Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Gypsy2222
to make the statement that "Music makes a person Goth"?
|
My response was really to Dante, not you petal. The first post here came off as an allegation that anyone might "become" goth based on some instruction from a song lyric, which seemed to me an incomplete definition of what might actually occur. It also seemed very judgemental of this "way" to Be Gothic. I thought that was a little short sighted, and remembered all the silly things (remember knee-high moccasin boots and the strangely-popular-for-about-a-year tie dyes? remember Big Hair?) people I've known, and people I've been, have done partially thanks to certain types of music.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Gypsy2222
I also don't believe anyone was condemning anyone here... I know I wasn't... Perhaps I was a bit strong and even haughty... I do ask forgiveness if I seemed this way (in looking at my former post it must seem so), I was merely emotionally exhausted from my post in observational tangents... and like many, I have the failing of being cranky when I am exhausted... In truth I was merely attempting to educate with as little work on my part as possible.... The result lacked eloquence and I do appologize for that... I'll not be so lax in the future as I do not wish to appear in anyway uppity or the like.....
|
Oh, darlin'! You NEVER come off as condemning, not to my mind. Haughty? Hey, only in the good ways. *Giggle* No apologies, no harm, and no foul m'kay?
Getting back to the silly things I have personally done in the name of music, often times there is a crush on the other side of someone's sudden fashion or musical conversion. Maybe boys (or girls - hey) get excited about the girl from Evanescence and think that music defines something and start off on what others define as The Wrong Foot in terms of Goth culture. The likelihood is that the newly "misguided" will either (a) learn more about their milieu, and grow and change within it, or (b) get bored and abandon the pretense. Few people remain "ignorant newbies" for very long - ignorant newbies don't really preserve too well. So why judge anyone's entre' into something, when they'll either "improve" (based on some ridiculously subjective standards) or fade away?
When I was 18, I enjoyed a first love who was a total acid freak. The mocc boots, the tie dyes, the rehab, the whole nine. I carried some of his style with me to college, where certain leanings went full tilt, and I became a bit of a tree-huggin', Neil-Young-listenin'-to hippie for a while.
When I was 19, I met a musician, and then spent a few years becoming a Rock and Roll Groupie. That lycra and the FMPs didn't wear themselves, and they wouldn't have worked on campus. It came with the context - specifically musical, obviously, thanks to his profession.
When I was 29 or so, I dated a guy who dug the Raiders and KISS and hip hop and, I am not making this up, beauty pageants and Fiona Apple. I actually caught myself noticing an incredible 85-yard run OF MY OWN VOLITION while going out with this guy. Dude. I [b]watched football[/]. I started listening to rap and hip hop. Hey, it opened up my options in a town where radio is slim pickin's.
Since I met kog3100, I've started listening to a lot of "his" music (more honestly, it's ours, but because I wouldn't have come up with it on my own, we can say I'm copying again). We go to goth clubs. A lot of what he's allowed me to explore in myself is not exactly new to my personality -but it's expanded a potential into fresh actuality, and we're both having fun with it. I was never "a goth" before we met, and even now, with all the bits of this subculture we share, I still feel a bit old - and a bit too attached to Missy Elliott and Southern Culture on the Skids, in addition to everything else - to imagine I could really start calling myself one now.
So maybe I'm riding someone's coattails in a place I don't really belong. Maybe my going to goth clubs and wanting to work with a goth photographer and going out in gothy-chick costumes is all misappropriation - or just something I adopted the 'wrong way'.
Thing is, I don't really care. I don't think most people DO, when they first "discover" any groove. We all just know what we like, and if we like it thanks to a band everyone else thinks is cheesy (I've seen some scathing comments about LaCuna Coil, a band I happen to enjoy, especially live) or a movie I think typifies something, but which embarrasses the larger population of a group (no, I don't want to wear Crow makeup, but I don't mind that movie frankly, and won't revile it because Everyone Else Does) ... well, so what?
I just read the first post in this thread as rather judging the "way" people become what they are. And my question would be ... How is your growth so superior? And, for that matter, why DOES it matter *how* someone makes a given choice? How is it anyone's business to judge someone else's process and context?