I have a confession: I was a teenage goth, or mall goth as they were called in suburban America, whence I come. I was the kid who dyed their hair black in my bathroom and wore chained Tripp pants to school and listened to KMFDM obsessively. I begged my Mom to let me get an Ankh tattoo and buy me a corset and cyber falls for my birthday. I pierced my nose in my school bathroom and gave stick and poke tattoos of occult symbols to my fellow goth buddies.
And I was a total loser for it.
Velvet darkness, they fear
At this time, goth was explicitly lame. It was for loners and school shooters. In fact, people in my high school did think my friends were gonna shoot up the school. For reference, they didn’t. We were more interested in listening to nu-metal and hanging out in front of Hot Topic—before it became a meme store. What a sad development that was, though.
But now, 10 years after the fact, goth is not just back, it’s in style. It’s legitimately cool. In Iceland, the rise of Hatari has seen children dress up in BDSM gear for Öskudagur. Influencers now wear pentagrams. Rappers don black vinyl dresses and sing about depression. If you had told me in my highschool years that in a decade, mainstream society would start dancing to industrial music, I’d have been incredulous.
Paradise Lost 4eva
On one hand, I’m like, why wasn’t it like this when I analysed Marilyn Manson’s ‘Coma White’ for my high school writing class? I think my teacher had a discussion with me after that. On the other hand, I’m like, here’s my worn ‘Antichrist Superstar’ CD and ‘Repo! The Genetic Opera’ DVD. Oh, and don’t miss ‘Gothic’ by Paradise Lost, that’s a classic.
So welcome to the community, guys. I’ll see you on VampireFreaks, if that still exists. I don’t think it does, but we can easily bring it back. Let’s get down, fellow creatures of the night, and don’t forget: Always dress to depress.
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