h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Im just going to say to every one,Lableing is life no matter what you do every one and i mean "Every" one Will be labled once in their life.
Me Personaly Im not a Strict goth and now it gets Annoying because every one and their Sister seams to be some sort of "goth""mosher" "Greebo" today.
Yes the goth sean is big now.
People who think because they own a slipknot record it gives them the right to lable them selves goth.
There are Real moshers real goths real punks out their who must get realy Annoyed like me about this.Because for a cupple of years they can walk around Fakeing who they are and then when it gets boring they Become MainStreem Agen.
And i feel sorry for the people who have been apart of these certen Seans for years get all the Crap for what they have done.
Well iv'e gon totaly off the point but see Lables are important wether or not you have one they should be Respected for what they are.
Personaly I dont Care what people think of me i am who i am and if they dont like it well they can do what im thinking *Laughs*

Dolly xxxxx

Well... I've been labeled "Goth" and I answered that I would most probably fit that person's picture of a Goth. But I've been asked weather my outfit was a political statement or wether I was a magician travelling with a circus [... so much for old-school-goth with proper outfit being dragged into the Harry Potter scene ]. I've had mothers drag their kid out of my path.
People find it easier to deal with you because You fit into a certain stereotype. This gets more obvious once you get involved in a "normal" job. People are surpised when you tell them about you job at one of the country's biggest banks or you law degree or whetever.
It does not fit their label/image of what you are supposed to be.

Neither Bauhaus nor Slipknot makes anyone 'real' goth. I still believe that it's the personality. The goth people I hang out with are at least 24 years old. All they know is that they have found within the Goth scene a safe heaven where they can to what they want. Be like they are. I, personally, always longed for the music, the people to share my thought with; the ones that I could have a quiet beer at the graveyard with; the ones who understand me when I feel sad; the ones who understand that I have a right to feel depressed; the ones who understand when I feel bad about life and civilisation and too many people.

The people who accept me as I am, not as they'd like me to seem.

And good for you!

I personally am not a goth, I am me. But I know a few goths, and they're nice people.

"I've had mothers drag their kid out of my path."

I know someone, and I share their view, who is going to tell their child to stay out of the way of the "nasty middle class bigot".

It comes from Grease Boy, cos in the 1960s, ppl went around looking like the kids from Grease (the movie etc)which became grebo, which was shortened to greb.

Ahhhh, enlightenment dawns....

Hi! Sorry for the extended absence, just wanted to point out a couple of things that cropped up in my mind as I re-read the conversation...

When I was talking about 'freaks' (back at the start of the conversation, all those years ago! ) I wasn't meaning that in the standard insulting way; I meant as a label that people associated with. My best friend and I, for example, javially call each other a freak all the time, and we both know that we mean that simply as a generic label for someone who doesn't fit into 'normal' society. (Not that I've ever been able to come up with a reasonable definition for 'normal'...) My apologies to anyone I may have offended by my vagueness.

The reason people feel the need to label things (including other people) all the time is mainly because of the way our brains work (the A.I. research coming out here!) - humans, and in fact /any/ creature which has a brain based on a network of neurons, learn by association. Babies learn that if they cry, they get fed/hugged/emptied, for example. Labelling is an important part of that process, as it allows us to class new information in the same way as information we've /already/ learnt to deal with, and can extrapolate what to do with it from there. The only problem with that is that the reality/universe we exist in doesn't deal in compartmentalised entities, so we end up with a whole lot of 'grey area', and definitions that don't quite fit an artifact.... or artifacts (in this case the people we're trying to 'define' as grebs) that don't fit the definitions that already exist (ie. goth/greb/punk/whatever) Thus the reason we're having this discussion, Californian Blonde.

Also... It seems to me that the closer we get to a definition of a 'Greb', the more it seems appropriate to stick with the 'Gothic Rebel' idea. This fits the concept of the 'Grease boy' character, who as far as I know, was created to be based on rebellion against an authorative society, with undertones of teenage (ish) angst. Also most of the people I know who come close to fitting the description of a greb are rebelious by nature, discontent with society, and feel powerless to act against the mainstream prejudice (well maybe powerless isn't the right word, that would negate actions of self-mutilation, stealing park benches, damaging memorials, etc.)
Thanks for your enlightenment, Duckfed!

That phrase "As with many things about Goths, one can only say what is common, not what is necessary." is particularly handy here, too, in describing Grebs. Especially the way they dress, dance, which music they listen too, etc. The hoodie thing keeps popping up though, which is interesting. Especially since that leads to a different label in my neck o' the woods.

PS. Hello again Roadkill!

No problem.

Freak thing is ok. I don't label myself as a freak, I'm just me. I think freak is more something we are characterized as, and have to adopt.

Nice to see you again.

I don't think you were the one affected by my 'freak' comments, Roadkill; I noticed a couple of posts along the lines of 'I'm not a freak!', so I just wanted to clarify my intent there. I can't find them now, so I can't track down whoever it was that made the posts, but the thought's there.

Slightly off topic, but also... I was reminded about the 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables' thing which I mentioned earlier. Any ideas where a good place to discuss this would be? I'm sure h2g2 would love it. I'm thinking about creating it as a forum, perhaps having an actual society to invite members to, but I'm not too confident on the process. Any ideas?

Ah yes. But we should make it clear we're not an anti- vegetarian group .

If you have classy ML go ahead and set up the page .

Well I don't; that's the problem. I've never written a guide entry, and in fact haven't even got around to trying GuideML for my intro yet. So I'm a bit behind on the technical aspects of it. I suspect I'll be okay once I sit down and read through the tutorials on it, but until then perhaps just starting a conversation thread somewhere to gather interest might be appropriate? I'm not sure.
(I'm sure that here isn't the best place, at least. I would apologise to anyone who doesn't care, but I don't care. )

Who says we wouldn't be an anti-vegitarian group? Not /actively/ anti, of course, but anti in theory.
Possibly going so far as to thrust placards under the noses of offending vegetable-eaters, saying things like 'Vegetables are human too!' or 'Hell, no! We won't rhyme!' or something?

Well I suppose anti in theory. But I would rather it wasn't a "vegetarians are so stuipd, hur hur hur " group. Rather hypocritical to complain about eating vegetables while eating meat isn't it?

I'm glad we agree on that!
In fact, I was thinking about making a point about what this would leave people to eat if it became socially immoral to eat meat /and/ plant products... but my imagination was limited to rocks, plastic and tofu. So I've left it out for now.

Check it out for yourself if you like: The first draft is at A1960896

(I'm so proud!)

I like it, I've left feedback there.

I think plastic, yeah. It's tough to find stuff that wasn't at some point part of an animal or plant e.g. plastic comes from oil comes from lots of little dead things. Which I suppose is ok, being as they're already dead.

Tofu is made from bean sprouts.

Metal, there's promise in metal. What else.... we could try condensing gases from the air and creating hydrocarbons out of those to eat?

I saw! Haven't had the chance yet to go back and correct my spelling, though

So perhaps it's okay to eat things which are a product of things which managed to die by themselves? Like lemmings?

Metel is a definite maybe; not sure how the condensed gasses thing would work though - not my forte.

And I swear tofu can't possibly be a food. Unless perhaps it's been sprouts?

Dying is ok. I think. So we could, like Isaac Newton, wait underneath an apple tree for fruit to fall to the ground, and when it does we pounce on it and eat it. Makes it very difficult to eat vegetables, and makes the quality of the meat one eats very dubious too.

Tofu is. It's been made in Japan for hundreds if not thousands of years.

It works 'cos of us being carbon based life- forms. Nitrogen helps us build amino acids which can form proteins or DNA. Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen combine to make sugars. And with some phosphates and different structures you can get fat.

Salt! We can eat salt!

Well there we go; I really do learn something new every day.

Salt is good. I hadn't thought of salt. Any other base minerals we can farm/eat without too much effort?

Images of fruit hunters are making me laugh... people with spears hiding in the bushes, their unblinking eyes focussed firmly on their prey... muscles tensed to pounce, once their target leaves the safety and shelter of the herd. Etc.

And I'm still adament that anything that looks and tastes like a white, soggy, fresh kitchen sponge, cut up into small squares, can't possibly be classed as 'food'.

Like marshmallow you mean?

Yes! Exactly! What the hell were those things, before they discovered that coating them in icing sugar and eating them didn't make you sick?
Earplugs, perhaps?

Either that, or they were deliberately invented just for the amusement factor of sitting back and watching someone attempt to play "Fluffy Bunny." (never quite saw the point of that game, to be honest...)

What's Fluffy Bunny?

Also, though I am loath to even start to plumb the depths of where this could potentially lead to, one may eat products of oneself. Like in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, where he drinks his own blood to quench his thirst.

Although such things have been known to happen, even involving marshmallows... this one's relatively innocent. The point of fluffy bunny is to stuff more marshmallows into your mouth than anyone else competing, and then attempt to say the words "Fluffy bunny" without covering everyone else present with sugar products, or, alternatively, choking.

I suspect the game was invented by seven year olds.