Curiousity
 

Please, excuse my english before I start this, as it is not my natural language.

I was curious, what exactly is a Goth?

I have heard many definitions, which range from a Goth being someone who listens to dark music, such as a Children of Bodom, Dimmu Borgir, and Cradle of Filth, amoung other bands.

Then I have heard the definition where a goth is a creative being who has a sadistic or masochistic side, dresses in all black, and wants to kill everyone, everywhere, in every which way.

Finally, I have heard the definition that a Goth is simply an over emotional crybaby who only wants to have him or herself die.

Are any of these definitions true, and if so, which ones? The people that I know around my school, who call themselves "Gothic", usually fit into the first description, as they seem facisnated only with music. But, to contradict that, I went to a convention that was supposed to celebrate "Gothism", and that was only a convention of people who dressed in all black, and wanted to kill everyone, in the most interesting ways, including setting them on fire, teabagging them, and other more gruesome ventures I will not go into.

After that, I went online to several IRC channels (Which I will leave nameless), and their descriptions were "I h8 t3h w0rlD", and they only seemed to speak in AOLer, claimed to be Uber-Hackers, who when confronted about that, knew nothing about hacking, phreaking, or any related topic, and they seemed obsessed with bands such as Linkin Park, Adema, and Simple Plan.

Is there any method to this madness?

...kill them in the morning--kill them in the evening--kill them around supper time...

That's what the voices say, anyway.

But why would I kill them in the morning? I could be sleeping...or eating...

There are many definitions of goth, but as for me I am part of the second question.

This is why life needs an encyclopedia, besides Wikipedia...... That way I can open up the page, and boom, there is answer...

Go check out the Goth megathread on here and google goth with a sledgehammer.

The term to be a goth first originated from the followers of the music. (It was called "gothic" music becuase it was focused on grotesque and barbaric horror, like the architecture of some earlier churches which were described barbaric therefore gothic after the visigoths who were...barbaric) The first "goths" were the crowd that went to the first EVER gothic club, The Batcave where they had sixouise and the sexpistols playing...I think not to sure on the bands. It also depends on what kind of "goth" you are theres the fetish the poser and the just downright nasty (I would consider myself in the nasty catergory). Asking what the term means is to general for all the things it is applied to today...but the above is it's basic foundations.

http://tti.tamu.edu/researcher/v40n1...stop_signD.jpg

stop.

just STOP.

click here, daedalus - https://www.gothic.net/boards/showthread.php?t=630

and for fuck's sake, don't be such a lazy son-of-a-bitch. look around the site. did you really think you were the ONLY person who would come to a gothic site and ask a question such as this?

Yes, look around and you will find that the Gothic sub-culture is made up of all kinds of people, poor, rich, young, old, extremists, conformists, sadistic, masochistic, funny, light hearted, mean, cruel, gentle, kind, etc.

Not all bikers wear leather,
not all hippies smoke pot,
not all hip-hoppers dress like coolio or snoop,
not all punks have mohawks,
not all ravers take acid, etc.

Music and similar interests is the thin silver coil that brings us together, but we don't have to be exactly the same, we Goths aren't clones with predefined behavioral personalities, we are people as varied and diverse as the next.

Hope this clarifies things Daedalus and can you please put yourself in a box with a label under a category, so we can say Daedalus is a XXXXXXXX, so this is what he likes, dislikes and his behavioral pattern, no?

I didn't think you could.