Before Gothic/Before Industrial.

[Manimal]

Maybe I'm old... WTF is a Rivethead besides a song by Chemlab?

Before I found Ministry, KMFDM, NIN and the like (in the early 90's) I was a mullet wearing metalhead (Gawd how I despise Metallica now) - before that it was 70's acid rock (thanks Dad). I should have been into 80's pop like all the other kids but alas - I only recently started liking that. Ohhhh.... even more disturbing - I've been watching Dukes of Hazzard on CMT (love that show) and so catch Country videos now and again and I kinda... <gulp>... like it.

What does it all mean?



*Moderators Note*

And I have PICS of the infamous MULLET!!

Muahuahuahua!!!!

[Rosie]

I was a baggage handler in Terminal 2 of Heathrow Airport in London.

I then decided to sell all my worldly belongings and live atop a large hill in Sweden.

[Satan's Spawn]

I can't really say I'm goth anymore, I kinda dyed my hair in a funky way, and I always wear the same old worn military pants with stitches, badges, and holes everywhere. I'm probably more punk. Just a metal-punk.
But before that I was metalhead.
and before that goth. ^_^
And before that I simply the popular geek. The sweet girl who did all her homework and was funny. The female Class Clown.
But at the same time I could be a pretty morbid 8 year-old. I sometimes remember the things I said back then. I could imagine why some kids just stayed clear of me. Or beat me up :/

I guess I've just always been pretty fascinated with goth and punk. Some of the things I loved as a kid were arms full of bracelets and spikes and worn clothes with holes. I wasn't allowed to wear it though.

[angedenuit]

I was always pretty dark and morbid. I have been pretty much a loner for most of my life. I tended to like darker colors and I got really into studying the Holocaust.

[Disfunction]

Grade school: I was that kid that would sit down by himself during recess, or maybe play with toys along with his friends, then I moved to another school and the process repeated, except this time it involved drawing pictures.

Mode of Dress: Sweats from a store called "Northern Getaway."

Middle school: I moved to the US and I was ostrocized for the most part, I became highly depressed, and I indulged in darker art than before. I had friednds, but I didn't even really realize I had them until a few years later. I got into a few fights, and then I moved to a new state.

Mode of Dress: Jeans, t-shirts and sweats.

Musical Tastes: Classical, nothing but.

High school: This is broken up into two main categories. Texas and Canada.

Texas: I wore fairly "typical" clothing for the average person, t-shirts, jeans, trying to fit in, but really failing. From 4th or 5th grade I'd been more Buddhist than Christian, but by the point I was in Texas I was more Agnostic than anything else. It was at around this point that my psychological state snapped. Prior I'd been hyper-sensitive, crying at the slightest thing. Finally, I just stopped caring about them. It didn't get to me anymore.

I eventually moved away back to Canada where I ended up joining an art site called elfwood. There I met some gothic artists. There is where I met people that had had a similar call to the colour black, and then, where as in Texas I stopped drawing, I began to practise my art again. It was shitty art first, but over time I became at least some level of "good." Since the end of middle school I'd been writing, and now my writing began to develop. Unlike in Texas where I tried to get into rap music, I found in bands such as Rammstein and Cradle of Filth something that music had never had for me before.

I didn't fit into any particular category before, I never really did anything other than drawing and then later writing. So, I was an artist, I guess. As time progressed, my wardrobe became more varied, and now I don't really look the part of a goth, but I still write stories and poetry geared towards more morose themes, with a happy undertone. I guess.

There, that's a summary of me no part of which could be ignored.

[SpookyKabukidoll]

Before: Clove-smoking, absinth-drinking, moping apathetic whiny kid.

After: Clove-smoking, water-drinking apathetic whiny 'young adult.'

Oh, and the obsession with Fraggle Rock never passes with time.

[SpookyKabukidoll]

There were so many errors in that...
My apologies.

[Empty_Purple_Stars]

Originally Posted by SpookyKabukidoll

There were so many errors in that...
My apologies.

It's okay..

You have the really cool 'nickname' and the mention of the Uber timeless and beloved Fraggle Rock thing going for you..

[Rosie]

Some people take themselves way too seriously. It doesn't matter if you're labelled as long as you can prove that the label doesn't define you, which is done by your day to day actions and personality, not what you say when quizzed on the spot about it. If you really need to shun anything that can be used to describe you, you're probably trying too hard.

[Abigor's_servent]

Well I was a sweet little chiled that did what she was told until i was in middle school that is when i changed!!!!!

[SpookyKabukidoll]

Originally Posted by Empty_Purple_Stars

Uber timeless and beloved Fraggle Rock

Let the music play.

[Elder]

I was the scruffy obnoxious know it all. The sporty fashionable types didn't like me because I was thin, and scruffy, and always looked a mess.
The nerdy geeks didn't like me because I wasn't tidy enough. I was the ultimate under achiever. I guess I still am.
Became gothic about 14. Realised I was a got at 16. Stopped looking like a goth arround 21. At 37, I realise, i'm still a goth, and have more black in my wardrobe now than in the last 25 years. Even my new interview suit is plain black. I guess I now finally realise that once you unleash the gothness, you have trully fallen from grace, and must embrace the all ecompassing darkness within. You can't deny it or it will eat you up with torment <wow, true pretentious drivel>.

[aspendeath]

I listened to disco and 70s pop and bought my clothes from Pacific Sunwear. But that's only because I like bright colors (still do). And I still like 70s music. I also liked Disney songs. One day I was searching for "Arabian Nights" (from Alladin) and I downloaded the Siouxsie and the Banshees song of the same name, assuming it to be a cover.

Oh how wrong I was, but I loved it. I think you can fill in the blanks from there.

[aspendeath]

But I've always been rather morbid and had a weird outlook on life.

(damn not being allowed to edit my post)

[happy_dude]

Before I began listening to Goth and Industrial I listened to Punk and Metal(I still do).
I discovered it because I was sick of people making stupid comments about Goths(and Satanists) so I decided to do a bit of research into what it is REALLY about(this website has also been part of this research you ignorant guinea pigs), then I discovered I have been a fan of The Cure since I was ten(Damn radio never tell me who they're playing)...

[Falken]

I had my first experience with rock with "Bennie and the Jets" by Elton John (yeah, I'm that decrepit).

After Elton, I listened to ELO, Bad Company, Rush, Yes, Asia, Supertramp, etc... guess I liked very melodic rock & roll.

Then Gary Numan released "Cars" and my world changed... I became a techno-freak, getting into Kraftwerk as well. The local radio stations at the time played crap and it wasn't until eMpTV came out that I started discovering bands like The Buggles, Haircut 100 and such... I became a new romantic officially when I first saw the video for "The Voice" by Ultravox... then I had to have all this New Romantic stuff from Altered Images, Japan, Slow Children, etc...

I never really did consider myself a goth until I heard Clan of Xymox for the first time in 1985. I realized then that most of the "new music" I liked tended to be dark and moody. I realized that the goth culture really fitted into my perspective on life and death (my father died when I was 14... it was pretty traumatic).

I never have really dressed goth except I have a really nice big black overcoat that I wore everywhere in my 20s with all my buttons of weird bands on it. I don't go in much for the whole theory of you have to look like it to be it.

Anwway, I'm a bit punk as well. It fits into my definite disdain for authority in general (one of my favorite bumper stickers is "Question Authority", but in the South that tends to get you pulled over by the more redneck police officers). I realized I was a punk when I listened to spoken word stuff by Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins. Their monologues made me realize what a "fetid" government we do have in the US. I got into political science in college because I thought I'd try to change the system from within, but getting in a work accident screwed that up. Now I have to find employment and the best way to do that is to become a teacher... I should be finishing up my degree in Education soon, so I can warp young minds earlier in the developmental stages. :-P

[spookypurple]

Originally Posted by Pathogen.

Gothic.net Forums folks: What were you like before you became Gothics or Rivetheads? Call it curiosity--

I was me.

And as far as I know, I still am.

Mind you, I haven't checked recently...

[Iriacynthe]

I always was a shy kid, I never was part of the 'cool' group of kids but I did have my own small set of friends which made me happy enough. I was extremely intelligent (always had the best grades of the class without having to do a single thing, could read in kindergarten, and so on) and that always made me one of the teachers favourites. I wasn't really into music untill I was about 11, and than I just listened to the Spice Girls and whatever girls of my age normally listened to. I always loved long dresses and lace and ribbons and so on, but when I was 11 I started to hate that and only wore jeans with holes in them and T-shirts that I got from my older cousins. That rebel-against-everything-cute-and-girly-phase slowly passed, and now I love pretty dresses again.

Music-wise I started to like some slightly more alternative things when I was 12, and I discovered Lacrimosa when I was 14. That was also about the time when I started getting into more alternative fashion, I had always been fascinated by different-looking people but I never had the idea to dress that way myself when I was younger.

Okay, I confess, when I was 13-14 I did have a short period where I wanted to be a part of the cool-kids-group and I started buying expensive clothes and Eminem-cd's, but I grew out of that pretty quickly, it just wasn't my thing and I secretly felt way better with my geeky uncool friends.

[Godslayer Jillian]

I see this thread is becomeing popular again.
Let's see...
Since I was a kid, I've had an obsession with vampyres and I loved reading Edgar Allan Poe, but that's as goth as I got. I liked the Victorian style, but I had never thought of wearing it myself.
When a little kid, as everyone, I mostly wore what my mommy bought for me. At about 12 years old, I dressed kind of preppy, but I generally preferred solid colors, like deep blue instead of powder blue and so forth. The pants, of course, had to match the shirt.
At age 13, I tried to write a little story about a nightmare land, and people that read it saw me with that-guy-has-issues eyes.
It was until I was 14 that I began wearing mostly black clothes, but they were mostly black T-shirst and tight pants, so I looked somewhat emo and *gasps* skater. I say skater because I even bought a skateboard (the only time I've succumbed to peer pressure).
I stopped when I broke a window-door trying to make a simple backflip.
Even though black T-shirts and tight pants have nothing to do with goths, people called me one (which shows how little they know about the sub-culture).
Just like Andrew Eldritch I refused to being called so. But then, just as Happy Dude, I began to research about the gothic sub-culture, and Google took me to this page which took me to Goth With A Sledgehammer. And, just as YHVH, I saw it, and it was good. I didn't join this site until I was looking for a hairstyle.

[Elder]

You do know that black t shirts, with tight pants and winkle picker/pixie boots is about a traditional goth as you can get? Especially for men. Add the that long shaggy or mohawked crimped hair, and that is the original goth look, a one step progression from monochrome punk, musically and fashionwise.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Well, it's hard to clarify that part of my life. I know the standard gothic look, but I damned looked like an emo kid.

[Nocturnicus]

I was a dissenting political nerd, now I'm a dissenting political nerd who feels very comfortable in the shadows and likes lots of nocturnal/gothic things.

[Circle V]

When I was in elementary school, I was a nerd. I never studied, but I watched Bill Nye the Science Guy religiously (I credit him with my easy grasp of science) and wore t-shirts and hats that displayed pictures of insects and their common and scientific names. I read mostly sci-fi and fantasy books, and lots of them. I remember reading until midnight every night during the summer-- quite a bit, since I went to bed at 8. My favorite movies were generally of the darker Disney sort: Nightmare Before Christmas, Fern Gulley, er... Alien/s, Austin Powers. I liked the sadder songs by Aerosmith and Loreena McKennitt.

When I moved to Bolivia, I picked up Magic: the Gathering cards and-- sorta-- Dungeons and Dragons. The books I read were more of the fantasy type during this period.

After a while, I began to become more conscious of music. I started out with more mainstream music-- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Aerosmith, Alien Ant Farm-- that eventually became 'darker'-- Evanescence, Linkin Park, etc. I began to wear leather wristbands and spike my hair in order to get around my school uniform, and black band tees outside of school.

My musical tastes eventually shifted to classic metal/rock and then modern metal. I soon became interested in the Gothic subculture and researched it, stumbing across sites such as Goth With a Sledgehammer. For a while I talked, in truly stereotypical fashion, about "going Goth" when I moved to the US. (This was my angst phase, in 8th and 9th grade. And yes, I did cut myself. Heh.)

Eventually, exposure to accurate information about Goths gave me better outlook on the culture. I then decided not to become a Goth.

It happened anyway, and largely without my knowledge or permission, sparked mostly by Nine Inch Nails, the Sick Among the Pure web ezine, and, in a way, this site.

[Monsosin]

Before I was what I am now, I was what I am now only not as smart, shorter, shorter hair, less piercings, no tattoos, and when I was born I was naked... I wear clothing now.

[Corpsey]

First of all, I've only recently found out what goth was and decided that I am one after all.
Beforehand, I was a fairly happygo carefree kiwi, which is what many kiwis can be described as, so I'll go further into it.

I didn't care what people thought of about me, I always lived by the saying "don't let anyone upset you when you're being yourself". I would do air guitar going down the road and do it even more obviously when people started to stare at me to make people look the fuck away. I would try to be a christian, but I wouldn't shove it down other peoples throats, or be into the whole evangelical thing.

I also lived by my favourite motto "be friendly to people, as you never know how it could affect someone's day". I would sometimes wear my "Elmo wants a hug" shirt just to show that deep down inside, I'm just someone who is still 5 years old at heart and wants to get to know people. I was also rather immature, to say the least, i've grown up quite quickly since i started university, and in the process realised that I'm goth.

The first changes I had was probably when i began to have opinions about group mentality. I never wanted to say all the same things like my parents did to their friends, or react like fish do to each other in a school, it just seemed pointless and sad. The my father invited me to go to one of his work parties when i was staying up there with him for the holidays, and the whole party soon became segregated into two very steriotypical groups in military society. The men went outside to the barbeque, smoked, drank beer, swore and bitched about people in other countries. "Those fucking ities, those damn pommes, the french ladies..."you can guess how the rest of the scene went. The women stayed inside and had "civilised talk" about the weather, who was about to give birth, new people who had arrived into town and so on. The male scene seemed relatively retarded as everyone was acting pompous and arrogant, while it was sad to see how the women were so trapped in their lives to these men and had nothing better to talk about than who was having groupie sex and who wasn't. Fuck, I could hardly stand the men, and yet the women made me even more upset. I wanted to never become like these so called men and never subjugate anyone to having to live like these wives had to.

I had been through that whole metal head period where anything without some sort of distortion i considered blasphemous by thi point in time, and was greatly into the alternative scene. But then i started to think that all this music was generally rubbish. I went back to listening to people like Andre Botticelli (who i adore) and Frank Sinatra, and really got into the 60's music scene thanks to one of my friends. Eventually i stopped listening to all those "hardcore" bands and started listening to good music. I discovered Kyo on an exchange trip and fell in love with their melodies and Benoit Poher's beautiful voice. Hell, i even learned to appreciate all the older rap like Run DMC and eventually Tupac, along with Scribe and P Money. I would start to openly say what i thought about all that music that everyone thought i liked, like metallica, rather than worshiping them to not look odd. This gave me some interesting stare's at parties, but it was worth it just to laugh about later.

Finally, i came to this website, and originally looked ike a complete twerp I must admit. I eventually learned about what goth was and decided that I was goth after all, after being labelled with it for ages by randoms that hardly knew me. I am very reluctant to be labelled with something. For example, people think I must be some sort of person who tries to be a complete saint and that I look down on all those people who aren't because of how they live, because I call myself a Christian. I personally don't give two shits how people live as long as they don't try to force their way of life on me, and I give other people the same coutresy.

So, it was a gradual change, but I eventually grew up and realised I was goth.