Teen Gothic

I go through this sometimes. I listen to the music, participate in everything that’s with the subculture/community, etc. I usually get called a poser at school because I listen to J-goth and other random reasons. but I listen to all the goth classics. Sometimes I think these things happen more often ever since the term “tik tok goth police” became a thing. Just a random thought. What are your thoughts and comments about this? (Hopefully this entire thing I type doesn’t confuse anyone I barely post on here)

I hope this doesn’t count as inflammatory, I just genuinely need advice. I have a small friend group that I’ve developed this year. We kind of connected because we all dress edgy. My issues started at the beginning of the year when one of said friends would constantly refer to the both of us as “big tiddy goth girls”. At first I thought she was a goth and just wasn’t icked out by that phrase like me. I gently asked her about her music taste and it is pretty much exclusively like house rave wave and rap. I have no problem with either of those genres, and I’ll enjoy a song or two from time to time, but it did bug me her using the label without knowing the history or meaning of it. Especially because you could just google “Goth” and it would tell you it was a music based subculture. She is my friend so I didn’t bring it up but it erred me. The rest of the group(except one girl who listens to goth music but doesn’t dress the part or consider it her scene) says similar things, about us being “bad goth bitches” and when they’ll dress up they’ll be like, “I look so goth right now”. We were at a bar and I outright said, “sometimes the way you use the word goth confuses me” after some other “goth baddy” comment, and they got very mad at me. They said that, “the normies are going to call us goth so that is what we are! It’s basically just an umbrella term for edgy” to which I said, “it’s a music based subculture. Someone in jeans and a polo listening to goth music, is more goth than someone dressed in a trad goth uniform who doesn’t listen to the music.” One of them said, “well I’m going to call myself goth”. That was the end of the conversation but it keeps bugging me. It’s not that I care about keeping them out of the subculture, the more the merrier because more goth music enjoyers means more albums, shows, and bands for our community. It’s just that I feel like just using goth to mean “edgy” waters down the actual meaning and misses the point of the subculture