The terms "Gothic" and "Goth" are often used interchangeably with the
terms of the broader meanings which do also have equivalents as the
"Dark Culture" or "Dark Independent." They are known under the name
"Gothic Subculture." To define those terms is difficult, because
despite a long history and in music, literature and film they are
lacking explicit definitions.
I'm sitting in the cinema of my life, all seats are occupied (...)
The light goes off the movie begins, memories rise again (…)
The past is present again , Strange - I stare into my face(…)
The film shows my death, Finally, I started to laugh all the time
But the one thousand eyes revolve around, and I am appalled and look forward.
Subcultures tend to have their own slang, dresscode (clothing), ideology and interests (eg music). The indicators of belonging to the gothic subculture are very diverse but usually thay are: distinctive image, listening to certain types of music, attending the gothic events, as well as being a certain way (Filipiak 2003). Being Goth may mean compliance with all of these conditions, or some of them. Individuals belonging to the subculture participate in it more or less active. Many people often even deny their belonging to the gothic subculture. There is nothing surprising in it - the word has a pejorative importance and correlates with something worse, "below" the broader culture. “To belong” and “membership” is a denial of one most important features of Gothic Subculture - individualism.
History and Etymology
Goth (Gutan) is a representative of Germanic tribe, which played a large role in the collapse of the Roman Empire. Over time, word “Goth” started to have pejorative meaning and become synonymous of “barbarian”. In particular Goths were one of the tribes, which were at the end of the long line of Christianization (Heather 2006). For this reason, in the middle ages "Gothic architecture" was a name for the coarse and simple buildings, which were in contrast with delicate lines of classical architecture (Toman 2004).
Eighteenth century nostalgia for the English medieval ruins combined with a taste for chivalric romance and religious oculist threads, launched on the one hand, the neogothic style (Koch 1996) in the United Kingdom and the United States, and on the other hand, the development of the Gothic novel (Eco 2005). The pioneer in this field was Horace Walpole and his novel "The Castle of Otranto" published in 1764. The supporters of the species in that period already began to call themselves as “Goths”. One of the most characteristic features of early writers such as Keats, Poe, Baudelaire, was a passion to dress in black (Krasinski 2004).
Gothic novels always accompanied by themes of horror, cemeteries, ruins, spirits, vampires, curse, romantic conversations and dramatic love. One of the most famous Gothic novels of that period was Bram Stoker's "Dracula" from 1897. It gave the foundations of horror as a new trend in literature, and movie later on (Gazda 2003). The pioneers of this genre was twentieths century German "Nosferatu” and created in the thirties the b-class movies of Edward D. Wood Jr (Davenport-Hines 1999). In sixties and seventies, horror was already at mature stage of its development. Many post-punk music bands form those times (The Cure, Siouxsie And Banshees) based on the "Adams Family-like” stylization.
The beginnings of the Gothic subculture can be dated back to the early eighties of last century. The subculture is closely linked to the music of both post-punk and the rock-metal music (Wiss 2005). It has survived to this day developed and diversified (Baddeley 2002).
On 21 February 1981 in a music magazine “Sounds” appeared an article about the concert of Belgian group “UK Decay”. The article written by Steave'a Keaton was titled "The Face Of Punk Gothique". The article ends with conclusion:
“Like the Alien on the Nostromo, UK Decay are changing, evolving into something….different with every killing. They are already a formidable beast. Punk Gothique? Its looking just fine.”
In July 1982 the Batcave club in London's Soho was open. This club has become a cult meeting place for growing Goth scene later named as “post-punk” or “new wave”. Both words "batcave" and "old-school" refers to the early Gothic music originating from the same period. The bands which then lead to foundation of the later scene were: Bauhaus, Specimen, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Damned, Southern Death Cult, Out, Sex Gang Children, 45 Grave, UK Decay, The Virgin prunes, Kommunity FK, Alien Sex Fiend and also Christian Death, Joy Division, Clan of Xymox, The Cure, Dead Can Dance, early Adam And The Ants, as well as Killing Joke.
In later years the Subculture itself has started to feed the imagination of horror authors, such as batcave’s Bauhaus concerte in horror movie “The Hunger” from 1983. Since that the examples started to multiply.
Regardless of British scene, the American "death rock" started to evolve. At the same time in Germany the so-called “Grufti” subculture started to appear. The moves, combined with new wave and new romantic foundations have given a so-called "dark culture” the phenomenon that is much wider than the Goth itself. At that time bands like The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission UK, Xmal Deutschland, The Bolshoi and Fields of the Nephilim joined this movement.
In 1987, in Potsdam was held the first gothic festival – “Wave Gotik Traffen”, but it was illegal according to law of DDR. It was reactivated in 1992 in Leipzig just after the unification of Germany.
In 1993 the first gothic festival took place in Whitby (England) – the same village which inspired Bram Stoker to write his famous novel. Despite the fact that the festival was created spontaneously, for several years took place on a regular basis, and now has been reactivated.
In 1994 in the castle of Grodziec (Poland) was held the first edition of the Castle Party Festival - the largest event of this type in Eastern Europe. In 2000 at Hildesheim Airport begins M'era Luna Festival - the second-largest Gothic festival in Germany. In 2001 was Lumous Gothic Festival was started in Tampere (Finland). In the mid-nineties festivals and Goth events began to appear one after another. This period can be defined as the time of maturity of Gothic culture.
Those events started two-way cultural exchange of inspirations between main trends in literature and cinematography. Authors such as Anne Rice reactivated in their novels vampires that again began their new incarnations in the film productions. The image of vampiric premises such as “Admiral 's Arms” from "Queen of the Damned” was taken as it is from today’s bat-cave clubs.
As typical Gothic productions one can consider such films as "The Crow" and the RPG games from “Worlf Of Darkness“ realms. Gothic culture was also in its further stage a major impact on the visual side of so called “cyberpunk”, especially in connection with the development of industrial music (Baddeley 2002).
Gothic fiction is also noticeable in other fields of art such as photography (Vion Ielegems, Anni Bertram, Mr Lord, Nadja Lev), as well as painting and graphics (Rachel Huntington, Gerald Brom, Nene Thomas, Luis Royo, Boris Vallejo, Chris Achilleos, Dave Mckean, Jhonen Vasquez, Alice Egoyan, Myka Jelina, James O'Barr, HR Giger and Zdzislaw Beksinski).
Over time, the scene has started to transform into the movement, which with the original Gothic had very little in common, both in terms of music and appearance as well as it’s ideology.
Until the early nineties the main trends in music scene were post punk, death rock, gothic rock and darkwave. In subsequent years styles such as industrial, EBM, emo or gothic metal
joined this movement.
The confusion in the gothic main stream which is caused particularly by this last genre is fully understandable, especially because the "gothic" in the name. Gothic metal derives directly from the metal music, and the name "gothic" was added to emphasize its style. Some metal musicians were fascinated by medieval romantic ethos, German mythology and often benefit from its stylization.
One can not deny the impact of gothic metal to the gothic mainstream, especially thanks to the organizers of many giga-festivals. The wide range of music styles on those events from old school bat-cave to techno music placed gothic metal permanently on the gothic scene.
Especially at the beginning the organizers of events to increase attendance, were getting what they could from a broader alternative scene, including electronics and metal.
This period is launched a wave of so called gothic / industrial or electro-industrial events. At the same time the range of music gigs, attended by Goths, has emerged from gothic rock, death rock, dark electro, industrial, EBM, ambient, through experimental music, neofolk to synthpop, glam rock, indie rock etc. The community does not just tolerate this phenomenon, moreover they were very enthusiastic, mainly because of the wide taste and eclecticism of people listening to the gothic music.
The prevalence of todays is to gothic events together with new romantic parties are also very common. In some countries such as Poland there is even subculture solely based on one band alone - Depeche Mode.
The reciprocal influence on each other of the industrial, pop and techno music has resulted in creation of such hybrids as TBM or harsh electro, which with Gothic does not have anything in common. Today's goth events are often almost completely dominated by aggrotech, futurepop and synthpop. The atmosphere also recalls the interior in every aspect a traditional disco. Dark reflective mood has been replaced with good fun. The individualism turned into imitation. This has led to a desire of return to bat-cave roots and typically old school events.
The modern Gothic develops most dynamically in Germany both from quality and quantity points of view. It is, however also alive in the United States and in Eastern Europe. Traditionally, least of gothic music bands and events can be found in Italy, Greece and Spain, where people differ significantly in temperament, and because of the prevailing heat styled gothic or metal clothing is not practical. Despite this fasct quite different situation is in Scandinavia, which is famous rather for its metal music. Gothic events that take place there are more often than anywhere else connected with the metal events.
On the Internet you can find the terms subculture supposedly derived from Gothic. Often, you can also meet with the division ready to specific groups. Typically, they are artificial and acting as internet beings only. Their origins are usually from RPG games and frequently duplicated raised to the urban myths. Those that actually exist, have little social significance. Since, they are difficult to confirm and document, they will not be quoted here.
Ideology and stereotypes.
To define Gothic ideology is difficult, if it is even possible to speak of any ideology. It is more based on both mood and specific esthetics. Since the "Dark Culture" is rather tolerant, the manner and dress often makes suspect Goths of violence, hatred and even racism. There are no specific political views like in the case of hippie movement. The emphasis is rather placed on individualism and intellectualism, which is considered (correctly) often as skepticism and cynicism. Political views are more liberal or left-sided or anarchistic, but it this is not the common rule.
In case of attitude to the religion, the case is quite similar. Gothic subculture is not associated with any particular religion. The defined esthetics results in many elements that come from the Christian culture and tradition. Fairly freely treated objects of worship, which can be often found in background of photographs, items such as crosses, ankh keys or Thor’s hammers are more decorative in manner than they have importance to the religion. Among Goths one can find both believers and atheists. More common is rather treating the religion with significant distance.
Gothic fashion stereotype is the dark and murky costume. The appearance is highly fulfilled with eroticism. Stereotypical Gothic appearance is black hair, sharp provocative make-up, dark nails, dark clothing, piercings, the traditional costumes of the Elizabethan, Victorian, Medieval, or referring to the atmosphere bat-cave or punk style, with classical appearance, along with the development of musical styles, large number of different styles evolved which at first glance are entirely different, such as Gothic Lolita or cybergoth.
One of the features, which classify Goth to subculture, is that like any subculture it is based on hierarchy (Filipiak 2003). What is common with the other subcultures is that position in the hierarchy is independent from material or social status, but it is rather based on enthusiastic participation and creativity. The impact on the status has strong emphasis of relation the establishment, celebrities, DJ-ing, appearance, clothinf, organizing events, art, zins or internet forums. The hierarchy is not always clear but it can be easily noticed (Hodkinson 2002).
Gothic subculture is the one of the alternative ways to escape from the mainstream culture and is linked to both postmodernism and New Age mysticism (Kubiak 2005). This is certainly the escaped from the real world. What is also noticeable within the subculture hierarchy is that it usually not only doesn’t reflect but is even radically different from the status of particular individual in society.
The absence of rigid rules, musical eclecticism and the ability to adapt are the main characteristics that halped the Dark Independent Culture to survive and prosper. Both romanticism and fascination of spiritual world, the subconscious and dark side of the self is a natural feature of sensitive people. An important feature is also continuing to escape from the main stream and commercialization, which led to the end of many subcultures.
Fuck the mainstream?
And the money can be made on anything. Political subcultures such as the hippie did not survived, and hippie themselves are wearing suits and became the heads of major corporations. The hippie movement in the West had a big impact on modern methods of business management and some elements of imported by hippie Eastern culture can now be found in science, relaxation and meditation techniques for employees. Punk subculture self-contradicted from very beginning died and there are still some still remains in present music styles. The rest turned into anti-globalism movements.
For the Dark Culture the greatest threat is certainly commercialization and stereotypes. The Subculture, especially in the West is already facing problems coused by monopoly of major music industries, entertainment, clothing, and Internet companies which are trying to commercialize it.
The income from AdSense advertisements of Vampire Freaks site alone (Jethro Berelso) are estimated as tens of millions of dollars a year. At least several times more on Gothic community is earned by another commercial site - MySpace. And even though it is peanuts, the amount is many folds grater if you taki into account the traditional forms of advertising and fees for membership. In addition to large sites, there are also smaller ones such as commercial models rentals and photo sites like suicidegirls.com, nocturnalmodels.com which sell BSDM and pornography with the Goth label on it. When you add together all the smaller sites where membership to the Gothic community has to be paid, the amount is getting quite substantial. Of course, in addition to Internet activity, the huge money is earned by intenrnet and not internet stores behind goth sites such as "Synth-Tec," Cosmic Debris Etc.. Inc. ( "Emile The Strange"), the German XtraX GmbH & Co. KG" and Internet stores under the same name. The huge income income is also from gadgets from popular movies like "Nightmare Before Christmas" ("Twitching Image" now part of Miramax). Another well known mystery is the huge Japanese market of Gothic Lolita.
The organizers gets money from world’s festivals and mass events and, above all, big and small producers of more or less alternative music: Alfa Matrix, Dependent Records, Infacted Recordings, Metropolis Records and Nuclear Blast. All these areas of business are linked more or less subtle with revenue and cash flow.
Bibliography:
Baddeley, G. (2002), "Goth Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture", Atlanta, Plexus
Davenport-Hines, R. (1999), "Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and ruin", New York, North Point Press
Eco, U. (2005), "History of Beauty", Warsaw, Rebis
Filipiak, M. (2003), "From Subcultures For Alternative Culture", Lublin, University
Gazda, G. (2003), "Gothic fiction and Gore in the culture", Lodz, Univ. University of Lodz
Heather, P. (2006), "The Fall of the Roman Empire", Warsaw, Rebis
Hodkinson, P. (2002), Goth: Identity, Style And Subculture ", Gordonsville, Berg Publishers
Koch, W. (1996), "The Architecture of Style", Warsaw, Bertelsmann
Krasinski, Z. (2004), "Gothic Novels", Krakow, Universitas
Kubiak, A. (2005), "However, the New Age", Warsaw, Jacek Santorski & Co.
Toman, R. (2004), "Gothic: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting," Krakow, Baran and Suszczyński
Weiss, W. A. (2005), United Encykopedia of Rock ", Warsaw, Iskry
[and] Lacrimosa - "Reissende Blick" CD "Einsamkeit", Hall Of Sermon Records, 1992. translated by Amorphous
Photo - Castle Party 2006 by Xardas
