Teen Gothic

I was looking into a certain drum machine which led me to happen upon a channel that uses AI to give an "educational" retrospect on certain aspects of goth subculture. Not gonna mention their name because I personally hate it. AI usage is lazy and worse than poseurdom especially if you're using it for historical knowledge. It's cringe and it tries to anatomize the culture in a lazy way. The whole channel is AI, a visual misrepresentation of the subculture as well as quasi academic attempt at shining a light on something they are far removed from. Anyways, it tickled me wrong and I hope AI isn't being embraced by real goths.

I don't know if I'm just not on Youtube enough, or I'm living under a rock but I honestly thought that there wasn't enough of an audience for AI to bother with. Youtube is all about getting clicks and likes, if you're going to make an AI song, make it Pop, RnB or Rap to appeal to the widest audience and get those million views.

Driving home today, streaming a Switchblade Symphony mix …. and this comes on https://youtu.be/7okWC3PD7aQ?si=iYB99nlfVn7q0PAD

Huh, never heard it before, it's not too bad but something seems off. There's no instrumental breaks, all the timing is perfect but there is no spark, and the singers voice is just flat. I bookmark it and look it up when I get home, AI Slop. And then look at the comments, AI as well…we have robots making music for other robots to comment on. We're doomed.

And the worst part, I wanted to compare views to something truly Goth. My Lucretia, a song released in '87 and practically a Goth anthem has 1.6m views on the official music video. This AI crap has 756k in just 2 months. Please oh please someone make a filter on streaming services to weed out AI music.

Take this down if it doesn’t fit.

But what I found the most interesting was how many people with this Facebook group, utterly detest goth music to such a degree. They hate it. Hate its founders. And can’t understand why anyone would listen or form a community around it.

However, they are the type of people who will say that to be goth is not to listen to the music. They all say that it is a mindset, a style, an aesthetic, a historical group, spooky, scary, all of that, but refuse to ever say that the music means anything, and that’s why rhetoric which dismisses goth music as the key to the goth subculture is so harmful.

Goth music is quite literally the one thing which keeps these assholes out on the sidelines because they hate it, aesthetics and fashion does not! Nazi’s and conservatives are like those parasites which infect weak insects, control their bodies and lead them to their colony to continue the infection. The swatskia, totenkoph, skinheads, are just a few examples of Nazi’s co-opting and taking ahold of aesthetics to force their ideology.

They will use aesthetics to draw in the masses under a guise of the dark innocence and the they use it as a way to promote their ideology. Regardless of how you feel about goth and it’s relation to music, I think it’s quite obvious how decentralizing the music to replace it with a “mindset” or those who “feel goth”, just leaves more room for those who “feel goth”, but are also bigots. That’s what I gathered.

I read someone’s comment, and please take credit for it, but they said it isn’t gatekeeping we need, it’s standards and I must agree. That community hates goth and all it stands for, no room for them at all!

Can anyone recommend anything? I love the bass vi and I love how it’s energetic but calm and washed out at the same time and really want more goth music like that to listen to

I want to start by saying that I’m white and not speaking on anyone’s behalf. I’m responding to a pattern I’ve noticed on Reddit and other social media and it’s been bothering me for some time.

Over the years, I’ve seen posts from POC goths who’ve been bullied or excluded for not fitting the “pale” ideal, which is ridiculous. What’s worse is how often their concerns are dismissed with claims that goth has always been inclusive. Even when the intentions behind those comments are good, the impact isn’t. It shuts down conversation instead of addressing the issue.

Yes, goth (and punk before it) was often more accepting than other subcultures. Punk was influenced by rude boy culture, and reggae and dub were played alongside it at shows. But that doesn’t mean racism didn’t exist in those scenes. “More inclusive than average” isn’t the same as being inclusive for everyone.

A lot of us who were born well after the civil rights era (myself included) don’t fully understand what exclusion looked like in practice. I grew up in rural Florida and saw overt racism firsthand, but I never experienced places where Black people simply weren’t allowed, and pretending I fully understand that reality would be dishonest.

We can acknowledge that goth aspired to be inclusive in its inception and still listen when POC goths talk about the real challenges they face today. Giving credit where it’s due shouldn’t come at the expense of dismissing lived experiences.

If we actually care about the values we claim, that means listening, empathizing, and speaking up when we see this kind of thing.

Edit for clarification:

I’m not talking about “permission” to be in the subculture or gatekeeping who gets to call themselves goth. What I am talking about is how, in practice, POC goths are still talked over, dismissed, or told that they’re just one-off incidents.

When someone shares what they’re dealing with and the response is an overwhelming chorus of “goth has always been inclusive,” it can come across as dismissive, even if the intention is good.

I understand that what I show is purely regarding the Batcave club but I feel bands and lots of artists don't go for this kind of imagery all that much, and this nowadays (or something similar to it) is mostly adopted like anywhere in the Black Metal community… I also understand that this is 80's stuff and lots went for the "horror movies" look of the time but I feel like lots of bands simply have a post-punk outfit/wibe to it from the 70's or minimalistic imagery that everyone complains that are generic "skull, crow, dark plants, basically the mainstream's idea of the look… Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm really happy that this happened to me and I never thought I'd ever be noticed by a favorite member of one of my favorite goth groups ever so this is just so exciting to me and I really wanted to share 😀

My local goth scene us hosting a "goth night" at a local movie theater to screen an AI generated "movie" I was beyond flabbergasted when I saw them announce this on their social media. Like a year ago, I posted here how my art was presented at a WGD event, and how snarky some of the organizers were (being that I'm not part of their close friends). Very unwelcoming, so I drew apart and now they come with this… no words honestly.

But why is AI getting so popular amongst goths? Or maybe it's just in my area, but I'm tired of seeing AI generated posters for events, AI videos to promote "goth nights" and now an AI generated movie by an "author" that very likely also writes using AI. (They will be charging per ticket by the way) 🙄 As an artist and designer this is so insulting, also, I don't think using AI generated stuff aligns with goth values.

Not sure what more I can add. I just like really morbid and macabre lyrics.