Goth is asubculture that began in theUnited Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans ofgothic rock, an offshoot of thepost-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who anticipated the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture includeSiouxsie and the Banshees,Bauhaus,the Cure andJoy Division.
The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify and spread throughout the world. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from 19th-centuryGothic fiction and fromhorror films. The scene is centered on music festivals, nightclubs, and organized meetings, especially inWestern Europe. The subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics and fashion.
Themusic preferred by goths includes a number of styles such as gothic rock,death rock,cold wave,dark wave andethereal wave.[1] The Gothic fashion style draws influences frompunk, new wave,New Romantic fashion[2] and the dressing styles of earlier periods such as theVictorian,Edwardian andBelle Époque eras. The style most often includes dark (usually solid black) attire, dark makeup and black hair.
The termgothic rock was coined by music critic John Stickney in 1967 to describe a meeting he had withJim Morrison in a dimly lit wine-cellar, which he called "the perfect room to honor the Gothic rock ofthe Doors".[3] That same year, theVelvet Underground song "All Tomorrow's Parties" created a kind of "mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece" according to music historianKurt Loder.[4] In the late 1970s, thegothic adjective was used to describe the atmosphere ofpost-punk bands such asSiouxsie and the Banshees,Magazine, andJoy Division. In a live review about a Siouxsie and the Banshees' concert in July 1978, criticNick Kent wrote, concerning their music, "[P]arallels and comparisons can now be drawn with gothic rock architects like the Doors and, certainly, early Velvet Underground".[5] In March 1979, in his review of Magazine's second albumSecondhand Daylight, Kent noted there was "a new austere sense of authority" in the music, with a "dank neo-Gothic sound".[6] Later that year, the term was also used by Joy Division's manager,Tony Wilson on 15 September in an interview for the BBC TV programme'sSomething Else. Wilson described Joy Division as "gothic" compared to the pop mainstream, right before a live performance of the band.[7] The term was later applied to "newer bands such asBauhaus who had arrived in the wake of Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees".[8] Bauhaus's first single issued in 1979, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", is generally credited as the starting point of the gothic rock genre.[9]
In 1979,Sounds described Joy Division as "Gothic" and "theatrical".[10] In February 1980,Melody Maker qualified the same band as "masters of this Gothic gloom".[11] CriticJon Savage would later say that their singerIan Curtis wrote "the definitive Northern Gothic statement".[12] However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became a coherentmusic subgenre within post-punk, and followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable movement. They may have taken the "goth" mantle from a 1981 article published in UK rock weeklySounds: "The face of Punk Gothique",[13] written by Steve Keaton. In a text about the audience ofUK Decay, Keaton asked: "Could this be the coming of Punk Gothique? With Bauhaus flying in on similar wings could it be the next big thing?"[13] TheF Club night inLeeds in Northern England, which had opened in 1977 firstly as a punk club, became instrumental to the development of the goth subculture in the 1980s.[14] In July 1982, the opening of theBatcave[15] inLondon'sSoho provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which would be briefly labelled "positive punk" by theNME in a special issue with a front cover in early 1983.[16] The termBatcaver was then used to describe old-school goths.
Outside the British scene,deathrock developed inCalifornia during the late 1970s and early 1980s as a distinct branch of Americanpunk rock, with acts such asChristian Death,Kommunity FK and45 Grave at the forefront.[17]
The bands that defined and embraced the gothic rock genre included Bauhaus,[18] earlyAdam and the Ants,[19]the Cure,[20]the Birthday Party,[21]Southern Death Cult,Specimen,Sex Gang Children,UK Decay,Virgin Prunes,Killing Joke, andthe Damned.[22] Near the peak of this first generation of the gothic scene in 1983,The Face'sPaul Rambali recalled "several strong Gothic characteristics" in the music of Joy Division.[23] In 1984, Joy Division's bassistPeter Hook namedPlay Dead as one of their heirs: "If you listen to a band like Play Dead, who I really like, Joy Division played similar music to Play Dead."[24]
By the mid-1980s, bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, includingthe Sisters of Mercy,the Mission,Alien Sex Fiend,the March Violets,Xmal Deutschland,the Membranes, andFields of the Nephilim. Record labels likeFactory,4AD andBeggars Banquet released much of this music in Europe, and through a vibrant import music market in the US, the subculture grew, especially inNew York andLos Angeles, California, where many nightclubs featured "gothic/industrial" nights and bands likeBlack Tape for a Blue Girl,Theatre of Ice,Human Drama andThe Wake became key figures for the genre to expand on an nationwide level.[25] The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of similar US labels, such asWax Trax! Records andProjekt.
The 1990s saw further growth for some 1980s bands and the emergence of many new acts, as well as new goth-centric US record labels such asCleopatra Records, among others. According to Dave Simpson ofThe Guardian, "[I]n the 90s, goths all but disappeared asdance music became the dominant youth cult".[26] As a result, the goth movement went underground and fractured intocyber goth,shock rock,industrial metal,gothic metal, and Medieval folk metal.[26]Marilyn Manson was seen as a "goth-shock icon" bySpin.[27]
The Goth subculture of the 1980s drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Some of them were modern or contemporary, others were centuries-old or ancient. Michael Bibby and Lauren M. E. Goodlad liken the subculture to abricolage.[28] Among the music-subcultures that influenced it werepunk,new wave, andglam.[28] But it also drew inspiration fromB-movies,Gothic literature,horror films,vampire cults and traditionalmythology. Among the mythologies that proved influential in Goth wereCeltic mythology,Christian mythology, and various traditions ofPaganism.[28]
The figures that the movement counted among its historic canon of ancestors were equally diverse. They included thePre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900),Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870),Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) andJean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980).[28] Writers that have had a significant influence on the movement also represent a diverse canon. They includeAnn Radcliffe (1764–1823),John William Polidori (1795–1821),Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849),Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873),Bram Stoker (1847–1912),Oscar Wilde (1854–1900),H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937),Anne Rice (1941–2021),William Gibson (1948–present),Ian McEwan (1948–present),Storm Constantine (1956–2021), andPoppy Z. Brite (1967–present).[28]
Gothic literature is a genre of fiction that combines romance and dark elements to produce mystery, suspense, terror, horror and the supernatural. According to David H. Richter, settings were framed to take place at "...ruinous castles, gloomy churchyards, claustrophobic monasteries, and lonely mountain roads". Typical characters consisted of the cruel parent, sinister priest, courageous victor, and the helpless heroine, along with supernatural figures such asdemons,vampires,ghosts, andmonsters. Often, the plot focused on characters ill-fated, internally conflicted, and innocently victimized by harassing malicious figures. In addition to the dismal plot focuses, the literary tradition of the gothic was to also focus on individual characters that were gradually going insane.[29]
English authorHorace Walpole, with his 1764 novelThe Castle of Otranto is one of the first writers who explored this genre. TheAmerican Revolutionary War-era "American Gothic" story of theHeadless Horseman, immortalized in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (published in 1820) byWashington Irving, marked the arrival in the New World of dark, romantic storytelling. The tale was composed by Irving while he was living in England, and was based on popular tales told by colonial Dutch settlers of theHudson Valley,New York. The story would beadapted to film in 1922,[30] in 1949 as the animatedThe Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad,[31] and again in 1999.[32]
Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic Romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role.E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822),Edgar Allan Poe[33] (1809–1849),Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867),[33]H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and Romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture[34] as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface toLes Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction:[35]
C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
—Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!
It is Boredom! — an eye brimming with an involuntary tear,
He dreams of the gallows while smoking his water-pipe.
You know him, reader, this delicate monster,
—Hypocrite reader,—my twin,—my brother!
The gothic subculture has influenced different artists—not only musicians—but also painters and photographers. In particular their work is based on mystic, morbid and romantic motifs. In photography and painting the spectrum varies from erotic artwork to romantic images of vampires or ghosts. There is a marked preference for dark colours and sentiments, similar to Gothic fiction. At the end of the 19th century, painters likeJohn Everett Millais andJohn Ruskin invented a new kind of Gothic.[36]
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Some people creditJalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, perhaps best known for his 1956 song "I Put A Spell on You", as a foundation of modern goth style and music.[37] Some people credit the band Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in August 1979, with the start of goth subculture.[9]
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TheBritish sitcomThe IT Crowd featured a recurring goth character namedRichmond Avenal, played byNoel Fielding. Fielding said in an interview that he himself had been a goth at age fifteen and that he had a series of goth girlfriends. This was the first time he dabbled in makeup. Fielding said that he loved his girlfriends dressing him up.[38]
The gameVisigoths vs. Mall Goths (2020) byLucian Kahn is about "two versions of Goths – the ancient Roman peoples and the black-clad teenagers" and is set in LA in the 1990s.[39]
Goth icons include several bandleaders:Siouxsie Sioux, of Siouxsie and the Banshees;Robert Smith, of the Cure;Peter Murphy, of Bauhaus;Dave Vanian, of The Damned;Rozz Williams, of Christian Death; Olli Wisdom, leader of the bandSpecimen[40] and keyboardist Jonathan Melton aka Jonny Slut, who evolved theBatcave style.[41]Nick Cave was dubbed as "the grand lord of gothic lushness".[42]
One female role model isTheda Bara, the 1910sfemme fatale known for her dark eyeshadow.[43][44] In 1977,Karl Lagerfeld hosted the Soirée Moratoire Noir party, specifying "tenue tragique noire absolument obligatoire" (black tragic dress absolutely required).[45] The event included elements associated withleatherman style.[45]
Siouxsie Sioux was particularly influential on the dress style of thegothic rock scene;Paul Morley ofNME describedSiouxsie and the Banshees' 1980 gig at Futurama: "[Siouxsie was] modeling her newest outfit, the one that will influence how all the girls dress over the next few months. About half the girls at Leeds had used Sioux as a basis for their appearance, hair to ankle".[46]Robert Smith,[47]Musidora,Bela Lugosi,[48]Bettie Page,Vampira,Morticia Addams,[44]Nico,Rozz Williams,David Bowie[49] andLux Interior[49] are also style icons.
The 1980s established designers such asDrew Bernstein of Lip Service, and the 1990s saw a surge of US-basedgothic fashion designers, many of whom continue to evolve the style to the present day. Style magazines such asGothic Beauty have given repeat features to a select few gothic fashion designers who began their labels in the 1990s, such as Kambriel,Rose Mortem, and Tyler Ondine of Heavy Red.[50]
American modelGabbriette who has been known for her goth aesthetic, has been at the forefront of what has been dubbed the "Succubus Chic" trend of 2023.[51][52][53][54]
Gothic fashion is marked by conspicuously dark, antiquated, and homogeneous features. It is stereotyped as eerie, mysterious, complex, and exotic.[55] A dark, sometimes morbid fashion and style ofdress,[49] typical gothic fashion includescolored black hair and black period-styled clothing.[49] Both male and female goths can wear darkeyeliner and dark fingernail polish, most especially black. Styles are often borrowed frompunk fashion and—more currently—from theVictorian andElizabethan periods.[49] It also frequently expresses pagan, occult or otherreligious imagery.[56] Gothic fashion and styling may also featuresilver jewelry and piercings.
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Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a "profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes".[57] Of the male "goth look", goth historian Pete Scathe draws a distinction between the Sid Vicious archetype of black spiky hair and black leather jacket in contrast to the gender ambiguous individuals wearing makeup. The first is the early goth gig-going look, which was essentially punk, whereas the second evolved into the Batcave nightclub look. Early goth gigs were often very hectic affairs, and the audience dressed accordingly.
In contrast to theLARP-based Victorian and Elizabethan pomposity of the 2000s, the more Romantic side of 1980s trad-goth—mainly represented by women—was characterized by new wave/post-punk-oriented hairstyles (both long and short, partly shaved and teased) and street-compliant clothing, including black frill blouses, midi dresses or tea-length skirts, and floral lace tights,Dr. Martens, spike heels (pumps), and pointed-toe buckle boots (winklepickers), sometimes supplemented with accessories such as bracelets, chokers and bib necklaces. This style, retroactively referred to asEthergoth, took its inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux and mid-1980s musicians from the 4AD roster likeElizabeth Fraser andLisa Gerrard.[58]
The New York Times noted: "The costumes and ornaments are a glamorous cover for the genre's somber themes. In the world of Goth, nature itself lurks as a malign protagonist, causing flesh to rot, rivers to flood, monuments to crumble and women to turn into slatterns, their hair streaming and lipstick askew".[55]
Cintra Wilson declares that the origins of the dark romantic style are found in the "Victorian cult of mourning".[59]Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.[59]
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Goth fashion has a reciprocal relationship with the fashion world. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, designers such asAlexander McQueen,[59][60][61]Anna Sui,[62]Rick Owens,[61]Gareth Pugh,Ann Demeulemeester,Philipp Plein,Hedi Slimane,John Richmond,John Galliano,[59][60][61]Olivier Theyskens[61][63] andYohji Yamamoto[61] brought elements of goth to runways.[59] This was described as "Haute Goth" by Cintra Wilson in theNew York Times.[59]
Thierry Mugler,Claude Montana,Jean Paul Gaultier[55] andChristian Lacroix have also been associated with the fashion trend.[59][60] In Spring 2004,Riccardo Tisci, Jean Paul Gaultier,Raf Simons andStefano Pilati dressed their models as "glamorous ghouls dressed in form-fitting suits and coal-tinted cocktail dresses".[63] Swedish designer Helena Horstedt and jewelry artist Hanna Hedman also practice a goth aesthetic.[64]
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Some of the early gothic rock and deathrock artists adopted traditional horror film images and drew on horror film soundtracks for inspiration. Their audience responded by adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props such as swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs featured as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in bands' music and images were originallytongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid,supernatural andoccult themes became more noticeably serious in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days byThe Hunger, a 1983 vampire film starringDavid Bowie,Catherine Deneuve andSusan Sarandon. The film featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performingBela Lugosi's Dead in a nightclub.Tim Burton created a storybook atmosphere filled with darkness and shadow in some of his films likeBeetlejuice (1988),Batman (1989),Edward Scissorhands (1990),Batman Returns (1992) and thestop motion filmsThe Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which was produced/co-written by Burton, andCorpse Bride (2005), which he co-produced. TheNickelodeon cartoonInvader Zim is also based on the goth subculture.
As the subculture became well-established, the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example,The Craft,The Crow,The Matrix andUnderworld film series drew directly on goth music and style. The dark comediesBeetlejuice,The Faculty,American Beauty,Wedding Crashers, and a few episodes of the animated TV showSouth Park portray or parody the goth subculture. InSouth Park, several of the fictional schoolchildren are depicted as goths. The goth kids on the show are depicted as finding it annoying to be confused with theHot Topic "vampire" kids from the episode "The Ungroundable" in season 12,[66][67] and even more frustrating to be compared withemo kids. The goth kids are usually depicted listening to gothic music, writing or reading Gothic poetry, drinking coffee, flipping their hair, and smoking.[68][69]
Morticia Addams fromThe Addams Family created byCharles Addams is a fictional character and the mother in the Addams Family. Morticia was played byCarolyn Jones in the 1964 television showThe Addams Family and byAnjelica Huston in the1991 version, and voiced byCharlize Theron in2019 animated film.
A recurring sketch in the 1990s on NBC'sSaturday Night Live wasGoth Talk, in which a public access channel broadcast hosted by unpopular young goths would continually be interrupted by the more "normal" kids in school. The sketch featured series regularsWill Ferrell,Molly Shannon, andChris Kattan.
A prominent American literary influence on the gothic scene was provided byAnne Rice's re-imagining of the vampire in 1976. InThe Vampire Chronicles, Rice's characters were depicted as self-tormentors who struggled with alienation, loneliness, and the human condition. Not only did the characters torment themselves, but they also depicted a surreal world that focused on uncovering its splendour. These Chronicles assumed goth attitudes, but they were not intentionally created to represent the gothic subculture. Their romance, beauty, and erotic appeal attractedmany goth readers, making her works popular from the 1980s through the 1990s.[70] While Goth has embracedVampire literature both in its 19th century form and in its later incarnations, Rice'spostmodern take on the vampire mythos has had a "special resonance" in the subculture. Her vampire novels feature intense emotions, period clothing, and "cultured decadence". Her vampires aresocially alienated monsters, but they are also stunningly attractive. Rice's goth readers tend to envision themselves in much the same terms and view characters likeLestat de Lioncourt asrole models.[28]
Richard Wright's novelNative Son contains gothic imagery and themes that demonstrate the links between blackness and the gothic; themes and images of "premonitions, curses, prophecies, spells, veils, demonic possessions, graves, skeletons" are present, suggesting gothic influence.[71] Other classic themes of the gothic are present in the novel, such as transgression and unstable identities of race, class, gender, and nationality.[71]
The re-imagining of the vampire continued with the release ofPoppy Z. Brite's bookLost Souls in October 1992. Despite the fact that Brite's first novel was criticized by some mainstream sources for allegedly "lack[ing] a moral center: neither terrifyingly malevolent supernatural creatures nor (like Anne Rice's protagonists) tortured souls torn between good and evil, these vampires simply add blood-drinking to the amoral panoply of drug abuse, problem drinking and empty sex practiced by their human counterparts",[72] many of these so-called "human counterparts" identified with the teen angst and goth music references therein, keeping the book in print. Upon release of a special 10th anniversary edition ofLost Souls,Publishers Weekly—the same periodical that criticized the novel's "amorality" a decade prior—deemed it a "modern horror classic" and acknowledged that Brite established a "cult audience".[73]
The 2002 release21st Century Goth byMick Mercer, an author, noted music journalist and leading historian of gothic rock,[74][75][76] explored the modern state of the goth scene around the world, includingSouth America,Japan, and mainlandAsia. His previous 1997 release,Hex Files: The Goth Bible, similarly took an international look at the subculture.
In the US,Propaganda was a gothic subculture magazine founded in 1982. In Italy,Ver Sacrum covers the Italian goth scene, including fashion, sexuality, music, art and literature. Some magazines, such as the now-defunctDark Realms[77] andGoth Is Dead included goth fiction and poetry. Other magazines cover fashion (e.g.,Gothic Beauty); music (e.g.,Severance) or culture and lifestyle (e.g.,Althaus e-zine).
On 31 October 2011,ECW Press published theEncyclopedia Gothica[78] written by author and poet Liisa Ladouceur with illustrations done by Gary Pullin.[79][80][81][82] This non-fiction book describes over 600 words and phrases relevant to Goth subculture.
Brian Craddock's 2017 novel Eucalyptus Goth[83] charts a year in the life of a household of 20-somethings inBrisbane, Australia. The central characters are deeply entrenched in the local gothic subculture, with the book exploring themes relevant to the characters, notably unemployment, mental health, politics, and relationships.[84]
In 2023, several books about the music genre and the subculture, were released.John Robb'sThe Art of Darkness: The History of Goth was hailed inThe Times as a "new magestrial survey",[85] andCathi Unsworth'sSeason of the Witch: The Book of Goth was praised inMojo as a "superb history of the dark and all its risings".[86]
Visual contemporary graphic artists with this aesthetic includeGerald Brom,Dave McKean, andTrevor Brown as well as illustratorsEdward Gorey,Charles Addams,Lorin Morgan-Richards, andJames O'Barr. The artwork of Polish surrealist painterZdzisław Beksiński is often described as gothic.[87] British artistAnne Sudworth published a book on gothic art in 2007.[88]
There are large annual goth-themed festivals inGermany, includingWave-Gotik-Treffen inLeipzig andM'era Luna inHildesheim, both annually attracting tens of thousands of people.Castle Party is the biggest goth festival in Poland.[89]
In the 1980s, goths decorated their walls and ceilings with black fabrics and accessories like rosaries, crosses and plastic roses. Black furniture and cemetery-related objects such as candlesticks, death lanterns and skulls were also part of their interior design. In the 1990s, the interior design approach of the 1980s was replaced by a less macabre style.
Since the late 1970s, the UK goth scene refused "traditional standards of sexual propriety" and accepted and celebrated "unusual, bizarre or deviant sexual practices".[90] In the 2000s, many members "claim overlapping memberships in thequeer,polyamorous,bondage-discipline/sadomasochism, andpagan communities".[91]
Though sexual empowerment is not unique to women in the goth scene, it remains an important part of many goth women's experience: The scene's "celebration of active sexuality" enables goth women to "resist mainstream notions of passive femininity". They have an "active sexuality" approach which creates "gender egalitarianism" within the scene, as it "allows them to engage in sexual play with multiple partners while sidestepping most of the stigma and dangers that women who engage in such behavior" outside the scene frequently incur, while continuing to "see themselves as strong".[92]
Men dress up in an androgynous way: "Men 'gender blend,' wearing makeup and skirts". In contrast, the "women are dressed in sexy feminine outfits" that are "highly sexualized" and which often combine "corsets with short skirts andfishnet stockings".Androgyny is common among the scene: "androgyny in Goth subcultural style often disguises or even functions to reinforce conventional gender roles". It was only "valorised" for male goths, who adopt a "feminine" appearance, including "make-up, skirts and feminine accessories" to "enhance masculinity" and facilitate traditional heterosexual courting roles.[93]
While goth is a music-based scene, the goth subculture is also characterized by particularaesthetics, outlooks, and a "way of seeing and of being seen". In more recent years, goths have been able to meet people with similar interests, learn from each other and take part in the scene through social media, manifesting in the same practices which take place in goth clubs.[94] This is not a new phenomenon since before the rise of social media online forums had the same function for goths.[95] Observers have raised the issue of to what degree individuals are truly members of the goth subculture. On one end of the spectrum is the "Uber goth", a person who is described as seeking a pallor so much that they apply "as much white foundation and white powder as possible".[96] On the other end of the spectrum exists what another writer terms "poseurs" – "goth wannabes, usually young kids going through a goth phase who do not hold to goth sensibilities but want to be part of the goth crowd".[97] It has been said that a "mall goth" is a teen who dresses in a goth style and spends time in malls with aHot Topic store, but who does not know much about goth subculture or its music, thus making them a poseur.[98] In one case, even a well-known performer has been labelled with the pejorative term – a "number of goths, especially those who belonged to this subculture before the late-1980s, rejectMarilyn Manson as a poseur who undermines the true meaning of goth".[99]
TheBBC described academic research that indicated that goths are "refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour".[100] Teens often stay in the subculture "into their adult life", and they are likely to become well-educated and enter professions such as medicine or law.[100] The subculture carries on appealing to teenagers who are looking for meaning and for identity. The scene teaches teens that there are difficult aspects to life that you "have to make an attempt to understand" or explain.[101]
The Guardian reported that a "glue binding the [goth] scene together wasdrug use"; however, in the scene, drug use was varied. Goth is one of the few subculture movements that is not associated with a single drug,[33] in the way that theHippie subculture is associated withcannabis and theMod subculture is associated withamphetamines. A 2006 study of young goths found that those with higher levels of goth identification had higher drug use.[102]
A study conducted by theUniversity of Glasgow, involving 1,258 youth interviewed at ages 11, 13, 15 and 19, found goth subculture to be strongly nonviolent and tolerant, thus providing "valuable social and emotional support" to teens vulnerable to self harm and mental illness.[103]
In the weeks following the 1999Columbine High School massacre, media reports about the teen gunmen,Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, portrayed them as part of a gothic cult. An increased suspicion of goth subculture subsequently manifested in the media.[104] This led to amoral panic over teen involvement in goth subculture and a number of other activities, such as violent video games.[105] Harris and Klebold had initially been thought to be members of "The Trenchcoat Mafia", an informal club within Columbine High School. Later, such characterizations were considered incorrect.[106]
Media reported that the gunman in the 2006Dawson College shooting inMontreal,Quebec,Kimveer Singh Gill, was interested in goth subculture.[107] Gill's self-professed love of Goth culture was the topic of media interest, and it was widely reported that the word "Goth", in Gill's writings, was a reference to the alternativeindustrial and goth subculture rather than a reference togothic rock music.[107] Gill, who committedsuicide after the attack, wrote in his online journal: "I'm so sick of hearing about jocks and preps making life hard for the goths and others who look different, or are different".[108] Gill described himself in his profile on Vampirefreaks.com as "Trench [...] theAngel of Death" and he stated that "Metal and Goth kick ass".[109] An image gallery on Gill's Vampirefreaks.com blog had photos of him pointing a gun at the camera or wearing a long black trench coat.[110]
Mick Mercer stated that Gill was "not a Goth. Never a Goth. The bands he listed as his chosen form of ear-bashing were relentlesslymetal and standardgrunge,rock andgoth metal, with someindustrial presence". Mercer stated that "Kimveer Gill listened to metal", "He had nothing whatsoever to do with Goth" and further commented "I realise that like manyNeos [neophyte], Kimveer Gill may even have believed he somehow was a Goth, because they're [Neophytes] only really noted for spectacularly missing the point".[111]
In part because of public misunderstanding surrounding gothic aesthetics, people in the goth subculture sometimes sufferprejudice,discrimination, andintolerance. As is the case with members of various other subcultures andalternative lifestyles, outsiders sometimes marginalize goths, either by intention or by accident.[112] ActressChristina Hendricks talked of being bullied as a goth at school and how difficult it was for her to deal with societal pressure: "Kids can be pretty judgmental about people who are different. But instead of breaking down and conforming, I stood firm. That is also probably why I was unhappy. My mother was mortified and kept telling me how horrible and ugly I looked. Strangers would walk by with a look of shock on their face, so I never felt pretty. I just always felt awkward".[113]
On 11 August 2007, while walking through Stubbylee Park inBacup,Lancashire, a young couple,Sophie Lancaster and Robert Maltby, were attacked by a group of teenagers. Lancaster subsequently died from the severehead injuries she suffered in the attack.[114] It later emerged that the attackers had attacked the couple because they were goths. On 29 April 2008, two of the attackers, Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris, were convicted for the murder of Lancaster and given life sentences. Three others were given lesser sentences for the assault on her boyfriend Robert Maltby. In delivering the sentence, Judge Anthony Russell stated, "This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours". He went on to defend the goth community, calling goths "perfectly peaceful, law-abiding people who pose no threat to anybody".[115][116] Judge Russell added that he "recognised it as a hate crime without Parliament having to tell him to do so and had included that view in his sentencing".[117] Despite this ruling, a bill to add discrimination based on subculture affiliation to the definition of hate crime in British law was not presented to parliament.[118]
In 2013, police in Manchester announced they would be treating attacks on members of alternative subcultures, such as goths, the same as they do for attacks based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.[119]
A more recent phenomenon is the emergence of goth YouTubers who very often address the prejudice and violence against goths. These personalities create videos as a response to problems that they personally face, which include challenges such as bullying, and dealing with negative descriptions of themselves. Viewers often engage closely with these YouTubers, asking them for advice on how to deal with related personal struggles and getting responses in the form of personal messages or videos. These interactions take the form of an informal mentoring which contributes to the building of solidarity within the goth scene.[94]
A study published on theBritish Medical Journal concluded that "identification as belonging to the Goth subculture [at some point in their lives] was the best predictor ofself harm and attempted suicide [among young teens]", and that it was most possibly due to self-selection, with people committing self harm joining the goth subculture in order to get support from individuals with similar experiences.[102]
According toThe Guardian, some goth teens are more likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide. A medical journal study of 1,300 Scottish schoolchildren until their teen years found that the 53% of the 25 goth teens sampled had attempted to harm themselves and 47% had attempted suicide. The study found that the "correlation was stronger than any other predictor".[120][121]
The authors held that most self-harm by teens was done before joining the subculture, and that joining the subculture would actually protect them and help them deal with distress in their lives, while cautioning that the study was based on a small sample size and needed replication to confirm the results.[121][122] The study was criticized for using only a small sample of goth teens and not taking into account other influences and differences between types of goths.[123][124][102]
"The Doors are not pleasant, amusing hippies proffering a grin and a flower; they wield a knife with a cold and terrifying edge. The Doors are closely akin to the national taste for violence, and the power of their music forces each listener to realize what violence is in himself".... "The Doors met New York for better or for worse at a press conference in the gloomy vaulted wine cellar of the Delmonico hotel, the perfect room to honor the Gothic rock of the Doors".
Because it is unsettling, it is like sinister and gothic, it won't be played. [interview of Joy Division's manager Tony Wilson next to Joy Division's drummer Stephen Morris from 3:31]
Curtis may project like an ambidextrous barman puging his physical hang-ups, but the 'Gothic dance music' he orchestrates is well-understood by those who recognise their New Wave frontiersmen and know how to dance the Joy Division! A theatrical sense of timing, controlled improvisation...
Joy Division are masters of this Gothic gloom
a definitive Northern Gothic statement: guilt-ridden, romantic, claustrophobic
The F-Club and the Futurama festival, both set up and run by Leeds promoter, John Keenan, have become entrenched in the shared memory of post-punks and goths as spaces where goth rock was born in the form it is now known.
Curtis' death wrapped an already mysterious group in legend. From the press eulogies, you would think Curtis had gone to join Chatterton, Rimbaud and Morrison in the hallowed hall of premature harvests. To a group with several strong Gothic characteristics was added a further piece of romance.
