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p o s t . s i x t e e n
--- T h e. H i s t o r y . o f . G o t h - A c c o r d i n g . t o . a . l o t . o f . d i f f e r e n t . p e o p l e ---
+ According to Isobel (this one is probably most accurate!):
Click over here for a link to her thread on Goth music and subculture ----> ISOBEL'S GUIDE TO GOTH
+ According to the dictionary:
Goth [ goth ] (plural Goths)
noun
Definitions:
1. member of ancient Germanic people: a member of an ancient Germanic people who settled south of the Baltic and founded kingdoms in many parts of the Roman Empire between the 3rd and the 5th centuries
2. music style
music a style of popular music that combines elements of heavy metal with punk.
3. Fashion of dark clothes and make-up
fashion a style of fashion popular among men and women in the 1980s, characterized by black clothes, heavy silver jewelry, black eye makeup and lipstick, and often pale face make-up.
4. somebody who is un-civilized
see also; 'gothic'
[ Old English gotan "Goths" < late Latin Gothi < Germanic]
+ According to wikipedia:
This article is about the contemporary goth subculture. For the Germanic tribes of the same name, see the Goths.
Goth is a modern subculture that first became popular during the early 1980s within the gothic rock scene, a sub-genre of post punk. It is associated with gothic tastes in music and clothing. Styles of dress range from gothic horror, punk, Victorian, fetish, cybergoth, androgyny, and/or lots of black (inspired by the beatniks). However, there is no dress code for goths.
Since the mid-1990s, styles of music that can be heard in goth venues range from gothic rock, industrial, punk, metal, techno, 1980s dance music, and several others. This does not represent a variety of music that is considered gothic mainstream, but rather a convention among DJ and nightclub owners to condense the number of nights devoted to any particular music venue.
In the early eighties, the number of Gothic or Death Rock bands were limited in number, and can be listed as The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees. By the mid-eighties, these bands began proliferating, including Sisters of Mercy, This Mortal Coil, and spin-off bands with names and clothing that might be confused with goth or death rock style, but had little to do with the progression and evolution of gothic music. The popularity of This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance resulted in the creation of a music label called Projekt that produces what is coliqually termed Ethereal Goth or Darkwave.
Origins and influences:
Original subculture
By the late 1970s, there were a small number of post punk bands in Britain labeled "gothic". However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became its own sub-genre within post punk and that followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognisable group or movement. The opening of the Batcave in London's Soho in July 1982 might be seen as marking the coming out of this scene (which had briefly been labeled positive punk[1] by the New Musical Express). As one of the most famous meeting points for early goths, it lent its name to the term Batcaver, used to describe old school goths.
Independent of the British scene, the late 1970s and early 1980s saw death rock branch off from American punk. With similar themes and dress, goths and death rockers were sufficiently compatible to more or less merge.
The word goth, as a label for fans of gothic rock, did not start gaining currency until around 1983.
Gothic horror
The gothic novel, of the early nineteenth century, was responsible above all else for the term gothic being associated with a mood of horror, darkness and the supernatural. They established what horror stereotypes became by featuring graveyards, ruined castles or churches, ghosts, vampires, cursed families, being buried alive and melodramatic plots. Gothic novels are often concerned with the fate of a curious young woman, and a great deal of focus is placed on internal locations. A notable element in these novels were the brooding figure of the gothic villain, which developed into the Byronic hero, a key precursor in the male goth image. The most famous gothic villain of this genre would be Dracula. In 1993 Whitby became the location for what became the UK's biggest goth festival as a direct result of featuring in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The work of Edgar Allan Poe, master of the gothic short story, has also been an inspiration for many goths. The modern figure of the femme fatale, which has its roots in Romantic literature, is a key image for female goths.
Cinema
An important medium between the goth scene and gothic literature is the modern popular horror genre, in which the horror film is paramount. One of the earliest impersonators of cinematic goth might be the silent movie actress Theda Bara. Imagery from horror films and television, especially the figure of the vampire and even camp horror B films such as Plan 9 From Outer Space have had significant influence on the evolution of Gothic fashion.
Hammer Horror films and 1960s TV series, such as The Addams Family, The Munsters, and Ann Radcliffe, have also inspired goths. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film, starring David Bowie, which featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi's Dead in a nightclub.
Some of the early gothic rock and death rock artists adopted traditional pre-sixties horror movie images and passed them onto their goth audiences. Such references in both their music and image were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid, supernatural, and occult themes became a more noticeably serious element in the subculture.
Goth after post-punk
After the demise of post punk, Goth continued to evolve, both musically and visually. This caused variations in style ("types" of goth). Local "scenes" also contribute to this variation. By the 1990s, Victorian fashion had worked its way into the Goth scene, with the mid-19th century Gothic Revival and the morbid outlook of the Victorians (partly owing to the state of national mourning which developed in response to Prince Albert's death, and partly to the Victorians' general obsession with Christian funeral practices). The 2003 Victoria and Albert Museum Gothic exhibition in London furthered a tenuous connection between modern Goth and the medieval gothic period.
Some contemporary media popular among Goths include Anne Rice's novels (Interview with the Vampire) and notable movies such as The Crow, the Matrix trilogy, and the movies of Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, and Sleepy Hollow), as well as roleplaying games like Vampire The Masquerade. Influences from anime have also crept into the Goth scene, which helped give rise to cybergoth.
Contemporary proliferation of the term Goth
In recent years, the word Goth has often been used to describe a wider social group of youths. These might include people with a tendency to wear black clothes, listen to Nu-Metal or wear goth-style make up. Often, those labelled as Goths lack many of the characteristics historically associated with the subculture, and are sometimes called mallgoths.
(click here to see original article)
+ According to some site I found:
It's been said that if goth didn't exist, somebody would have to invent it. The truth is, goth has pretty much always existed, in most cultures; it was just never identified or named as a separate movement before the mid-19th century. It is not a strictly western-European phenomenon (Russian culture, for example, has always been remarkably goth), but the identifying factors and naming conventions have all pretty much come from western Europe.
"Goth" originally referred to Germanic tribes who conquered and controlled much of Europe in the Middle Ages. "Gothic" referred to a style of art and architecture, and was originally a demeaning term used by people during the Renaissance, to indicate their contempt for the "crude" and "unenlightened" culture of the Goths as compared to their own.
The Middle Ages were, in fact, quite gothic. There was a fascination, bordering on obsession, with the contrast between good and evil, with death, and with the struggle between purity and decadence. There was also a great deal of remarkable and striking art and literature on these themes produced during this time (roughly 300-1300 C.E.), and all of this no doubt was a factor in the appreciation the Romantics developed for this period in history.
In the early 19th century, an artistic movement called Romanticism arose. It was focused around fantastical themes, the ongoing struggle between good and evil, sensuality, and frequently death. From this movement arose a smaller movement, personified by writers like Byron and Shelley, that was increasingly morbid and decadent. This more morbid style came to be known as gothic, in part because of the appreciation of its leaders for the "Gothic" style of the Middle Ages.
Victorianism repressed the sensuality of Romanticism and gothic, but kept the good-evil dichotomy and the obsession with death, overlaid with a strict morality that nevertheless kept the darker impulses bubbling and more likely to burst out in bizarre ways.
As the 20th century dawned and technology began to race ahead, most of Victorianism was discarded (though in America the repression of sexuality would remain a large aspect of the culture). The two World Wars gave people more death and despair than they could ever have wanted, and in their wake a determination arose to make life more purposeful and enjoyable (this compounded by technology and increasing wealth for the working classes).
The identifiably distinct goth subculture we know now began to flower in the early '80s. It's no coincidence that this was the Thatcher/Reagan era, when the superiority of Anglo culture was being forced down the world's throat, when conservatism and conformity and being bright and happy and avoiding anything disturbing were being touted as the only acceptable behaviors, and the economy was in recession, with the difference between rich and poor beginning to grow alarmingly. What began as a reactionary movement found continued life in the ever-increasing anxiety and isolation of our culture, and it continues today.
Goth, the goth "mood" and goth thinking have become increasingly visible over the past few years, with the popular success of bands such as Nine Inch Nails, movies such as Seven , and TV shows such as "The X-Files" and "Millenium." Right now it's rather trendy to seem "goth": witness the proliferation of not-seen-in-nature makeup colors. But for the most part this is just a trend. The media has become ever more voracious for new trends, new looks, new ideas to fill up the vast maw of popular culture, and it just took awhile for them to get around to goth. In another year or two, the interest will have waned; pop culture will have moved on to something else, and goths can go back to being their glorious, perverse, but ignored selves.
Contributed by: Academia Gothica
(click here to see original article)
