Teen Gothic

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?