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"Those were the times" - a common phrase said by mediocre people to blame these 'bad times' for how pathetic their life is.

Was there a better time for Goth? Is Goth dying out or flourishing in 2013?

The genre is exploited, and the subculture that it spawned has train wrecked into just another fad. What once was Goth has been highjacked.

if you look at traditional goth it's basically a darkened Victorian Era, currently that has been lost and changed to mean death, evil, and depression

I think Goth is evolving and adapting with the rest of culture. It is not what it used to be, but very rarely does a culture or sub-culture stay the same over time.

Anyone who is a bit older, will always say, those were the times. My friends who are in their 30s and 40s tell me that the scene was better before. Speaking about my country of course, here the Gothic scene stopped in the 90s. Then after 2002 when Queen of the Damned was shown and HIM got popular, there was a boom of the gothic scene n it got revived. Lots of teens suddendly became goths n the scene got alive again. Nowadays it's sort of dead. Gothic parties are organized but it lost its popularity when emo became popular. Even the owner of the only gothic shop in our country said, the sales declined after this. In effect I hardly ever see girls in corsets anymore. Recently the steampunk fashion got introduced where I live and it is slightly getting popular. I also noticed that in other countries they added more varieties of goths and mixed them with others, example the hippie goth. The people of my generation too say, before it was better. I don't know. I just learned to accept it and live in the present rather than the nostalgy. Not all that is past was nice after all.

That's what happens with all sub cultures. They are alive until they are popular. Then they die, revive, get evolved and get alive again, until a new one takes its place n it revives again, like a cycle.


Judging from the events thread, seems the gothic scene is still alive in other countries. Where I live we hardly we get 30 people in all when a gothic event gets organised and they are organised about 3 times a year only.

However then I myself have lost interest and am occupied with other stuff. I don't want to belong to any sub culture nowadays, since I often see snobbism coming from them. The goal of a sub culture is to unite people with the same goals, yet if you aren't like them you're not accepted, and decided to be solo instead. The anti mainstream is the new mainstream. The rebel is the cool attitude. People who tell you they accept you in reality don't. You shouldn't follow society's rules but theirs yes. How ironic!

The older generation always blaming the new one, when we all know that the older generations weren't saints either, and some of the stuff was indeed ruined by my generation. No wonder I don't like subcultures and don't want to be judged by a damn label. Maybe in the past it was different, but am not old enough to know. If only I was born before and in America or London, where I could have seen it being born as a music style! You're lucky, you don't know how much you are. Where I am we're always behind and lack in variety. At least things became better from a certain point of view. If it wasn't for that boom in 2002 that my generation brought up, we wouldn't have a gothic shop and gothic parties and knowledge. The internet contributed too.

I also think, that part of the ruin is the label of the suicidal, depressed goths and the fad of self cutting. In the meantime I knew people who cut without calling themselves goths, then afterwards I met others who cut just to follow the label. I could never understand this and I'm still angry that I was thought of doing so just because of some black clothing and make up I had. Just a price I had to pay for expressing myself. I'm not the happiest and most optimist person on Earth, I am the goddess of sarcasm and cynism, I have repressed anger because I was taught to keep it inside, but it has to do nothing with liking goth stuff.

I also noticed something about the old times vs. The present. In the past threads like this were popular, everyone debating on what is goth and all happy and proud to be one, nowadays it seems people feel ashamed to be one.

I have to admit, I never see true goth girls in corsets anymore either. A true loss...sigh

certainly its changing, but everything changes with time. rock music was bill haley and the comets, then elvis, then the beatles, then zepplin, then the bee gees, then prince...etc etc...many would go on about how some of those arent actually rock...but whatever genre you want to call it, its a sub genre of rock.
going to goth, the same applies. it has changed, and is changing, but there is ebb and flow to everything.
~W~

Omega, you just don't go to the right concerts

try vans warped tour or the smaller, not so popular metal and screamo bands

I like back in the 90's and early 2000's when rappers were actually talented and half decent people who wrote songs with meaning deeper than sex, drugs, alcohol, women, gangs, and then jail, not this talentless, overly repetitive crap it is now

someone might beg to differ and say people like Nicki Minaj are "inspirational", that current rap music is the best thing since sliced bread and that's their opinion, it's just as acceptable as mine

It's a common debate that music and anything was better. Just yesterday I saw a 90s debate on facebook. In my country I also miss seeing guys in full gothic clothing and eye liner. Nowadays they just wear t-shirts and jeans. Ironically corsets were into commercial shops last year 'cause of fashion but still didn't get popular and when I tried'em none fitted me and were of a bad quality. At least I can find some stuff that is considered rock fashion. That's an advantage when something is popular and there aren't really 'specialised items' shops, at least it's easy to find and with a sort of reasonable price. As for music, unluckily here only the popular bands' cds are found. If you want to listen to goth you have to search on-line and buy your stuff from there.

Well noted DN... it appears that once something becomes mass produced, and mass marketed (read target marketed) then it is "sold out", For example, brand name store bought ripped jeans (around the time that rockets made such fashion popular). So like goth, and Hot Topics, while before Gothic aficionados demonstrated class, and taste with fashionable vintage, or suit type attire. What I see today is costume attire at best, and the majority of people who are seen dressing Goth average two "gothish" outfits. The Goth... and Punk that I remember faded... but just like hippies became hipsters, it was re-branded for mass consumption, therefore losing the edge that it once held.

Then after it gets sold out, those who before were snobs and called the rest posers, ask you, you still on that crap? You still in that phase? Grow up! Then complain about how the old times were better.

Uh well I'm not going to change my tastes because times change.

My humble two cents to the pot of comments. Those were the times is a common phrase used more to refer as when time was good. IE, when the economy was good. Now, about the Gothic generation, they still around. The combination between a few of those Gothic people, who claimed themselves as been evil or dark creatures, putted a dent as how Society see the Gothic Community. When you label yourself as something Dark and evil, then, you will not have the support of the masses.

But why it has to be dark and evil? Never seen it that way.

it's usually dark as in not bright and colorful but not evil

it's what the teenage population thinks it is and if they say it's evil then it's evil

Honestly where I am from people are ridiculed daily if they dress Goth. So you won't see anyone here that's Goth.

But I believe that it is deminishing rapidly.

Well here in Chicago, I think the culture is on life support! There are hardly any "goth" clubs nor do I see anyone with the stereotypical "uniform" on. *Sigh* nothing stays the same does it?

here those who used to be goth have evolved to these main things:

1. depressed, secluded, and bullied
2. artistic and creative
3. more so punk rock than anything else
4. a combination of the three

not many people here dress or act straight goth, there are still remnants of it through out the examples of people I described above, so it's not completely forgotten, more so integrated in a different way

I'd like it if the goth culture was revived.

yes, but how exactly would you define the "goth culture"?

""Those were the times" - a common phrase said by mediocre people to blame these 'bad times' for how pathetic their life is."

Since your original post deals with the fall of the goth culture as times have become more modern, there should be no need for the above statement. But the original goth, as we all know, dates back to the 3rd century. Now the goth subculture that began in the 1980's was/is all about the music. I was growing up in San Francisco in the 80's when this was happening, although I was not a goth myself.

But as society progresses, everything always changes and that includes fashion. What the original punks from the 80's saw as goth, they don't see that today. The phrase, "Those were the times", is not "mediocre" people blaming bad times on their pathetic life. Who is to judge who is "mediocre" in the first place? Because someone doesn't dress a certain way? Because someone doesn't listen to a certain music?

My grandfather would often say, "those were the days" in reference to the good ol' times. But in no way did he ever lead a pathetic life. And in no way was he "mediocre".

"Those were the days" is a phrase I have said as well, because back in the day, we didn't have all these "labels", and "cliches" to make us cool or not. Back in the day no one judged you for whooping the snot out of your kid when they misbehaved. But today, you get called a bad parent. Also, back in the day, people had to work out a math problem, not have a calculator do it for them. They had to "read" books, not listen to it on a tape. They had to work for a living, not sit on their asses on welfare doing nothing. They had gardens to grow their food, not all these fast food restaurants. They actually wrote letters to each other and a mailman had to deliver it, not text on a cellphone or send an email.

Humanity has forgotten where it's roots came from and people are getting stupider by the day.

The Goth subculture to me is a beautiful thing. It shows uniqueness and individuality. And as the years go by it slowly changes with each person. It is a fashion statement to some, a life style to others. It will never die out. But it will continue to change. Everything changes, as everything dies. The most beautiful thing about the goth subculture to me is when I see people that still sport the original 80's fashion sense. Those are the people that haven't forgotten to read and write.

I do not think of it as being the same. Everything changes with time: the Goth scene now is just more a fad. I mean look at Abby on NCIS most annoying character on the entire show.

I think it's changing for the worst, really. So many different offshoots of it, a lot of people are confused about what goth is, incorporating things like "emo", cybergoth and even "indie" into the "goth" definition.
I used to known an olde skool goth, yeaaaars ago. She perfectly fit with what I've always thought of as goth. Not 15 year olds with panda eyes, fake-pale-white skin, black hair and a love of Alesana.

Ah, to have an uncorupted and original example of a true goth for all others to set themselves by. Are there any out there?

"The genre is exploited, and the subculture that it spawned has train wrecked into just another fad. What once was Goth has been highjacked."

I agree with you here Dab, Goths only started just a few years after punk and it was around as well for the music at first, then it evolved. It started with dark victorian forbidden dressings, then later it nicked some punk forbiddens only they changed the color to black (those S.O.Bs seriously damaged punk image) and then the depressed and poem writers came. These days, a goth is only popular to those with similar problems and state of mind.

Goth changed and not for the better. Goths and emos are pretty much one and the same nowadays but emos tend to be recognized from their goth friends by their hairforbiddens and skinny clothes. Stereotyping I know but something has to be really common for it to become stereotyped in the first place.

Punks suffered from this too, since the original purpose, movements and goals got removed and replaced with common thugs with their pointless actions which stereotyped punk.

When someone complains that the olden days were better, its best to listen than call them whingers because fact is, life was better, so was the sub-cultures (Goths are proof of that among other sub-cultures). Believe it or not, we are kind of living in a new depression era, the difference is that we now have the internet to take our minds off the problems... for a time being anyway.

Depending on where you go in L.A., The Goth scene is still alive here.

mostly i think that phrase is said to Remanence of old memories , i don't think goth is fading or anything i do think it is just evolving, i think there are 2 goth scenes the underground one and then the mainstream sell out one

only two? i think the goth culture has grown far too complex for just two types. whenever a subculture starts to become popular, it inevitable that it draws to it those who are merely followers of fashion who do not really get what it's all about. Many are drawn to it because they are looking for somewhere to belong, and are only just beginning to discover themselves. They may start off in the mainstream, and then gradually drift over into the hardcore camp.

There are new types of goth emerging - Steampunk for instance is relatively new on the scene.

each culture changes as time goes on. Back in the day, Punk meant something totally different than it does now and I think Goth will be the same.

I am 69 years old, so I am a child of the Sixties. The older generation hated us then because we tore into their culture and started ripping it to shreds. Sometimes we succeeded, most of the time the system beat us down and we lost or ended up selling out. It's hard to stay free.

Our time in this world is short, and I say we should be what we are, what makes us happy, and let those who don't like it stew in their own pots. And what are labels anyway, other than someone else's opinion?

I like Goth, and Steampunk, the people are beautiful, but there are no subcultures visible around where I live. Not much culture of any kind, sad to say.

When I walked up and down Haight Street in the summer of '67, there were people dressed in every conceivable manner, all sorts of forbiddens and colors. It was like living inside a rainbow. And I suppose all the acid lent a fairy tale aspect to the whole parade. It was a time when it was wild to be young, easy to believe in magic, and that the world was going to turn out ok in the end. We believed, for a time, that we could change the ugliness of the world. We did change some things, but not enough. And most of us couldn't change ourselves in the ways that really mattered. We sold out. We became what others wanted us to be.

I will say this, though, when you get old it's really hard to look back on your life and realize that you are now running out of chances, running out of possibilities for the future.
You have taken your shots, and now its the memories that haunt you in the night.

And now, you who are young will take your chances, just as we did. Do not make memories that you will someday regret...

I think Goth is still here but, it's not as big as it once was.

There are Renaissances with many lifeforbiddens... There're factors that can be larger influences than meer numbers, but typically there's always change.

Whether popularity is growing or falling depends on society at large.

I think Bobby has put it rather eloquently, sub cultures sell out. They get reinvented.. like Hippy.. became (generations later) Hipsters.

Let me direct you to a timeline of gothic history

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/darkchamber/goth-timeline.htm

The gothic scene where I live is small, but still around. If I were to recognise the gothic scene as it is displayed within clothing and trend, as there isnt really any other form of gothic expression, that I have come across, so far.