments about certain groups actually being bigoted.

A real message that was sent to me “A true goth is a closed group of people who listen to goth music or industrial while keeping traditional almost archaic beliefs the modern goth is just a punk relabeled or a chick in black listening to pop music.” “Goth was subverted by preppie girls who discovered tattoos actual goths hate them all and would've been a much more exclusive group than inclusive. The south park goth kids are actually more accurate to the real goths. Alt and punk was called goth by preps and then appropriated by them.”

Which is just insanity. Firstly “South Park goths” were literally a joke, kids that didn’t know what goth meant and copied the aesthetic with a line of theirs being “all you have to do to be nonconformist is dress exactly like us!” (Paraphrasing) secondly this isn’t what the modern gothic subculture ever stood for, since the 70s-80s their stance was against conservatism and conforming to popular norms.

Has anyone else had this experience where people will literally spout nonsense about what “true goths” are in order to co-opt it into a conservative thing? This feels like utter garbage by random (mainly guys) to gatekeep a subculture they know nothing about..

Everywhere I go on there you're either wading through AI generated album covers that instantly makes me not want to ever listen to your music, or it's tagged so poorly that I often find rap or just pop music being labeled as 'goth'. Bandcamp was and continues to be the easiest way to find goth music for me and have found some great bands on there that are still some of my favorites, but in recent months it's become a minefield to peruse anything there and a stroke of luck to find anything that hits.

The AI generated images just feel like a betrayal of the DIY ethos that should be integral to goth and deathrock and no goth musician should ever succumb to the diminishing and quick returns you get from them.

Just needed to vent. This shit is demoralizing.