World Goth Day is what happens when goth “culture” [such as it is] meets up with participation trophy culture. In other words, it’s a fucking abomination.
Gawd. Are people that hard up for vindication and validation that they really need a pseudo-Hallmark day of recognition? [Mark my words, if there aren’t already $5 greeting cards for World Goth Day, it’s only a matter of time…]
And for what? Because you like to wear black and listen to dark music?
Wait a sec, goth music isn’t even dark any more, there’s no new Bauhaus or the Cure, it’s synth pop from people who can’t write strong enough hooks to have a shot in the mainstream pop market [side note: accidentally wrote “poop market” initially, and frankly that’s an apt description of both the synthpop and mainstream Top 40 pop markets. Freudian slip.]. Of course, the industrial scene is all EBM club disco too, but for some reason that annoys me less. I even enjoy some of it.
I suppose I’m reading too much into it, but World Goth Day reminds me of how earlier this year the Manchester cops decided to add “alternative subcultures” including goth to the officially sanctioned victim list. In other words, you make fun of goths or beat the snot out of them in Manchester, you’re committing a hate crime.
Now, I tend to hold a similar opinion of hate crime legislation to that expressed in the old South Park episode, “Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000,” which is to say the motivation for a given crime should not affect sentencing and it doesn’t matter whether you kill someone because they were fucking your wife or whether you do it because they’re gay or whether you do it because you stand to gain financially, or whether you did it because they were a goth, murder is murder and should carry the same penalty across the board. So there’s that. But what I found disturbing was that some in the goth scene seemed to welcome this new designation of victimhood as though it was some sort of special sanctitude.
And there’s a little of that in the desire for a special day for goths too.
I can’t help but wonder if this sort of undertow is a contributing reason to the ongoing decline in the goth scene in terms of attendance of club nights, shows, etc., along with the usual incestuousness found in every scene where at some point the real outsiders just can’t be bothered to attend anymore.
But hey, have fun and pat yourselves on the back for being special and different just like everyone else.
Me, I’ve got shit to do and demands for unwarranted airplay to ignore.
