Teen Gothic

I came across this tiktok of a girl talking about how she used to go to a goth night in Fresno 10 years ago and that she went again this year and there were so many young people.

I'm 21 and I've only been in the scene since COVID restrictions ended, so I can't compare. What I did notice is that most people are in their 40s and then there is a handful of young people, in their teens to early 20s that got into goth in the past few years, but it is still a very small group and I don't think it's enough to make any difference. One of the djs told my friends and I that they hadn't seen anyone under 30 at goth clubs for years until recently.

People who have been in the scene for longer, did you notice an increasing number of young people at events as well? Do you think goth has the potential to be a youth subculture again?

Hear me out. Somebody Else by the 1975. I've been listening to it a lot recently and I feel like the lyrics and mood of the song would fit in with goth music if it were made into a goth cover.

I was thinking about how I became interested in Goth in the first place. With other music and hobbies throughout my life I can usually point to one or two people being the primary influence. Yet, I am unable to do so with Goth. So I will explain.

I was in highschool in the mid 80s. Denver was still very much a cow town then, yet had a thriving underground punk scene. I know I was drawn to punk in the early 80s as I was always very angry. Going to punk shows and the underage clubs became my passion. By sophomore year I had transformed to full on Goth. However none of my friends were goth, they were punks.

I guess the music was the driving force. It seemed the best dance songs at the clubs were the Goth songs. I remember going nuts for Temple of Love everytime they played it at Rock Island. I loved to dance, mostly because all the girls liked to dance. I enjoyed dancing in the cages with them.

The darker lyrics and melodies of the music appeals to me. Especially the steely guitars of The Sisters of Mercy. I was drawn to the fashion, and the hair. I loved my skull buckles. My over use of hairspray and dye probably caused my baldness.

I still love black. I had some great times back then. I still love the music today. I have my old leather jacket hanging in my closet. Many of my old posters are on the walls of my dressing room. I still wear my earrings. The SOM tattoos still fashon my body.

But for the life of me I can't remember who exactly turned me on to Goth. Maybe your stories will help me remember.

My coworker said their kid is way obsessed with Bowie so I gave her a copy of Bauhaus – Crackle.

I'm excited that younger folks are gonna watch that Wednesday Adams show and hear The Cramps.

Feel free to skip straight to the questions at the end of this post. The questions are the heart of this post. I'm not going to be offended if you skip past my own answers. I practically wrote an essay.

For me, it was discussion groups and message boards in the early and mid-2000s. I'm the kind of person who's always appreciated horror and the darker side of life, because sometimes"dark" really was "deep and thoughtful". I fell in love with the allure of goth. A subculture known for embracing misfits like me.

I was lucky enough to know people who loved actual goth music, many of whom were first-wave, involved in the music scene back in the 80s. I was never into Marilyn Manson or VampireFreaks and the other popular silliness that the mainstream has wrongly associated with goth. No black trenchcoats or baggy pants with wallet chains or shocking white face paint.

I'll admit that I was a little bit edgy and had to bite back my attitude. (Gothic Miss Manners was a delight! Jillian Venters. These days she's blogging as Gothic Charm School. She's published an excellent book on etiquette for goths.)

So here's me in my early to mid-teens devouring all the music I could find through mixtapes, forums, blogs, piracy, and MySpace. I did buy CDs, but only for friends—a Dif Juz CD for a friend who ran the Faith & the Muse mailing list, several mixtapes for other babybats and for the angsty mall goths in my online social milieu.

Anyone remember LJ? LiveJournal's "gothmusicshare" community was a godsend. Lakini Malich and Polina of the Drop Dead Festival spearheaded it. (I've hear that Lakini/Dan was a creep and an opportunist who would take credit for "discovering" lesser-known bands that his mutuals had posted about first. Such a disappointment.)

Or music blogs? I was thrilled when a certain blogger who I held in high esteem reached out to me over SoulSeek to compliment my music collection. Ahhh, so many happy memories.

I followed Mick Mercer online. Went to clubs, promoted club nights, and experimented with DIY. Went to see goth bands and musicians at concerts. Decked myself out in full trad goth outfits. A rat's nest of black and purple backcombed hair. (I couldn't find Aquanet, sadly.)

Visited Camden Town in London with my goth fiancé and purposefully, shamelessly indulged in glorious clichés: Snakebite and black at a goth pub called The Dev. CDs and Alchemy Gothic jewellery, including that massive silver bat necklace you see everywhere. Ankhs! Absinthe! An Eye of Horus pendant! Photos in gorgeous old cemeteries covered in vines! Horror movie marathons! Halloween everything!

Life was fun, sometimes, despite that I battled clinical depression for several years.

My fiancé had band posters above his bed. Andrew Eldritch and Wayne Hussy watched us make love.

We went to every club night and every concert.

I rolled my eyes at the ridiculous amount of Nightmare Before Christmas swag in the shops and malls. (But I liked the Jack and Sally Kleenex box covers.)

I was beginning to realize that I didn't feel comfortable in corsets or fancy dresses. Years later, I learned that I'm agender.

Anyhow, around 2010, I was in university. My active participation in the subculture ended. I stopped dressing "goth". I stopped listening to the music. My fiancé and I had long since broken up. My online social circle had dissipated.

As of 2018, I'm back, finding new music through Bandcamp, this particular sub, r/releasethebats, and Twitter. I'm looking forward to catching up.

That's my story. Forgive the length; I enjoy talking about all of this. What about you? You don't have to give your entire life history like I did. My questions:

1) How and when did you first get involved in the subculture? Was it online or IRL, or both? Were you a misfit, aside from your friend group, or were you popular?

2) Related to the above: how did you locate goth music?

3) Were you a regular at clubs, or not so much?

4) Were you able to attend concerts?

5) Were your friends goth?

6) Did you take leaves of absence from the music?

6) Anything else/any fun or nostalgic anecdotes to share?

Thanks for reading. 🖤