me me me me me me me me me me me me me me they are quite rare in Latvia Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! can you introduce me to one? I'm gothic myslef Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Goths - style, phylosophy and history (version 2.0) gothic. absolute individualism. "you should be strong by heart and soul- if you don't - what is the reason to live?" Goths take power and energy from those music and art which make other people to feel depression and confusion. Gothic music and lifestyle is for those who want more from life, emotions, music, art, etc.. The goal of this article - to explain in a short way who are goths ( nowadays this is one of most progressive and widening subcultures on in the world and the one and only subculture of INDIVIDUALISM ) . While being for some time in Europe I have noticed a regularity- here the only two subcultures are distinctly distinguished – pop-rave-commercially-color culture- as a temporary today’s culture. And the goths ( as a formation which developped in 1980-81 in gloomy England and slowly though confidently carries more and more progressive people ( and not only youth ) around). As you can differentiate the Goths among the crowd right away by something unusual in a look, by their definitely black or leather clothes and as to the women- goths – by underlined elegental erotic vamp style in their image and clothes… The Goths are above all an lifestyle, ideology, which is based on some definite principles of life and has its own midpoints, they are: obscure energy and philosophically- mystic texts of gothic music (The Sisters Of Mercy, In Strict Confidence, KINO (Victor Tsoy), HIM, KOMU VNYZ, etc) + black color and image (women have definite cosmetics and vamp style) by means of that we can distinguish one another in a crowd + literature that gives us desire for thinking and a possibility to understand ourselves and our instincts + movies that give us a start and then think (Tharkowsky, Cubrik, Paradzhanow etc – “The Crow”, “Odyssey 2000”) + art which doesn’t allow us to be the users ( + all that that everyone see in gothic…As every goth has his own determinations as to the goths and gothic. And everyone is a goth in one’s own way. May be this IS gothic… HISTORY Goths exist from the beginning of the 80's. Gothic and goths have harmonically appeared from the mix of obscure power and aggression of dying post punk ( Joy Division, Virgin Prunes, Siouxsie and the Banshees etc) and aesthetic and energy of nascent new wave At the time when the youth had been full with post punk and there were no alternative to commercial rock and pop, then for all those who had some definite tastes to music and life there was no way to get some other music besides simple one. Then in 1980-81 bands appeared that played quite gloomy music with philosophic- mystic texts (The Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Mission, Nick Cave, Bauhaus, Fields of the Nephilim, the Cult, etc) andthat bands also wore almost exceptionally black color and silver. Every band had its own beginning – rock, post punk or electro but stylistics were equally gloomy, melancholic, some times energetic, sometimes decadence or depressive. But that was energy. The energy for those who doesn’t like that simple and jolly tinsel of art. They were listened to by people who also started to wear black ( the color became a characteristic feature for goths ) and by those who found their principles of life in that music and who needed the energy of that sorrowful, dreary, depressive music with wicked ironic texts…Unlike the others – GOTHS TAKE AND HAVE TAKEN THE STRENTH from this very music, which others took as suicidal or too gloomy… At that time papers and magazines (‘Melody Maker’, ‘New Music Express’, ‘Sounds’ etc) and society called those bands gothic, the music was called GOTHIC or gothic rock , and those who liked the music and started to live the particular lifestyle- GOTHS. One of the post uinteressting questions is from where the wolrd and definition gothic came. In my opinion and merging all the facts and ideas there can three reasons. It could be called "gothic" because of first - "gothic" (deep, powerful) vocals could be compared with ancient, powerful, gloomy and energetic appeal of tribe of goths and second - they had a-la ancient clothes on : old black clothes, boots, silver jewelry, long black chaotic hair (a lot of bands had a mixture of different styles, some of them looked like medieval cowboy- goths, for instance Fields of the Nephilim and The Sisters of Mercy) nowadays goths unify black leather and simple black clothes), thirdly - there were philosophic and at the same time mental elements such as belief, other dark sides of life, despair, belief in oneself, contradictions of internal emotions, pain, god, mystics, fighting against social dogma etc. in the texts of those bands ( especially The Sisters of Mercy and The Mission). That means there were the texts owning to that gothic became popular among those people who needed everything real and difficult for understanding by the whole society, though worth to understand by an individual. Gothic became a style of intellectual egoists and a feature of a real taste, which can not be perceived by everybody Then appeared a one of the first gothic symbols – a star which was a symbol of knowledge and burned skin ona man as a symbol of his attempts to go through society and its principles to achieve his mental goal and come to himself…. This symbol was created by The Sisters of Mercy’s leader Andrew Eldritch who was considered to be a godfather of gothic, to be a man who created that style. Andrew Eldtritch was the person nobody knew a lot about, except for information about his speaking in 8 languages, the fact that he had traveled around the world, had lived in India, Saudi Arabia, none had ever seen his eyes as he always wore black sunglasses, he didn’t like journalists, made one album per 10 years, 8 video that considered to be the best in the sphere, all releases became ‘gold’, and his lyrics which could be the subject for books as they were so sophisticated and harmonic at the same time… At that time another symbol of Goths – an ank – had appeared. Besides its ancient meaning which symbolized a combination of mystics and philosophy in gothic one of the meanings of ank is internal life. Though points of view differed, 1 - some considered gothic to be darker music and subculture, connected with mystics, dark sides of life and even Satanism . Though we should mark there are both Christian gothic and Satanic gothic… 2 - Other goths based the gothic lifestyle and music on philosophy, high psycho ideology, on another level of comprehension… Although lots of goths joins together these two opinions. With the time Ank became more and more popular. All kind of Goths wear it… Besides these symbols which are usually wore on bodies, there is a lot of symbolism of all kinds which is used by Goths, mainly of ancient origin : Egypt, Thracian, Medieval, etc As to the clothes, from the beginning of 80's besides simply black things and silver Goths began to wear leather. For today it is a characteristic feature of goths. From my point of view , black color was a kind of protest against a common public point of view that black is bad, black is Satanism, protest against common fool opinion of society based on TV and media. And also there is view that black is color which protects you , goth, from simple, colourful and stupid life around. It's like a wall. Shield from society. But even nowadays goths are often mistakenly confused with Satanists in mass media and by some groups of people. Although goths are really wide-known right now. Goths are not just about clothes. Goths wear black but it's just an expression of internal thoughts and attitudes outside, they also usually are suppose to have a deep soul and hidden wolrd inside... t the end of 80th beginning of 90th gothic transformed and involved bordering spheres of art and life- literature, films, art , photo etc. At that time all those spheres got a corresponding definition- gothic. Magazines devoted to gothic and near-gothic styles (synth pop, industrial, dark wave, EBM, dark electro, medieval, dark folk, new wave, neo classic etc) appeared. The first wave (‘Naked Truth’, ‘Propaganda’) of so called zines weeded out all useless editions. Among piles of various editions four leaders were distinguished – ‘Orkus’, ‘Zillo’, ‘Sonic Seducer’, ‘Gothic’ ( all magazines were from Germany). '??????? ???????, ??? ???? ??? ???????? ?????????? ?????? (gothic) ? ???????? ?? ??? ?????? (synth pop, industrial, dark wave, EBM, dark electro, medieval, dark folk, new wave, neo classic, etc..) Around 88-89 more and more bands which are strictly based on electronics come from Germany - Girls Under Glass, Deine Lakaien, In My Rosary, Love is Colder Than Death, etc... This current starts to grow more and more at the same time with general grow of fans of electronic gothic and style crossing with it - dark wave, EBM, dark electro, etc.. GOTHIC FAQ by Vitaliy "Stranger" Fedun Co-authors : Anton "Christ888" Schekhovtsov [part: dark folk] / Elena Savitskaja [general info on gothic] ------------------------------- I haven't translated the rest of the article from Russian yet
oh no, not another one. What is it with trying to look like a goth when they arent? Its a high jacking of a culture. Just like the wannabes have highjacked the metal scene. Its a disgusting thing. God damned Trendies. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My ex was a goth (or so by the standards I have been informed of what a gothic person is). I don't have pictures of her anymore; I decided to ditch after I developed some...... oh, how shall I put it, um, unpleasant feelings for her (after all, she is my ex; it ended very bitterly). She wore black clothes as often as she could. It was her favorite color, and she had to wear it all of the time for her job as she in a theater (black clothes to blend into the darkness when the stage lights were out and what not). She dyed her hair many different colors. She called herself a freak. She was obsessive about live action role playing with Vampire the Masquerade. She had a picture of herself with her friend at a party. IIRC, her friend was eating some red gooey stuff (like blood), and there was this guy (though only his arm was visible) stabbing a stuffed teddy bear with a knife. Though but what, maybe one of my friends still has her pictures after I sent them to him; though but god, that was years ago. I'll ask anyhow.
Hey Thor and Captain Crunch, if you guys are the experts on goths, how come you didn't see that those two pictures are pictures of a guy? hahaha! Joke's on you. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's a friendly guy too...one who let me post his pics on this board. He's a goth dj, a member of a band and he is considered high ranked in the goth scene... Thanks, we had a good laugh Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Do you have some special criteria? The majority of proper Goths wear black clothes, died black hair, white face powder and black eye liner. They usually limit color to dark purple or other color to do with mourning. The top girl is wearing a black leather looking top with a bear's face (that looks quite evil) on a leather glove; basically a fasion item. Secondly, she is wearing red lipstick with black outline. Stereotypical gothic wear, goths dont infact wear these kind of clothes. This is typical behavior in the UK. The second girl, i dont even know where to start...Red top; showing waaayy to much flesh, her eyeliner and lipstick are waaayy overdone. The characteristic witchcraft symbol, true goths dont do witchcraft, sitting front of a candle (damn, they really are going whole hog). She has natural skin tone. Now, Trendies (which is what these two girls are) are wearing these clothes as a fasion statement, this is not what gothic is all about. This isnt gothic dress, they are wearing these clothes for the attention it will bring from joe public. These people cannot be called goths, rather; Trendies as this is what they are. Goths dont like these people and wouldnt want to be associated with them at all. The subculture that Avatar is talking about is a totally different thing from these people. It is slander to goths to call these trendies "goths".
First off, damn you're cute Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Secondly, myself and Captain_Crunch feel very strongly about "trendies" using clothing such as this to gain attention. It has happened in the Nu-Metal scene (Pop music!!). People think it is cool to use these "ideas" of styles of dress to look trendy (hence the "trendies"). The most obvious form of it today are skaters. I need not explain that as I'm sure everyone is aware of that trend. The Alternative culture is going mainstream, this cannot happen, for one, it wouldn't be alternative!!! Trendies are stealing our culture for their own gains. It's insulting
