Over the past few weeks, I've been looking at goth magazines from the 80s and 90s. The issues of Carpe Noctem that
stroppy_baggage discovered in the basement, a stack of Propaganda issues that I bought off of eBay. (Stop looking at me like that, most of the issues have actual interviews and pictures of the bands and random club-goers, and very few 'anorexic boi in eyeliner and skimpy clothing and/or Nazi regailia' Fred Berger photo spreads.)
The upshot is, I'm all nostalgic about the pre-Internet goth culture*, and I'm trying to figure out (1) what I'm feeling nostalgic for, and (2) if what I'm missing still exists in The Scene somewhere, just not in Seattle.
Thing the First: What am I feeling nostalgic about? That's a good question. I think I'm feeling most nostalgic about the level of day-to-day involvement people had (or seemed to have), specifically in terms of The Look. Back In The Day, if you were part of the gothic subculture, you looked it. You wore the makeup, you had the funny hair, you wore drippy lace & velvet or a leather jacket that you had spent hours customizing. Leggings and band t-shirts, but still worn with a face-full of dark eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lipstick. Not everyone wants to go to that level of effort or bother for their appearance, and certainly not their day-to-day life, I get that. But that doesn't mean that I don't miss it. And I especially miss it when I go to a goth club or a show.
Thing the Second: So, am I missing out on the extravagant gothy fashion plates because I pretty much only go out on Wednesday nights, and most people can't be bothered to get all tarted up on a weeknight? Are there wildly dressed-up peeps out and about on the weekends at the Mercury, the Vogue, or Noc-Noc?
Or, is it yet again a case of that there are only a handful of people in the Seattle scene that are willing to make that effort consistently? I have no idea. I suspect that gothy-types in other cities are a little more extravagant in their plumage, but I don't know for sure.
*I say "pre-Internet goth culture", because (and hoo-boy, do I feel like a complete elitist bitch for saying this) before the rise of the Internet, if you said you were a goth, you pretty much had to prove it with the way you looked, what you listened to, what you read, and how you lived. Black lace draped over everything, dried roses hanging on the walls, stacks of old, obscure books on shelves, and a sense of ... earnestness? That's not quite right, because there was a lot of laughing and gentle teasing/mocking at how ridiculous and over-the-top we all could be, but there wasn't quite the level of ironic cynicism and jadedness that there is today.
Whereas in today's online goth culture ... anyone can say they are a goth, and if they're even the slightest bit clever, they can do a quick bit of research and know the right things to say to back that up. If they're unscrupulous, they'll swipe other people's photos to show how darkly glamorous "they" are, and frequently have other people convinced that no, that really IS a picture of them.
Don't get me wrong, I think the rise of the global goth online culture is a pretty good thing. I think that the web has strengthened and improved the scene overall. But I also think that the boundaries and definitions of What Is Goth have become so elastic that they're almost unrecognizable and meaningless.
...
...
My goodness, that was a long ramble, wasn't it? I'll be interested to see if anyone has any comments.
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The upshot is, I'm all nostalgic about the pre-Internet goth culture*, and I'm trying to figure out (1) what I'm feeling nostalgic for, and (2) if what I'm missing still exists in The Scene somewhere, just not in Seattle.
Thing the First: What am I feeling nostalgic about? That's a good question. I think I'm feeling most nostalgic about the level of day-to-day involvement people had (or seemed to have), specifically in terms of The Look. Back In The Day, if you were part of the gothic subculture, you looked it. You wore the makeup, you had the funny hair, you wore drippy lace & velvet or a leather jacket that you had spent hours customizing. Leggings and band t-shirts, but still worn with a face-full of dark eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lipstick. Not everyone wants to go to that level of effort or bother for their appearance, and certainly not their day-to-day life, I get that. But that doesn't mean that I don't miss it. And I especially miss it when I go to a goth club or a show.
Thing the Second: So, am I missing out on the extravagant gothy fashion plates because I pretty much only go out on Wednesday nights, and most people can't be bothered to get all tarted up on a weeknight? Are there wildly dressed-up peeps out and about on the weekends at the Mercury, the Vogue, or Noc-Noc?
Or, is it yet again a case of that there are only a handful of people in the Seattle scene that are willing to make that effort consistently? I have no idea. I suspect that gothy-types in other cities are a little more extravagant in their plumage, but I don't know for sure.
*I say "pre-Internet goth culture", because (and hoo-boy, do I feel like a complete elitist bitch for saying this) before the rise of the Internet, if you said you were a goth, you pretty much had to prove it with the way you looked, what you listened to, what you read, and how you lived. Black lace draped over everything, dried roses hanging on the walls, stacks of old, obscure books on shelves, and a sense of ... earnestness? That's not quite right, because there was a lot of laughing and gentle teasing/mocking at how ridiculous and over-the-top we all could be, but there wasn't quite the level of ironic cynicism and jadedness that there is today.
Whereas in today's online goth culture ... anyone can say they are a goth, and if they're even the slightest bit clever, they can do a quick bit of research and know the right things to say to back that up. If they're unscrupulous, they'll swipe other people's photos to show how darkly glamorous "they" are, and frequently have other people convinced that no, that really IS a picture of them.
Don't get me wrong, I think the rise of the global goth online culture is a pretty good thing. I think that the web has strengthened and improved the scene overall. But I also think that the boundaries and definitions of What Is Goth have become so elastic that they're almost unrecognizable and meaningless.
...
...
My goodness, that was a long ramble, wasn't it? I'll be interested to see if anyone has any comments.
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