― Sean, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Hi Ned, no, I haven't been there. Currently unemployed and relatively broke so I think I'd go mad, darling, simply mad if I set foot in the joint. But we should get together soon and maybe Amoeba's just the place. We can go out to eat at Chan Dara on Cahuenga afterwards.
― Arthur, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― carsmilesteve, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I was one, back in the day. For a few days out of each week anyway. Because, you see, I'm completely useless with style commitments.
― Kim, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― DG, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Also, DG's right. Goths are the least snobbish of subculties. Much friendlier than hippies. And they seem to embrace all types: gay, transgendered, handicapped, overweight, anorexic, OLD--anyone can be a goth.
― anthony, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ally, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
As an Ex-Goth (and not even one of those silly people who say "I wore all black, I listened to Bauhaus, I sat in my room and burned insence and read Rimbaud and thought about death... but I WASN'T a goth, honest!" as if denial and nihilism were an inherant part of goth- hood... oh, wait, they are! Never mind!) I can only give you my take on it. I can't speak for Goth now, or what it's become, I can only say what it was for us, then, back in the 80s.
What many people seem to object to is the po-faced seriousness of it all. Revelling in nihilism and teenage angst and dressing up like a vampire and obsessing about death at the beginning of your life is an inherantly silly thing to be doing. The make-up, the clothes, the mime-washing-a-windshield dancing, all very silly.
But some of us KNEW IT. We laughed at it even as we were doing it. It was a way of coping, a way of dealing with our own adolescent angst, depression, fear, coming into sexual awareness at a time when sex became frightening and could KILL you. It wasn't fear of death, it was fear of immortality, which is a much more frightening thing when you are 18. The thought that you could go on forever in this horrible half child, half adult, undead unalive state was worse than the thought of suicide.
And the look... I touched on this in the first thread I bent towards Bauhaus. It was a deliberate rejection or parody of the excesses of the 80s. The 80s were about gaudy colour, big hair, larger than life, exagerated design, so goths were about nothing but black, even bigger hair, larger than death, exaggerated ugliness. Fashion in the 80s was about peacock celebration of glitz and gaudiness. Goth celebrated ugliness, corruption, death, make-up used to disfigure rather than accentuate sexuality.
It started as a bitter pisstake of New Romantic; the dour, Northern anti-style of proto-Goths like Joy Division meets the art school through the ages German expressionist weirdness of Bauhaus and the Japanese kabuki stylisation of Siouxsie.
I can understand why the goth subculture goes on today, it's just no longer where I'm at. But that doesn't mean I can't still laugh at it. ;-)
― kate, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― katie, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Robt. Smith in lippy = sign that genderfucking has ceased to be an absolute good. Garbage's "Androgyny" single = sign of its slide towards being an absolute bad.
― Tom, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ronan, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Odd sentence structure here, let me help it along here:
"Robert Smith in lipstick = a sign of goodness and truth, and the knowledge that the world is a fine and good place, where bunnies play happily."
Much improved.
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― DG, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― bnw, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Kim, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Nicole, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Mr Noodles, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Kim, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― sammyJohn, Thursday, 19 February 2004 06:48 (twenty years ago) link
― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 19 February 2004 07:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 19 February 2004 09:21 (twenty years ago) link
― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 19 February 2004 11:15 (twenty years ago) link
I still haven't, by the way. And I can't see why I'd want to!
― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 19 February 2004 11:22 (twenty years ago) link
― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:27 (twenty years ago) link
http://elvira.com/gfx/throne.gif
― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:32 (twenty years ago) link
― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:33 (twenty years ago) link
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:41 (twenty years ago) link
― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:43 (twenty years ago) link
― kephm, Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:44 (twenty years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:55 (twenty years ago) link
― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Thursday, 19 February 2004 15:59 (twenty years ago) link
― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 19 February 2004 16:01 (twenty years ago) link
Someone had to link to this, might as well be me.
― webcrack (music=crack), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago) link
3 years?
Are all the goths dead now then?
― mei, Monday, 15 October 2007 19:09 (sixteen years ago) link
no, they're all just male sluts
― remy bean, Monday, 15 October 2007 19:10 (sixteen years ago) link
They're too busy being C-C-CLASSIQUE.
― Abbott, Monday, 15 October 2007 19:10 (sixteen years ago) link
My band is playing soon at a club called G0th City. I will post a report.
― moley, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 01:46 (sixteen years ago) link
Plainly labeled!
― Abbott, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 01:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I've grown out of the male slut phase
― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 04:46 (sixteen years ago) link
You grew into one to start with? :P
― Trayce, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 05:22 (sixteen years ago) link
And gosh, a goth thread where my name isn't invoked even once. How interesting. </sarcasm>
― Trayce, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 05:36 (sixteen years ago) link