Many Paths to Gothdom

[urushi]

It started with the music, then being an outcast...my mom's against the whole all black thing. So I stick with red. Most people don't consider me "goth" but more as a "punk" or a freak who's really dark. I only have two close friends Because I scare most people away...  

[lurichan]

There are a lot of new people since this topic first came about, and I would like to see some opinions (Non-flaming of course) on the subject.  

[[((Velociraptor))]]

hhmmm... when I got into the music, I started to meet gothic people and began to see what they were like I found a great respect for my friends who are gothic and I started to act a little more like them, I always loved dark clothing. I am very poetic and I just started to see the darker poetry and I really got into it.Then again I'm not exactly a strereotypical goth. I like alot of things and I'm not afraid to express my self, I didn't realize how much people pushed me away at school, unti I started paying attention. Apparently it started when the stupid preps began calling me gothic and running away. I realized that I very much enjoyed scaring people >DDD. Then I sort of formed my oiwn little group of friends who consider themselves non- conformists. But basiclly its dark poetry and the music that really got me into it. sweatdrop ninja  

[coriander18]

It was the evil rock music that got into my soul.
blaugh

I started listening to manson and nin back in the day, refusing to wear anything that wasn't black. Started finding other music like wumpscut and sister of mercy and so forth.
Although I am one of those who doesn't actually consider herself goth, just listen to the music, dress in black and like gothy things. biggrin  

[ceilisidhe]

To expound upon my earlier post, goth for me is a way to embrece and cope with my darker tendencies. There were no "goths" at my schoo - I was simply "that weird kid in black".  

[ZippoDemon]

i dont really seem "goth" i guess. true the majority of my shirts are black, but i dont really wear all black. anyways...i think for me, it started with my love of all things rock genre of music. so i got death metal, metal, hard rock, goth, industrial, etc....influence. then there was that whole depression thing...and then the writing of "poetry?" i dont find it that poetic myself cause i intend for them to be lyrics but oh well. i still got time in my life. so thats my story really. i look more like a rocker kid. black shirts, band names of most of them, listening to anything in rock really. but we are all a little goth... xd  

[x..Deadly Whispers..x]

That was a very interesting way of putting it. I think I'm going to use that.  

[ZippoDemon]

x..Deadly Whispers..x

That was a very interesting way of putting it. I think I'm going to use that.

have at it. freedom of speech. plus its not copyrighted, razz  

[DieiNoctis]

Heh, what started me on the "goth" path?

Well, I've always been different from my peers. I was always more refined, smarter, more mature... This was probably due to the fact that I've never reall had that meny friends of my own. I always hung around my older brother and his friends, ingraning me into a muych more mature group of people than that of my peers.
I've also always been pretty creative. All of this peaked when my brothers sort of cast me out of their little socal groups because I was "uncool" because of my age, even if I'd already surpassed them in maturity.
Since I had no real friends of my own, I withdrew from the world, reading so much that I would actually (when schooling permitted) read from daw till dusk, breaking only for dinner, and only because I was forced to.
I've always been attracted to dark colors, but around this time I shifted my wardrobe entirely to suit this attraction. I donned a trench coat and some steel-toe boots, some chains, and went about my way.
That's when I started getting "insulted". "Hey, what are you, goth/wiccan/satanic or something?". And while I had really no clue (at the time) what goth was (like most of society, I had only vague notions that gave the word negative connotations in my mind), I figured that since I was being accused of being one, I might as well figure out what it was I was being accused of. Thus began my search.
It didn't take long to figure out what most people thought goth was; there was a plethora of websites devoted to exactly that point. But one that summed it up for me the most was the blooddance articles by Azhram.
Even with the knowledge of what goth "really" was in my mind, I still had wuestions about the origin, so I went searching. Eventually I stumbled upon a few people who actually had done their homework, who'd already gone on the same quest I was on, and helped me along.
They showed me (with verifiable facts) that Azhram's goth was more of a romanticized goth, or a new-romantic view, not actual goth. What goth actually is defined by is the music known, not supprisingly, as goth. Defined by bands such as Bauhaus, The sex gang children, and souxie and the banshees.
So I did the obvious thing, and found some goth music. I liked it, so i got some CD's, and now here I am, both one of those New-romantic goth's that Azhram describes, and the classic goth, one defined by the music.

And that, friends, is my tale.  

[Your Night Surgeon]

Good question...

My path started with a leather jacket when I was in fifth grade. That and I grew up listening to heavy metal. Of course, it was stuff like Megadeth, Judas Preist, Ozzy, Maiden, and a few other bands that my father was into. I got picked on alot, but that was okay. Then I came into my class in fifth grade with my leather jacket and a mohawk. I dunno, I was always into the look and my dad offered to give me one. I didn't get teased too much for a while. I liked it, but then in sixth grade, decided I wanted to be popular. So I wore the Jnco jeans and the nice button up club shirts that had become popular around here... and I got noticed. People liked me. Well, i liked the look and continued wearing that sort of thing up until.... the summer of my 8th grade. I went to church camp ( I was a very avid christian once...) and met a trio of punk rockers. Jimmystick, Sheena, and Gabriel... man, I miss those guys. I decided that's what I wanted to look like, and so my punk phase began. I came into my ninth grade year with a big blue mohawk, shredded jeans, and spiky jewelry. The soundtrack of my life sounded like Sid and Nancy... yee-haw.

Then, I discovered a less....brutal look that still seemed beautiful to me. I took down my hair for a while and dyed it black, I got more elegant clothing... I put on some eyeliner and I loved it. Junior year.

My senior year, I realized my body type and facial features made me seem too... I dunno, too uncivil to be a really nice goth unless I went for the whole renfaire goth look. I put my mohawk back up and got my leather jacket back on, along with a few extra spikes, some better music, and a wider world view.

I dunno, the look brought me in, and I stayed for the culture. I love the local punk and goth scene ( town's too small to have them seperately) and the people like me. My poetry finds a mostly warm welcome and my musical talents get used too. But most of all, the like minded people and the intelligent discussion are what I needed and those things are, invariably, what I got.  

[DR490N]

i've always been a little darkling, ever since i was a wee lad i would see ghosts and spirits all over. I began getting into dark imagery such as skulls, vampires(somehow knowing the classical vampire is still but myth, while believing that real vampires exist in some way shape or form, which was later confirmed), demons, spirits, death, mideival history and all that, even the egyptian gods long ago, when i was 6 or 8. I began listening to some of the more popularish goth bands in grade 8, such as AFI, HIM, etc....i dont listen to them much anymore so i really cant remember half the s**t....i was a christian for a long while, and have only recently decided to outright reject it....nonetheless, my path winds and twists of its own free will. I began listening to progressively darker music, watching progressively gory anime/film, continually stressing realism(i hate kill Bill), i was a punk for a while, though nowadays i prefer not to place one specific label upon myself, seeing as with each label comes a stereotype. I have recently delved into the metaphysical world more deeply, in the hopes of gaining a greater understanidng and harmony with myself and my environment. as of yet i have been unsuccessful in that goal, though i have become a darker person...a person i believe is who i am meant to be. I dabble in magick, and plan to learn the basics, i dabble in energy manipulation, i am a draconic therian and a maybe vampire, though i am as of yet not fully sure of the vampirism. i continually question it, because somehow it seems irrational, and this rationality based on science and whatnot has been hammered into my head by the ignorant society of today.

I continue to walk in darkness, because i am most comfortable among the things of darkness. Again, my path is ever twisting, ever turning. I am something slightly different than the average goth or the average punk, and i always shall be.

and after such a long post. i take my leave for the night, seeing as it's 2:29 am an i'd like to get on the sanguinarius.org IRC chat.  

[Jakk-Arcani]

hmm...a question requiring thought....ah yes...ever scince i was 12 i felt the need ot express my morbid thoughts to the masses...or atleast a small group...my friends like me but when i defend myself to some outsider ranting how being goth means your evil...(i will kill them all)...they say "jeramie shut up your not goth..." how do you defend yourself to your friends or a bunch of idiots who allwase try to put you down  

[Spooky Wasabi Princess]

According to my mum I've been all interested in darker things when I was a kid, I don't remember anything specific though.

But I do remember that when I was 12 we had a free-dress day at school and there was this goth girl wearing a long, dark green velvet cloak and I was in total awe of how beautiful and mysterious she looked.
Then I looked at what I was wearing and what my friends were wearing and thought how boring it was.

But it was a long while before I started dressing like I do now.
I emmerced myself in the culture long before I started wearing my uber funky clothes.
I thought that was important to do.  

[.+Melanthios+.]

I've liked dark things since I was a kid too, but my only true path was art...I like drawing things that no one else would, like images of death or skulls vampires, things like that....

I didn't start dressing like I do now until a year ago because I was tired of looking like everyone else my age, I wanted to be different not in mind but also in appearance. I wnated to be a little goth girl.....

I geuss we all (everyone in the world) have a liking of dark things, but usually people just don't embrace it and maybe that's why some folks don't understand us. I mean, it's in our human nature to be afraid of odd things and defend ourselves from it, but I've always looke at the ppl that embrace the darker side of life as a more comfortalble ppl to be around because maybe we're the smarter ones in the world....rather than turn tail and run away from dark things, we embrace them.  

[DR490N]

heh...i'll never understand the majority of humanity. so much ignorance and stupidity.