Is the gothic subculture dead?

[Esckey]

What I always found annoying is that both Gothers and Goth haters seem to think that wearing dark clothes and other crap makes you a goth. You can be a goth and wear blue jeans and a white shirt as long as your still of the "dark and disturbed" mindset. "Dark and Disturbed" would be for anyone that actually enjoys death, violence and mayhem.

You don't need to wear a cowboy hat to be considered a cowboy nor do you need a sweater tied around your neck to be considered a preppy or have long hair and sandles to be a hippie

 

[Traitorfish]

I do find it curious the sub-culture died so quickly.

I'm struggling to understand how "since the late '70s and still going" is a quick death...

 

[ComradeDavo]

A lot of people do seem to regard "goth" as a suitable blanket term for a lot of alternative culture. That's not new, either- my mum got the same thing thirty years ago when she was a punk! People just never learn.

Still, it's better than "mosher". Never really understood what that was in the first place.

Yeah mosher always was a bit of an odd one!

listening to metal and wearing black doesn't count. I did that in the 80's (long before goth was around). It was what Metallica wore on their concerts. Metallica is not goth.

Which is what I was saying, I take it this you agreeing with me then

I do find it curious the sub-culture died so quickly. Although maybe that's just because I live in the desert. And wearing black all the time is very friggin' hot. I know, because I used to wear black all the time (I wasn't goth, just a metalhead). It was just a quick fad that died out when Marylin Manson popularity died out. Yes people say he isn't real goth. But you can't argue when his popularity faded, so did the whole goth thing.

The Manson being a goth thing is debatable. I can understand both sides of the argument and the problem is neither is really wrong!

 

[EquinoxOmega]

About 10 year ago when I was at highschool, it was quite common, but then the real goth-subculture started dying. About 5 years ago a kind of new goth-like subculture rose and they call themselve Emos (derived from emotion). But for the real old goths these new ones are just . Oldschool-goths and Emos can be compared to vampires: the real goth are the vampires in Blade and the Emos are the vampires in Twilight. But this reflects only the situation in my country, I don't know about the devolopment of this youth subculture in other countries.

 

[Traitorfish]

About 10 year ago when I was at highschool, it was quite common, but then the real goth-subculture started dying. About 5 years ago a kind of new goth-like subculture rose and they call themselve Emos (derived from emotion).

The pattern was more or less the same everywhere, but not in quite the binary way you present it; goth culture never "died", as such, it just receded back into the underground, where it has spent most of it's existence. Remember, most of these subcultures start off pretty obscure and get big- emo, although only becoming prominent in the last decade, began in the late 80s- so recession from the public spectacle of High School does not necessarily imply dissolution.