My Assumptions are Always Challenged when it Comes to the Goth Scene.

 

Old people rant ahead…

Before I begin, I would also like to request that people who’ve never been a part of the goth scene in any location anywhere not participate in this discussion. I actually kind of feel it’s an intracommunity discussion.

So at my age right now, I can rest assured that most humans on earth don’t think like I do. I need those regular reminders to humble me sometimes. And of course, inevitably, a lot of us don’t see eye to eye on things like politics.

But I guess I’ve always maybe been either naïve or overly optimistic in assuming that Goth subculture should always be, at worst politically centrist, but most likely by default progressive, inclusive and left-leaning. Because I still remember the era of getting screamed at on the street for how I dressed and folx who dressed like me getting threats of violence. I remember my friends in the scene older than me explaining exactly how the queer nightclubs were some of the few willing to host goth clubs at the beginning

So like, all this shit with goth fasc!sts, far-right people, even the times I’ve butted heads with hardcore Republicans in the scene….

It still makes no sense to me. None. My experience of goth has been being outcast, even outcast of your own ethnicity/immigrant group, outcast of the mainstream shit. To me, conservatism isn’t really politics of being an outcast. It’s the one of wanting to be a cool kid (as a mostly neutral statement). It’s wanting to sit at the cool kids’ table and be accepted.

But, I guess I still don’t know what peoples’ lives have been. Events corral us into making some strange choices and rationalizations ultimately.

So I feel like goth has always been both queer and political, as well as progressive. But not everyone sees it that way.