Goth Challenge Day 10

Day 10 – What do you love and hate about the subculture?

Victorian clothes by Drac-in-a-Box

There are so very many things that I love about the Goth subculture!

I love the aesthetics:
I particularly love clothes in gorgeous Victorian styles with decadent fabrics like velvet, satin, silk and lace. There is something just hauntingly romantic about Victorian clothing, not revealing, yet sexy and flattering. And to wear Victorian outfits and pull it off, you have to be confident and eccentric, which most Goths are.

Neo-Victorian Clotes by Drac-in-a-Box

I also love the shoes - chunky Mary Janes, platform boots, Victorian boots...
And the makeup - dramatic and bold.
And the accessories - bats, skeletons, spiders, coffins - for your hair, or on your jewelry, or as your purse...
And I love the music (see Goth Challenge, Day 7).
And the literature.

I could go on for hours about what I love about the Goth subculture. ^o^

But what do I hate?
Within the subculture, I hate the cattiness and "Gothier than thou" attitude. It's not a competition. Every one has their own style and comfort levels. There is no reason to pick on others. Now, being "Gothier than thou," when dripping with scarcasm and not serious meanness, is another thing, and that doesn't bother me.

I also really hate the stigma that society in general places on the Goth subculture. Like how any time there is an unbelievable violent act, like a school shooting, the media starts on about how the perpetrators were "goth" and how dangerous it is to let your kids be goth. I'm not going to shoot up a school. I don't worship the devil. I'm not really evil. How a person looks is irrelevant to what they're really like on the inside - the truly evil tend to look just like everyone else.

The song, Leave Me Alone by the Cruxshadows samples  clips from the many news shows covering the Columbine shooting and blaming the Goth subculture. Also, the lyrics pretty much sum up how I feel about main-stream society's evaluation of Goths:

Leave me alone, I'm a freak
Leave me alone, make it easy for yourself
Everywhere I go they all stare
I don't understand why they care
They stare at me all in black
And when I turn they stare at my back
All these things can't,
All these things don't...
Let me go.
Leave me alone, I'm a freak
Leave me alone, make it easy for yourself
Everywhere I go they all stare
I don't understand why they care
And I don't want to be part of your world
And I don't want to see the things you see
Can't you understand how I feel?
Can't you let me be?