What is Goth?

[Miss Olivia]

It's also the sound my cat makes when she gets a hairball.

[The Demeter]

Originally posted by urgeok
was goth the name used then ?

Yes. It was all inspired by the Visigoth architecture. In the 20's it was very apperent in the cinema.

[urgeok]

Originally posted by The Demeter
Yes. It was all inspired by the Visigoth architecture. In the 20's it was very apperent in the cinema.

i'm really confused now - after looking up Visigoth and visigoth architecture ..

i dont understand how this became whatever goth is today ..
or how an ancient peoples architecture inspired a fashion/intellectual style as how you defined it.

i guess i'll have to do more reading.

[The Demeter]

The archetecture inspired the style. Just like how you have Modern architecture and Modern style of dress. The Goth to it farther and created an actual image. Think Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft. Think old cinema like Nosferatu, Pandoras Box, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, ect. They all have gothic elements.
It became a diluted mainstream thing in the 80's, but it definetly existed long before then.

[azathoth777]

Originally posted by The Demeter
The archetecture inspired the style. Just like how you have Modern architecture and Modern style of dress. The Goth to it farther and created an actual image. Think Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft. Think old cinema like Nosferatu, Pandoras Box, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, ect. They all have gothic elements.
It became a diluted mainstream thing in the 80's, but it definetly existed long before then.

But they're not the same thing. They're two completely different styles, movement, what ever you want to call it. The name and some of the imagery was co-oped, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

[The Demeter]

Originally posted by azathoth777
But they're not the same thing. They're two completely different styles, movement, what ever you want to call it. The name and some of the imagery was co-oped, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

I do not think that they are completely different. Lets take the Grunge movement in the 90's, everyone here should still be able to remember that. Credited for starting it, Kurt Cobain. Now lets say that 10 years from now, Britiney Spears starts dressing grunge, still does the same crappy pop music, but dresses grunges and adopts the attitude. Would you say that A) The new "Grunge music" is a diluted, commercialized, pathetic attempt at a retro revival that is an insult to the actual roots of grunge, or B) A totally different, new, thing that borrowed a bit.
The only difference is that no one who was a part of the original American Goth movement is still alive to point this out to us.

[urgeok]

Originally posted by The Demeter
Now lets say that 10 years from now, Britiney Spears starts dressing grunge, still does the same crappy pop music, but dresses grunges and adopts the attitude. Would you say that A) The new "Grunge music" is a diluted, commercialized, pathetic attempt at a retro revival that is an insult to the actual roots of grunge, or B) A totally different, new, thing that borrowed a bit.

i'd say C) she's trying to look grundge but she's still singing 'lowest common demominator pop'

i think that you can look a thing or you can be a thing ..

to look a thing, you just adapt the dress code.

to be a thing you embrace everything that goes with it .. music, clubs, attitude ..


whatever goth was - its a long time ago and it has become something completely different and identifiable by the music style, the fashion, the attitude ... the lifestyle.


the only real influence is all things dark and depressing.

You know you're a goth when :


1) you and your friends feel the need to dress up in your goth clothes and take pictures in the cemetary.

2) it's 99 degrees out and you're in 4 layers of black garments

3) you think it would be cool to be a vampire.

4) every night in your favorite club would be a halloween party anywhere else

5) you take photos of yourself made to look like you're dead in the bathtub

any combination of the above will qualify ..


seriously - there may have been another type of goth before - but this is undeniably what it has become now ..

[tarcher80]

Originally posted by urgeok
seriously - there may have been another type of goth before - but this is undeniably what it has become now ..

right on, i concur...

[The Demeter]

"seriously - there may have been another type of goth before - but this is undeniably what it has become now .."



That is the point I have been trying to make all along. That goth is not what it used to be. That it was changed, it regressed, its a knock-off of a quality product.
Think about how when you here someone talking about how awesome "The Fog" is and they go on and on, you try to say something to them about it and they're like "what"? Then you realize they saw the remake, the horribly diluted, unrecognizable remake, and are completely unaware that John Carpenter made an original. From that generation on, when most people refer to "The Fog" it will be the crappy remake instead of the original. And something that was great will, yet agian, be lost, thanks to crappy knock-offs.

[ItsAlive75]

Originally posted by The Demeter
Think about how when you here someone talking about how awesome "The Fog" is and they go on and on, you try to say something to them about it and they're like "what"? Then you realize they saw the remake, the horribly diluted, unrecognizable remake, and are completely unaware that John Carpenter made an original. From that generation on, when most people refer to "The Fog" it will be the crappy remake instead of the original. And something that was great will, yet agian, be lost, thanks to crappy knock-offs.

You're comparing goth kids to people with bad taste in movies?:D