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

As a goth myself (not the scaring mother, pretending to be evil, Marilyn Manson loving type) I have to whole-heartedly agree.

Real goths are usually quiet, sensitive, shy and intelligent. I personally am in the process of studying for a psychology honours degree with a view to going into teaching children with special needs.

Any trench-coat mafia types are causing great damage to the whole public view of goth culture and should be regarded as silly children who are experiencing teenage angst as they can't go to Nirvana concerts anymore.

here here

I must admit, I really didn't like the entry for "goths"
it says "Real goths" don't take offense, etc.. but, do we need a separate entry for "real goths" then? I was hoping to find it under goths. Instead there's a brief rant about poseurs, without saying a word about the lifestyles, viewpoints, and aesthetics of those who've been in "the scene" for years.

If you really want I'll do a full entry on goths, but to even try to do any justice it'll be extremely long and probably won't be what you're looking for anyway as the number of different goth types is at least as long as the number of different people types, but I'll trot one out this weekend and submit it for rejection. It'll probably turn satirical though so don't say I didn't warn you.

a long entry might not be what's needed. It's just that there IS an entry for goth, and all it does is rant about certain aspects, then claim "but those aren't goths, REAL goths don't do that" and says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about what real goths are like.

i don't think the general public understands what a "goth" is.
the trench coat mafia were not goths, but the label was attached to them for the swallowing ease of the public thru the media coverage. they also didn't listen to manson- but in the media manson was mentioned continually. (and manson even isn't a goth. it was just a mask he wore and changed it for a new glam look.)
i would like it if someone wrote a longer entry.... or something that included the quote that goes something like if there would be a nuclear war- all that would be left is roaches and goths. (sorry i can't think of the exact quote at the moment.. but it is summer, and there is no more school and writing research papers for just awhile.) something that could go against all the semi-recent negative press.

I agree completely about the 'real goth' thing, even though most of my friends are pretend goths. Seeing 'trench-coat mafia' always makes me really angry. That was just some stupid kids in America somewhere. It has no relevance as a term to describe 'pretend goths' or anything else.

the trench coat mafia has caused people over here in the usa to become highly frightened by black clad people...

are 'pretend' goths seriously in it for the scarying mom factor?

For the scaring mom factor... maybe. In my experience its more the scaring 'trendies' and trying to assert a personality that they don't yet actually have.

or it seems like they are trying to be different than the 'trendies'?

Exactly. However, it is ironic that by not expressing themselves as themselves and by following some false vision of what they think they should be, they are merely creating a different version of the thing they seek to avoid.

Hope you understood that.

I tend to think of Goths as having the "Model T Ford" of lifestyles - "Any colour, so long as it is Black"...

Or dark red or suchlike.

you people are sad. I am not a goth myself but you all reveal youselves as crap goths yourself.
you attack wannabes and others for two reasons. 1. you are scared of your "select group" become tainted by the crowd
and 2. you are frightened to accept everyone elses point of view without obligation. And before you say i cant understand because i'm not a goth. I CAN i have friends in both young and old goth groups, some listen to marylin manson and, yes, some of them mosh too. OMIGOD! their expressing themselves differently from the standard goth view! THEY MUST BE PURGED FROM THE MASTER RACE!!!!! You deluded fools

Well, what can I say... I may be glib, but at least I wasn't sad enough to set up an account for the sole purpose of one posting... I could be proved wrong - maybe "researcher 113837" actually DID take six hours to post the above message, and so didn't have time to make any positive contributions to the guide...?

Somewhere further up in this conversation there was a call for a little more elaborated article about what "goth" is/might be whatever. I posted my personal (and fairly elaborated) views on that under http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?thread=20777&forum=19476 (didn't want to rip my answers out of the context by pasting them here) ... in case somesone's interested.

Or see http://www.h2g2.com/A391790