What *was* "Goth"?

[mbarrick]

http://www.gothicsubculture.com/
http://www.scathe.demon.co.uk/histgoth.htm

These are a couple of the best resources out there to answer the question.

Personally I crave a new word, or better, no word at all. I'm tired of the automatic associations and overlaps that come with the labels as they stand now. I grew tired of answering the question "Why do you wear black?" over ten years ago when I wrote this. I continue to prefer dark colours for a variety of practical and aesthetic reasons such as if all my shoes and pants are black I don't have to put a second thought to matching my pants to my shirt and tie.

A few days ago I found myself in a discussion about assumptions and labels, then along comes the latest media debacle.

Apparently, although I didn't see it myself, Global Television used a picture that was uploaded to Gothic BC (not a picture I took myself so, unfortunately, by the terms of the upload agreement I don't control the copyright) in order to play up the "freaks get ratings" card in the disappearance of Mark Rempel and Rachel Adams. The Vancouver Province (both GlobalTV and the Province are owned by CanWest Global Communications, BTW) also played up the tenuous "Goth" connection.

While I have a general human concern for their well-being and sympathize with my friends that do know them through work and other associations I don't know either of these people. I've never met either of these people. I'm a decade older than Mark and a decade and a half older than Rachel. It was only through a friend who happens to work with Rachel that I learned about this in the first place.

The last place they were seen in public was at the Infected Mushroom concert - a psytrance event - yet there is no rave scene connection being made. Is it perhaps a little too close to Hallowe'en and someone in Global Media thinks that they will sell more seasonal ad space with an old-fashioned witch hunt?

I'm tired of this. I'm tired of being called "goth" and having a whole raft of assumptions come along with it. I'm a painter, a designer, a programmer, a writer... another creative intellectual coming out of a tradition that over the years has been called Romanticism, Bohemianism, Avant Garde, Beat, and what-have-you. Twenty-five years ago it picked up the moniker "Gothic" and it stuck for a while, but there has been more and more divergence lately.

Whatever "goth" has become it is no longer what it was when I begrudgingly started to accept the term. It has been dumbed-down and the focus has shifted from the beautiful and intelligent to the vapid and sensational. I'm tired of it.

Comments

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

How 'bout gothish....

"Is he a goth?"
"well....he's gothISH...but not a full blown goth"

Gothish...containing goth-like qualities.

[bitogoth.livejournal.com]

i'm just a bit o' goth. ;}

hadn't heard about this news thing- must investigate

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

i guess our society just isn't comfortable with anything unless it can be labelled...then we can make all kinds of assumptions about it...most people don't identify with any label given to them, though more and more these days people do identify with labels so they can be "with it"...perhaps the next generation should be the "label" generation, though funny enough even our generations are labelled...ha ha...

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

they mentioned your website on the 6 o'clock news on cbc...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

I was watching Global, which was an utter disaster. How was the representation on CBC?

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

i saw the one on global, which was brutal...on the cbc one they mentioned that rachel frequented your website and another one, i think "dark vancouver" or something...and they gave her online handle...they didn't talk much about the subculture as such like they did on global...

[kid-sportswear.livejournal.com]

You are an Interesting Fellow, and so I have added you to my friend list.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

valerian recommends you. I will add you back.

[opulence-9.livejournal.com]

thank you.

newspapers

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

The articles in today's Province mentioned the Dark Vancouver bulletin board. The Sun's article was marginally better as they actually had a quote from someone interviewed that remarked that media generally misunderstands the goth scene.

What made me cringe about the Province was the quote of how Rachel also had "normal interests like photography..."

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

I hate labels - but in one particular instance it was actually hilarious.

In the late 1980s I attended a speaking forum at UBC hosted by the Marxist-Leninist party. They didn't like my interpretation of marxism-communism and I was propmtly labelled a "Trotskyite revisionist renegade" or something silly along those lines.

A few months later, I decided to check out a forum hosted by the Communist League - who are unabashed followers of Trotsky. They didn't like my interpretation of marxism-communism and I was propmtly labelled a "Stalinist revisionist renegade" or something silly along those lines.

Ah, typical goth post.

[logik.livejournal.com]

A big rant about death and what is goth anyway...
You are such a goth.

*laugh*

Me, I just like to think of myself as a Celt with a personality disorder and far too lazy to seperate the lights from the darks when it comes to laundry, religion or art.

Don't get pulled into this one again. It is a trick. Get the axe. *laugh*