Teen Gothic

So, obviously gothic literature as a genre isn't the basis of goth the subculture, and honestly I think the gothic as a literary tradition has a lot less influence on early goth than Fin De Siecle decadent literature (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, etc) which was also important to many punks (see Tom Verlaine etc) and 20th century avante-garde figures especially French and German (Cocteau, Jean Genet, the whole of German Expressionism). Like obviously Byron and Shelley are in there, but they're fundamentally part of the Romantic movement. The Gothic, in any of its iterations from the 18th century to the 1960s-1970s Gothic romance, seems to be largely disconnected from Goth as a subculture in its early iterations)

Goth at its inception is very literate and references experimental literature frequently, which is interesting because punk seems to have produced more novelists who get “literary cred” like Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, Jim Carroll etc.

So why is that? What literature are you aware of that influenced the music?

So this is something I’ve been perplexed about for awhile, so Ik the subculture was founded on music and that, but I feel like there’s not much emphasis on gothic literature all that much, at least not anymore.

My uncle said literature was just as important as the music in the 90’s, but it feels like we’ve all kind of forgotten about it these days. I mean, I got into the subculture from gothic literature, and it’s been around for WAY longer than the music, so why don’t we ever talk about it?

Surely being goth has SOMETHING to do do with influence of gothic horror stories? Listening to the music is fine, but it’s literally the bare minimum of how to be goth, and of this rich subculture full of mixes and mingling of so many different influences (seeing as how the music is so widespread in genres) and doesn’t the literature capture that too?

So I was thinking about how people online are always trying to use the "goth culture is actually an appreciation of a genre of literature, art, architecture, etc. so really it's 🌈✨whatever you want it to be✨🌈" argument and I think I finally thought of a good way to explain to them how badly that logic is flawed.

I tend to use metalheads as a parallel for goths since it's pretty widely accepted to the mainstream that metalheads are simply people who like metal music. But you wouldn't go up to a metalhead saying that you're the REAL metalhead because you're obsessed with steel and aluminium, right? "Ummmmm actually, metal is an opaque, lustrous element which acts as a good conductor of heat and electricity, so really YOU'RE the idiot here and if you don't have a degree in metallurgy and a tattoo of the chemical symbol of at least one rare earth metal you're not REALLY a metalhead." Like you know damn well that's not what we're talking about here, you're just being intentionally dense and using the wrong context of the word to justify taking it for yourself and strongarming the people who started the subculture out for your own gain.

Feel free to copy paste if you spot someone pulling that trash argument out in the wild😂