<p>razorsharp, you could come to the Boston area…no shortage of goths here, especially in the geek circles. There were a lot of goths at MIT. For some reason, it’s a subculture that’s very, very attractive to geeks.</p>
<p>I never identified as a goth myself, but I found, hanging out with goth friends, that goth clubs were the ones that I actually enjoyed going to and dancing at.</p>
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<p>Straight edge is the in-thing somewhere still? I associate straight edge with the mid '90s through the early '00s.</p>
<p>I didn’t dress like a goth in high school but all my friends were goths. They’ve now become things like authors and fashion designers and special ed teachers. We’re still thrilled the the Smashing Pumpkins have gotten back together, but now everyone dresses more mainstream/bohemian. Well, except the fashion designer, she still kind of dresses the same, but she uses a lot more color and gorgeous fabrics.</p>
<p>I think on principle we would reject the notion that emo is the same as goth. The rough style of dress may be the same, but those kids are so whiny!</p>
<p>goth is still in around here but not as much as emo</p>
<p>Goth is Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, chains, trenchcoat mafia types, drinking, acid, white makeup, dark arts</p>
<p>Emo is skinny jeans, poetry, bisexuality, dudes with eye makeup, a well placed blonde or purple streak in the hair, music to slit your wrists by, cutting, pot smoking, bangs-lots of bangs </p>
<p>Most of the really scary goth kids have been shipped off to alternative school, the emo kids are holding down the art club</p>
<p>This is such an unfortunate stereotype. Far from all goths like Slipknot and Marilyn Manson (personally, I would think of the Cure, the Cruxshadows or VNV Nation as gothier). Some drink, but some are teetotalers - being a goth has nothing to do with drinking (and acid is not inherent to the subculture either). Most goths do not practice “the dark arts” (we are talking goths here, not teenage wannabe pagans). Goths as a group are not violent people, and the “trenchcoat mafia” Columbine shooters were not goths (investigators found that they were not connected with the local goth scene, and that they disliked goth music).</p>
<p>The goth subculture, in general, emphasizes tolerance of others, creativity, intellectualism, some degree of androgyny, aesthetics based on Romanticism and Victorian-era horror, and a dark/morbid style of dress.</p>
<p>I’m in the schools every day and that is what I see. Apparently your romanticized, Victorian era horror stylized goth persona hasn’t made it out to where I live. They must be practicing the blue collar goth out here. I can only report what I see. And yeah, I do see alot of wanna be pagans. Maybe they are just hanging with the goths.</p>
<p>As far as the acid goes, maybe it’s just at our school. But two weeks ago I had to help a goth kid into the back of an ambulance after a football game because he was so high on either acid or shrooms that he couldn’t walk and was hallucinating. Maybe they didn’t get the goth manual. We are a poor district.</p>
<p>I always get a kick out of people who are striving to be non-conformists who then end up being just like everyone else. Goths and emos both fit this category.</p>
<p>This is a recurring South Park theme, incidentally.</p>
<p>Our goth group didn’t drink, or do drugs, or smoke, or… really get in trouble, at all. Teachers and the administration loved us. We were too busy being in debate and running the literary magazine and being in AP art and biology and physics, and running the engineering club to get involved in anything other than hair dye. We watched a lot of hockey. I think we knew that the goth scene was pretty conformist by virtue of the fact that it was a pseudo-popular thing to be, but we liked the edgy juxtaposition of nerd + something unexpected, and we enjoyed being the walking poster-children for “don’t judge a book by its cover”. It smacked of that scene in Wayne’s World where Wayne and Garth meet Alice Cooper backstage and all they do is discuss the etymology of Milwaukee’s name. Being unlikely intellectuals made us giggle. </p>
<p>We all grew up to be productive and successful young adults with masters’ degrees in physics and creative writing and journalism, at the very least (though one of us does lead a double-life as a roller derby star). Most of our hair is back to normal. Still like hockey, though.</p>
<p>Or maybe they’re grade-school wannabes who have several different subcultures conflated. I remember a couple of those from high school. They don’t resemble the goth scenes that I have seen as an adult (which can include both adults and kids, though the clubs tend to be 18+). The adult goths that I know are pretty successful, and include many engineers and scientists - I know one goth, now a biologist in California, whose labmates and advisor at Harvard dressed all in black during his PhD dissertation defense as a sort of solidarity with him. :)</p>
<p>I don’t really see it as being an issue of conformity or non-conformity. It’s a subculture (like '50s beatniks, punks, or hippies). It is non-conformist with the mainstream (that’s part of what being a subculture <em>is</em>), but has its own cultural norms that members follow (also part of what a subculture is).</p>
<p>Yes, here goth seems to have morphed into emo. If I wanted to find the goth/emo kids at the high school I work at, I’d probably go to the Anime Club meeting. To each his own…</p>
<p>I too have the Vampirefreaks ad at the top, and ads for emo hairstyles and halloween costumes on the side! Reminds me of the time someone started a thread about llamas, and we all got alpaca ads.</p>
<p>Like I said, I don’t think they got the manual. I also didn’t realize there was such a “purist” attitude amongst the goth community. </p>
<p>Apparently our school’s variety is what happens when non-intellectuals (yes, CC people, there are some) go dabling. Most of the intellectual types are emo.</p>
<p>Emo is NOT goth. Goth is not dead. Emo is just another subculture. There is no originality anymore. We all bite off something from some other subculture. However, some of the Emo kids are a bit annoying.
Here in San Francisco, it ebbs and flows. some years it is amazing and the clubs are full, but others, very quiet. no reason I see. but those of us that are “goth” will always be there. lurking in the corners :o)</p>
<p>ps… MamaDrama, your comments are a bit stereotypical, and that is sad. when i was in high school, yes, Goth was more along the trendy lines, but once you get outseide of that bubble, you realize what goth really is. a lot of kids freak out and go another direction, because it’s not what they thought. Not all Marilyn manson, and painted white faces and black eyeliner. but much much more. then their are those of us who go in whole heartedly. Yes it is romanticized, but what is so wrong with that? it’s a beautiful thing :)</p>
The rough style of dress may be the same, but those kids are so whiny!</p>