What exactly is Goth?

Goth is a subculture that formed out of gothic literature and horror movies in the late 70's to early 80's. The subculture consists of three things, mainly. They include fashion, music and aesthetic.

Aesthetic is one of the basics of being goth. You either have the dark midset or you don't. That's why people say you realize you're goth, not you become goth. The aesthetic of the gothic subculture is seeing beauty in darkness and in things that would usually appear ugly, weird, strange, disturbing, disgusting or abnormal to people who aren't goth. We embrace and accept darkness, for others they would just shy away from there because it's just... weird.

Don't ask where the aesthetic came from, I don't study psychology anymore.

Music is pretty simple, too. Goth = gothic rock, yeah? Yeah, basically.

Gothic rock is a sub genre of post-punk formed in the early 80's in England, U.K. It started when Joy Division were labelled "gothic" before a live performance in 1979. Although they're not the first goth band, they still played an important part in the creation of the genre (because they were post-punk). The first goth band is said to be Bauhaus. They brought out a song called Bela Lugosi's Dead in the same year as Joy Division were labelled "gothic". Dark minded people just loved the atmosphere of the song so it was branded the first gothic rock song.

Other bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure followed in the wake of the rise of Bauhaus, with the dark imagery and lyrics etc.

From then it kind of moved on from a post-punk sound to a definite rock sound. It's difficult to explain but if you listen to Bauhaus and then Sisters of Mercy, that should be good enough.

Fashion is the least important thing in the subculture, but necessary as it fits in to a social kind of category. Your dark midset reflects in your appearance, if people have a dark midset then they will comfortable dressing dark too. Goth fashion is said to be inspired by punk because the goth scene came around just after the colourful disco scene. In a way it was kind of rebellion, but also meant something more than that. Punk was more focused on rebellion than goth, so it kind of makes sense. Goth is probably 2% rebellion and 98% accepting and understanding beauty in darkness (well, that's my opinion, anyway).

Original goth fashion is called "traditional goth" or just "trad goth" for short. The fashion consists of darker colours (not always black as reds and purples go nice too), studs, spikes, chains, leather, corsets, combats, platforms, boots, back combed dark hair, collars, sometimes religious symbols (like crosses), tattoos and piercings. That description is incredibly stereotypically but it is in fact what most goths are interested in/like to wear.

There are many different goth fashions so just use this website to get more information http://www.blackwaterfall.com/viewall.php

"Gothic" is the act of dressing like you're a member of the subculture.

Breaking it down, bands like Evanescence and Marilyn Manson do not play goth music but they dress it and that makes them "gothic" bands.

Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees play goth music so they are members of the gothic subculure. Actually, as an inside joke we would call them NotAGoths because they deny they're goth even though they clearly are. ;)

I think I've answered the majority of your questions.

"What does it suggest?" I guess it suggests we have a dark mind and that we accept beauty in darkness. I remember a number of people have said that when they've spoken to some goths, they've found that they're quite open minded, down-to-earth and intelligent. They're least likely to judge you (why would we when we're constantly judged everyday of our lives for being ourselves?) and they're accepting although we are still people who have opinions and dislikes. Anyway, we're still people and their personality has nothing to do with goth, neither does any mental disorders they have and there will always be a nasty goth out there.

I think that's enough, I hope I answered your question.

And Declen, that was just... incredibly nasty.

Well, my answers to all of those questions will make this really quite long, so please, if you can, read the "Goth" portion of the book "Goth Craft: The Magickal Side Of Dark Culture" by Raven Digitalis. He puts it a lot better than I ever could.

dark beauty