Teen Gothic

It kinda weird for me all these labels i never understand what is the actual point of the labels. it feels realy weird saying "i'm goth" beacuse what i mean by goth does not what other people think goth is. i am recently find intrest in gothic sub culture but i could never imagine myself telling my mother hey mom im goth or something. it might be just me but it feels like a gender label. i mean it's only the kind of music you listen too so why there is a label to this ? i understand that this is a sub culture but it's just weird. no effence beacuse i feel pretty connected to the culture already but i keep it to myself.

It's funny beacuse my family know i find intrest in metal music as well so i don't know why it feels so diffrent if they will know i find intrest in the goth sub culture beacuse gothic music is nothing angry or heavy as metal. also my mother ask me if i'm freak because I asked for another shirt like the one I have with a skull i just like the fucking image what's worng with that

I don’t mean like by regular people who think our music and clothes are weird. I mean by other people in the goth music subculture. I’ve heard some older millennials and gen x say when they were young, even though ppl would listen to goth music, attend events/clubs that supported local goth bands, dress the part, etc. you could never call yourself goth bc that was cringe and in some cases ironically made you less goth. Where did this come from? Is it because they didn’t want to be associated with posers/mallgoths that wanted the label so badly? Did it have something to do with anti-conformity?

As the title says, I've recently gotten super into gothic fashion after admiring it for most of my life, and I finally built up the confidence to start buying and creating outfits from a local alternative fashion store in the past few months. I absolutely love how it looks on me and already have amassed quite a wardrobe of goth wear, from dresses to corsets to pentagram skirts, and have even started learning new makeup skills to match.

Through this I've ended up reconnecting with an old friend from back in school who has been wearing goth fashion for years and whose fashion sense really inspired me back in the day. Today I sent her a text with pics of some of my new outfits and was excited to want to talk with her again; however the response she had confused me.

She essentially told me while goth fashion is fun, "just don't forget to educate yourself on all the goth subculture too." I feel this is phrased weirdly as if it was more of a warning rather than an invitation to learn more about what being goth meant as I assumed at first.

This has left me a bit confused, and I can't tell if she's supportive of my new style or slightly gatekeep-y. Is she saying I can't wear gothic fashion if I don't understand the intricacies of goth subculture? Is this a suggestion that how I've gone about wearing goth fashion is wrong and that I need to educate myself on how to wear it properly? Or is it simply a friendly suggestion to look into the subculture that could help me improve wearing gothic attire?

Would anyone have some idea of what this could mean and how important educating yourself on the goth subculture is? Thank you in advance!