The stages of goth.

[reddragdiva]

DENIAL: "I am so not a goth."
ANGER: "Fuck you, I'm sick of goths!"
BARGAINING: "I wear these boots because they're comfortable, and black happens to be slimming on me. Look, my jacket is brown."
DEPRESSION: "Oh Ghod, normals actually suck worse."
ACCEPTANCE: "Listen, kid, I see gother things than you after my morning dump."

Update: Further stages, prompted by mr_tom:

EMERGENCE: Oh all right I'll go to the goth night at the pub. I can tell them to play Sisters instead of crappy EBM.
ACCEPTANCE: My goodness, these sxxy deth chyx are fine.
RE-CONNECTING WITHOUT LEARNING: G'day, luv, nice boots!
NEW LEARNING AND HOPE: Ow. Never mind, there's another one over there.
LIFE WITH NEW INSIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING: Perhaps if I pick up sxxy deth chyx my own age. Oooh, g'day. Nice boots!

Comments

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

followed by...

DEPRESSION: OMG the goth scene is so full of wankers these days.
BARGAINING: Well, maybe if I get really, really drunk I won't hate going to a goth club
ANGER: This fucking goth scene fucking sucks. I'm fucking out of it fucking now. Fuck.
DENIAL: I'm not goth. I was a goth. I'm not now. Goths today suck.

[reddragdiva]

ACCEPTANCE: Bugger.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

TRANSCENDENCE: Humppa!

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

This is like that bereavement/change curve thingy, but without the up-side, no?

http://www.vinepartnership.co.uk/images/changenewd3.gif

[reddragdiva]

You on the other hand are just a goddamn freak.

[reddragdiva]

EMERGENCE: Oh all right I'll go to the goth night at the pub. I can tell them to play Sisters instead of crappy EBM.
ACCEPTANCE: My goodness, these sxxy deth chyx are fine.
RE-CONNECTING WITHOUT LEARNING: G'day, luv, nice boots!
NEW LEARNING AND HOPE: Ow. Never mind, there's another one over there.
LIFE WITH NEW INSIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING: Perhaps if I pick up sxxy deth chyx my own age.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You are too kind.

[vampwillow]

EMERGENCE: Oh all right I'll go to the goth night at the club. I can tell them to play VNV Nation and Combichrist instead of crappy dismal 80's crap

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

The problem is that, to my ear, the Sisters of Mercy are not really more listenable than crap EBM.

I tried doing the goth thing, and listened to both. Then I discovered music that you never hear about inside the goth reality distortion field, and realised that, far from being the definition of "post-punk" or whatever, the Sisters of Mercy are a very conservative and rockist band; they went from generic angry young punk noise through an album or two of genre-defining Goth Rock that Cleopatra bands are probably still copying, to bloated hard-rock balladeering à la Meatloaf with intellectual pretensions. (The fact that they shared the same producer is rather telling.)

Could there be any reason for listening to the Sisters of Mercy other than as a cultural signifier of identification within the Goth subculture?

[reddragdiva]

Some Girls Wander By Mistake is my favourite example of a band doing something really good whilst obviously not having a fucking clue what or why.

[gashinryu.livejournal.com]

ENLIGHTENMENT: Waking up the next morning and realising the only difference between goth and normal life is the clothes. ;-)

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

Could there be any reason for listening to the Sisters of Mercy other than as a cultural signifier of identification within the Goth subculture?

because up until Vision Thing they're not bad? i like boring rock bands. i also like The Who.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Though they didn't really do anything other bands weren't doing at the same time. The reason that people remember them and not the numerous other post-punk hard-rock bands was because they had the foresight or good fortune to become a canonical example of the music that gives an enduring subculture much of its identity.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Though, had you had no contact with the goth subculture, what would have been the odds of your having chosen the Sisters of Mercy to give a share of your listening attention to, rather than some other band?

[reddragdiva]

You already know it's about the bootywhang, not the music per se.

[reddragdiva]

I was terribly disappointed with the Sisters at the time (Joy Division whipped up into a splurge with drum machine) and even more disappointed with the zillion goth bands who decided "guitar and drum machine, that's what goth sounds like" and copied them precisely.

Compare The Three Johns — contemporaries, did the same guitar and drum machine, but somehow completely different.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Got any MP3s?

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

my partner listened to them because his parents listened to them, and he thought they were pretty good.

when i was in HS, before i was really aware of goth, all of my friends (not goths, just alternative types) listened to them. even if i'd never gotten into the goth scene (there was none where i grew up) i would still love Dominion because it always reminds me of my friends driving me about when i was around 14. :)

[oonh.livejournal.com]

INCOMPREHENSIBILITY: My dear gourd, I have forsworn use of Werner Herzog containing hair gel on the basis that the the amount of the square root of seventeen per cubic milliliter is toxic.

[lucybond.livejournal.com]

Hon. My sweater: pink, purple, blue & cream stripes.
My trousers: hot pink.
My shirt: silk, with white, hot pink & grey pinstripe.
My boots: hot pink, with snowflake print.
My lingerie: matching dsky pink lace.

My HAIR: dyed back to something resembling my natural colour
(OK, with platinum stripes)

I'm really not goth!

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

pink is the new black. goth.

[reddragdiva]

Stage 3.

[reddragdiva]

Some. I'll see what I can do.

[koresh.livejournal.com]

At least I never got past stage one: "I am so not a goth". Yes, I were black boots every day - and usualy black everything. But I'm still more a of bloody hippy than a goth.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

But I'm not a Goth! (Or does that make me stage 1? - I really don't think so...)