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| Feature: How to be Goth |
Posted by
callei on Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 04:12 AM PST
Recently I received a submission from a person that wanted to know "How to be Goth". It had an enumerated list. It also mixed the word "goth" with "gothic" rather freely. It asked about vampires, graveyards, and clubs. This happens more than some of you may realize. I get two or three of these a month every month. It is proof that the writer hasn’t bothered to read the site, or if they have that they wasted their time.
The reasons that this bothers me are many. The Christian pedagogy inherent in the idea that "goth" has a list of rules, the idea that "goth" is the endpoint of a journey rather than the road itself, the idea that "goth" wants converts and is willing to train them so that they can join the hegemony, the idea that there is a hegemony, and the idea that just because people wear black that they have to get along are just a few of the most major points of contention.
I like the ones that ask things like "what are the principles of "goth"?", "what is the ideology behind "goth"?", "what beliefs do I have to have?" and so forth because these at least show that the writer accepts the idea that they may have to start thinking a new way. It shows, I think, that they see that there are other ways of living, not just another way of dressing when you go out.
Some people say that "goths" are free thinkers; I would say they think about the things they see around them and the things they do. They try to see which life rules are relevant to them, which principles are relevant to them, which ideologies or religions are relevant to them. In short, they live an examined life from an early age rather than waiting until their 50's or 60's to stop and think about where they have been.
They are ready to face the anger, hatred, fear, and bizarre lust issues of the larger society. They can do this because they have taken the time to understand the rules of game and have chosen to accept the alternate penalties and rewards of not following all the rules (women are weak, men can't cry, money is the real god, possessions equal status, reading is only for eggheads, thin is beautiful, hating people is right, etc). I would like to point out that following the rules also has penalties; keeping up with the Jones's, never knowing your children, high rates of divorce, status issues, corporate ladders, inflexible dress codes, public schools, and dinner parties for your boss all spring to mind.
I have been called everything from a poser to an uber in my time. I have no idea where the uber comments come from and I don’t really care. I think the poser comments are because I like to wear lime green. I think it looks stunning on me, in that it stuns people to see someone wearing a plaid skirt and a lime green shirt. It sometimes makes them blink a lot in disbelief as well. A very dear friend of mine likes to wear danger orange. He is also more than a foot taller than me. We really stop traffic when we go out.
Usually women only get to be stunning at night at certain restaurants and social events. They also get to be hated for being stunning by everyone else. They get to elicit envy, fear, and jealousy by spending a lot of money and time to look a little different that the other women in the room, while I get to elicit shock, amazement, and bafflement while spending very little. People laugh and feel good about the world when they look away instead of bad. I like my way better.
Lots of people say "goth comes from inside" or "you are just born that way". I don’t think that is true. I think it comes from outside and that very few of us are born thinking much of anything. It is hard to examine your life when you are 4 minutes old, wet, cold, and suspended upside down. You're too busy at that moment for contemplation. Its hard to think about the way the world works when all you have seen of it is your mom's tummy and a hospital room, no matter what kind of drugs your mom did or how strangely decorated the birth room. I think goth comes later, when you start to dress yourself, feed yourself, clean yourself, and become accountable for your actions.
I think it comes from outside in as you see how life is and what you can do about it. When you see that people hide things and lie about things and you start to wonder why. When you see that the ideas of love, sex, and babies intertwine with the ideas of hate, rape, and death, you start to think about why. When you start to look at where you fit in to the world, what you want out of life, what life wants out of you, then you start the process that might lead to goth. The desire for elegance, beauty, balance, history, art, creation, and destruction can lead to goth. But it can lead to other paths as well.
You have to be the sort of person that will draw a line in the sand and stay on your side of it. You have to be the sort of person that refuses the idea of tolerance (to tolerate is to judge and find wanting but not attack it openly; it is to hate and to stifle) and instead demands understanding and compassion. You have to be the sort of person that can see all 903 sides of an issue. You have to be the sort of person that is willing to try.
Does wearing black make you goth? No. How about having lots of piercings, funny colored hair, and boots with skulls on them? No. Does liking vampires, graveyards, and Keats make you goth? No. Will watching all the right movies and reading all the right books make you goth? Still a big, fat no. Not until you stop and think about all you have read and watched for a few years and see how it relates to you and your future and your past. Not until you have an examined life. Just changing the color of your fleece doesn’t change your sheep-ness. It just changes the type of sweater they make after they fleece you.
To have an examined life you have to have some of it under your belt, whatever design is on it. 6 months of kindergarten isn’t enough. 6 months of kindergothen isn’t enough. Life keeps going day after day and every day you have the chance to examine your life. Every day you have the chance to NOT examine your life as well.
You have to have lived long enough to have gotten over things, to have read enough to see patterns and had the time to think about them, to have listened to enough music to know what you are hearing and how it relates to you, to have loved enough to know what joy and sorrow are and how transient they both can be, and to have seen enough to know how your eyes like to lie. You have to have been there and done that long enough to have had the experience and then take the time to think about the experience.
Some people get lots of life crammed into a few years but in all that cramming there is little room to think. If you have abusing, neglectful parents that drink too much, a family friend that molests you, a few friends that kill themselves, a few pregnancy scares (or maybe a baby of your own), and a crappy time in Junior High, then you have had a busy time. Once you take the time to assimilate all this stuff, act out your confusion and rage in rebellion, make some of your own mistakes, and calm down, then, and only then, are you ready to think about your life. One of the first things that you get to think about is the fact that you have only seen a tiny bit of life and that most of what you have seen is the sort of stuff that teaches you not to think.
Merely seeing the futility in the teaching system of your high school doesn’t make you goth. Telling others that it is a bad system doesn’t make you goth. Protesting it on general principles doesn't make you goth. Finding a better system of teaching might.
Hanging out at midnight in graveyards doesn’t make you goth. It just means that you are trespassing. Going to a graveyard to test an idea, to read the stones, to admire the stonework, to face your fear of mortality, to read poetry under a shade tree, or something like that still doesn’t make you goth. Why you go there makes you goth, not what you do when you get there.
To read the "right" books you have to also have read the "wrong" books so that you can think about the differences, the similarities, the plot devices, the idea developments, the arguments, the logic, the socialization that goes behind the words, and the development of your own thoughts while reading them.
Not all goths are friends. Why should they be? After all, it's hard to be friends with people that you have never met, with whom you have little in common, and no need to know. Think about the idea of two new students to a school. Do they have to be friends just because everyone else sees them as having something in common, their newness? What if one comes from a rich, private school, is female, speaks three languages, has five brothers and sisters, and is Chinese and the other one comes from an inner-city public school, is an only child, is devotedly Catholic, and is a boy.
What do they really have in common? They come from different cultures, different social classes, different social groups, different sexes, different belief structures, different family structures, and different social expectations. They have different goals, experiences, needs, and outlooks. So, what do they have in common? Just that other people think that they have something in common, their status as "new student". If you exchange the word "goth" for "new student", you have the same situation. Other people think they have something in common, that you are "other" while to you (the new student or goth or really tall person or whatever) don’t see yourself as other. You see your self as you and you see them as "other".
Not all of a goth's friends are goth. Why would they be? Why only be friends with people with whom you have only someone else' s frame of reference as a common factor? If you are a goth and an artist why wouldn’t you have artists as friends? If you are an actor, wouldn’t you have friends that are actors? If you are a lawyer wouldn’t you also have friends that are lawyers? Yes, of course, but wouldn’t you also have friends that you have known all your life? Friends that you have made at college? Friends that you made through your ex-lovers? Is your life structured around only one dimension of your actions?
Lets look at the actor; what if she is also a single mom from a close-knit family, goes to church regularly, and teaches sign language for Red Cross? Would all her friends be the same as her? Or would she perhaps have friends from the Red Cross, friends from the other parents at her child's school, friends from church, friends from school, and so on.
Why would goths refuse to know interesting, wonderful, loving, people that just happen not to wear black? What makes goths so stupid and self-hating as to deny themselves more that one dimension of life? Life is not that simple, or it isn’t to most goths.
Being goth doesn’t mean that you suddenly get a lot of friends that will love you no matter what you do. Being goth doesn't give you a social set or a dating pool. No one will like you more because you wear black or have black and red striped hair.
To answer, again, some of the questions that seem simple from the outside, all goths are not friends, do not think the same things are important, don’t follow the same religion, same fashion trends, teach tolerance, or anything else. No two goths are the same, or even all that similar once you scratch the surface. If two goths see each other chances are they will leave each other alone, not huddle together to make a united front against the world. They may nod in acknowledgment of each other. They may talk. Unless they are given a reason to talk or associate, they will not bother each other. Why would they?
"What does it take to be goth?" is the most common question that I see. It takes a brain, a sense of the absurd, an inclination to think about things, a drive to create your life, a desire to create something outside yourself (most people want to call this art, but even that word can confuse the unthinking since art doesn’t include most of the creative endeavors of life), and an unswerving allegiance to yourself and your principles, whatever they may be.
It takes being old enough to know better, the balls to walk away, the brains to start it, the stubbornness of a rock, the awareness of balance, the ability to take pleasure from the rain and the sun, the love of people, an awareness of the past, a sense of wonderment, the courage to try, the experience to know when you really lost as compared to not having won, a sense of style all your own, independence, and the strength to be alone.
It helps to have seen Monty Python, to have read Moliere and Sartre and Eco, to dress strangely so that you can see what it is to be an outcast with an in crowd, to challenge the boundaries of superstition and belief, and to hold yourself to poetic standards. But these don’t make you goth.
And when you examine your life, when you take the time to know yourself and what you think and what is real and what is not, when you untangle the knot of lies on which you were raised, then you might just find that you have moved past caring about goth.
Then you are goth.
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Average Rating : 4.6
Total ratings : 11
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| How to be Goth | Login/Create an account | 26 Comments |
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Re: How to be Goth
by almosthappy (almosthappy@uboot.com)
on Oct 06, 2002 - 08:53 AM
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I want to say how much I enjoyed reading this. I'm one of a group of people in my school (in the UK) where we think slightly differently to people. I like to think that I can explore different aspects of an issue, different sides, angles, whatever. I also get a lot of shit from people in my school who are "new-goths" (or maybe that should be "nu-goths") and they think that they have to strictly follow the stereotype of "being goth". I don't spend my life living in black clothing, although I've always loved looking different to other people. I guess I've spent alot of my life (wow, all 15 years of it) being an outsider and it's come to be something I prefer.
The "nu-goths" are generally following a stereotype and telling me that I'm "not goth enough". It's hard (and pointless) trying to explain that goth is different to people. It's different people's different ways of thinking, and a lot more besides. I don't resent the people who are new to different ways of thinking, I just resent them telling my that I'm single minded and that I don't think of other points of view. There's more to being goth than thinking; there's more to everything than any one person can think of.
I agree that trying to be Goth isn't necessarily goth at all. I just wish that people could accept that everybody is different in their own way, and everybody is the same in their own way too. It doesn't make us any lower or lesser than anybody else. There's such a thing as trying to hard to be something. There's also such a thing as being yourself.
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Re: How to be Goth
by DevilBunny (land_of_nod@poczta.onet.pl)
on Oct 06, 2002 - 09:23 AM
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May I also remind that the term "goth" or "gothic" was labled onto black dressed people (mainly fans of Siouxise, UK Decay and such bands) by the music press - the fans originaly never called themselves anything...
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Re: How to be Goth
by GothY on Oct 06, 2002 - 07:45 PM
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However much or little of this applies to me, callei, you know for sure, as we have known eachother for quite some time. I would also like to point out the fact that each person is allowed to hold an opinion, and each person's opinion is correct in their own minds, as you well know. The direction of this however is simply this there are no rules for just about anything. Even if there are rules for some things, there is always another way to do it, and achieve the desired results, therefore, it is my opinion that this article you have written follows closely to my own beliefs, as you know we have discussed this sort of thing many times, but you also know just how much it seems that our friend in danger orange will never be labeled by society as "goth". As though he cares, and as though I care. As i always tell you and others. I am myself. Just the same as our friend in orange.
-GothY-
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Re: How to be Goth
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com)
on Oct 06, 2002 - 08:21 PM
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Ah ravens, graveyards, darkened clubs and mist-swaddled moonlight *sigh* where's my absinthe? Who the fuck took my cloves? *weep*
Lady, it's good to know I"m not the only one with the lime green affliction...tho I don't wear it any more (looks wretched on me now *pout*).
Know what would be fun? A "lexicon of goth"...like years ago when that new york reporter called that jennifer girl at sub pop records in seattle to do an interview on "grunge"...he started in about the "lexicon of grunge" and she gave him a bunch of bullshit silly answers thinking he'd hang up on her and all she could hear in the background were furiously tapping keys *snicker* and it was published and the whole country had a good laugh at the new york times.
Hangin' on the flimflam ie: just hanging out with some friends
I should look that up, it was really quite silly :P
It'd be fun...we could put it up with the "types of goth" forum that we had so much fun with.
I'm still contemplating illustrating that. We may have the newest hottest children's book in the making *wink*
as always, just as bettie as betties get....sometimes bad, most often worse...and with a weakness for aquamarine.....
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Blackness
by MorteAscendo (corpsmanwix@aol.com)
on Oct 06, 2002 - 10:01 PM
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Heh, I'm forced to wear black in the winter times...Doesnt mean the whole Navy is "goth". =) Makes ya think dont it.
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Re: How to be Goth
by Comedian (eccentrically_long@yahoo.com)
on Oct 07, 2002 - 02:17 AM
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I usually wear bright hawai'ian shirts and white pants most of the time. Most of my black clothes are lounge about the hosue peices(I got this one great black sweater at Wal-Mart for like 10 dollars, so snuggly).
The way I figure it, I've been around too long to get my nether regions sweatily chaffed bya pair of black leather pants and eat a good leather jacket sitting in the sun writing poetry. It's time to dress comfortably, loudly, and most importantly festively. "Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero," after all.
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Re: How to be Goth
by Cashmere on Oct 07, 2002 - 05:21 PM
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How about this: the people that request these lists are usually the people who confuse "life" with living. "Life" is a noun, usually used as proper and therefore representing a singular being. That to me implies that this "life" concept applies to everyone and encompasses all. If they believe that living is a singular concept, why would the aspects of goth be any different. "Living" and "life" are used interchangeably, yet are completely different ideas. "Life" is a noun and thought as being either a burden or a goal: a possession. "Living" is a verb that encompasses the both necessary and extracurricular activities, representing a journey. Goth can be explained as an aspect of living, a part of a journey that involves other necessary verbs such as thinking. Goth in relation to life as a noun represents a goal, a place to be reached when someone thinks too much about life and forgets about being alive.
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Re: How to be Goth
by Shootmenow69 on Oct 10, 2002 - 10:25 AM
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I think what you wrote is quite beautiful. It would be nice if the people i hang out with at school could all read it. and understand it. and respect it. The way i see it labels are rather important to people, especially young people. We live in a discommunicated world, Everything is so swift, cold and mechanized that people begin to forget there roots (religious, cultural, spiritual, even culinary) they yearn more and more for a retreat to the past, simpler times, the more they stray from it. one of those roots is humans being clan based animals. The warm security of a family hearth, 15 or 20 people all working together, to hunt, to fish, to build, to live in a unit, has become a rarity in our time. Humans are social animals, and even if being gothic, or preppy, or part of an online forum group creates a substitue for the family unit. With divorce rates up, as you said, and the world being a generally unfriendly war ridden nazi shitehole, the angst ridden teens of today crave the retreat more than anyone could possibly imagine. and it can only get worse before it gets better. I should know. I'm 15. good luck.
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Re: How to be Goth
by asja (persephone53@hotmail.com)
on Nov 06, 2002 - 04:17 AM
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I just read your article and you write beautifully.
You seem to express many of my personal sentiments in regard to the whole labelling thing. I don't consider myself goth, i consider myself Asja but people love to classify. Once a guy at the train station asked me if i was goth "What do you think a goth is? " i said, "Wears Black, worships satan" was his reply. It's so ridiculous classifying everyone like that. But society loves to put people in boxes so those people don't have to fear what they don't know and understand.
I have always dressed differentley since i was little whether it was pink faux fur and flares or long skirts and slips its how i felt at the time. For a lot of my life i have felt ugly and rejected and the only time i have felt free was through the way i dressed because it was my own personal protest and a sort of reflection of opinions that developed in my mind through adolescence about the world, religion, politics etc. I like to wear velvet i like corsets, i like red and purple green and black, but i wear this not out of a need to try and emulate a stereotype but becuase i feel beautiful in classic clothing. I feel true to myself.
If that is trying hard in someones eyes well fuck them. If it offends someone well fuck them too.
Be yourself. x x x
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Re: How to be Goth
by Gala on Dec 07, 2002 - 01:53 PM
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lol...i could'nt help it, i feel the need to comment on this (do not blame me, blame society on trying to be politically correct, on how everyone feels the need to have an opinion...on whatever the case may be) ANYWAY, my comment is that yes, i do find it funny/hysterical that people always want to question things they do not know, then again, kudos to them that do no want to be ignorant....but some questions people tend to ask are quite hilarious. that's my point, as much as one would LOVE to laugh at the person who is asking you what makes a person goth, i say give yourself the dignity to "walk away". as one would like to believe it can not be answered it can, but that would be demeaning some of your friends, for not everybody acts a particualr type of goth. there are exceptions, and loop holes. especially those truelly depressed people who don't care what they wear, because they do not have the money, or aren't 'clinically sane' to care....
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Re: How to be Goth
by Anya on Jan 20, 2003 - 02:29 PM
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This has been one of the most brilliant articles I've read this week. It not only stands up against the "common beliefs", but it defines "who" than "what."
Whenever I see someone wearing a trendy black outfit and go "I'm an uber gothy person who worships the devil!", I can do nothing but sigh and frown...then walk away. They make it seem like being a "goth" is something you can do by just reading a magazine article about it.
(Don't get me wrong, I love midieval gowns but not because it makes me "goth")
All in all, I give this a 10/10 piece of work - it clears out a lot of things and gives the thousand sides of stories that people sometimes dismiss.
I'm not going to call myself a goth - nor am I going to consider myself a goth expert, but I can say that it's beyond the "wearing black and indulging in satanism" stage...as are many things in life. It's not that simple.
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Re: How to be Goth
by MissAnnThrope (volutariecasus@hotmail.com)
on Sep 13, 2003 - 07:07 PM
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i have to say that i am a bit reluctant to comment on this... but seeing as how i have spent the last couple of hours in my blessed saturday night reading the articles this site encompases, i have come across one entitled 'through the eyes of a newbie' or something of that effect.... anyhow, i suppose ill say it gave me a small bit of courage.
to say the least, your article was very inspiring in that it brought up things i had been thinking of, and then some more of which i should now consider.
as it were, im young in the eyes of this society, and though it is very hard for me to realate with most other children (though im not used to thinking of myself as a child, ive grown used to the idea of simply being human), i do realise that it is easier and more comforting to belong within a group of generally set personnalities and groups, so it is also easy to see a 'group' of people who all appear different, yet share simialar facets of appearance and immiatate that that is put into repetition. as it is, this mimicking and deriving of appearances and supposed mind-sets seem to me like typical teen- age behaviour, and all that needs to be explained in 'goth' is growing up... as with any other group.
now having streotyped myself, and possibly degraded the whole 'goth' mid-set, i have decided that i lack words, and more indefinetly, hours of sleep in the past few days, to put into words all the thoughts that had been through my pathetic, sleep- deprived brain.
i suppose what i have been saying is really some form of an announcement; that as much as i have grown to love the solitude and mental strength in being alone and have almost unconsiously challenged, compared, and reversed opposite and different views alike (and not alike), there is still the childish notion of having a small group of people similarily branded, just for the sake of fitting in. this, i would imagine, goes away with time, as it has already started to ebb since junior high so many years ago.
and now i cut myself off from the other half of my hideous posting trauma...
im begining to seriously hope that no one reads this.... *laughs at self*....
ohh goddess.
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Re: How to be Goth
by pandoras_choice (-)
on Dec 26, 2003 - 07:07 AM
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Might I say that was an excellent piece?!
99% of the time, I felt you hit issues absolutely perfectly that are normally dodged and shielded and just plain overlooked. That other 1% is my own opinion, which is bound to be different because we are two different people.
It was a huge relief to finally read an article about the truth in goth- you are right, it is not clothes or books that makes someone who they are, nor is it birt; it is looking in the mirror and believing in something (even if that something is nothing) on your own, instead of accepting what has been dished out to you and you are expected to blindly believe. It's opening your eyes to those blind beliefs and seeing them, seeing everything, for the first time in a form of nakedness that leaves you with your own point of view.
Wonderful write!
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Re: How to be Goth
by sweetie (-)
on Mar 21, 2004 - 09:28 AM
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I think you've hit the nail on the head fairly squarely there. lovely article
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Re: How to be Goth
by solace (rawkgoddess@hotmail.com)
on Aug 04, 2004 - 10:02 AM
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Its refreshing to know that someone actually has their head on their shoulders and really using their brain. Its beautifully written and all those wondering what gothdom really is should really this article.
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