Right the question of sarging sub-cultures is one that has crept up now and again, I thought it was time to pitch in.

Some of you may know that I am a goth, and hold connections within that sub-culture, which in turn has lead to meetings with emo's and punks.

However my main experience comes from the goth community, I have met and spent time punks and emo's but my knowledge of the sub-cultures of punk and emo's is limited. I do ask for people to submit their experiences HOWEVER, take note of the above paragraph, meeting and speaking to a member of a sub-culture is not the same as having experience IN the sub-culture.

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Now it's easy to submit an opinion of, "they are just women, sarge em" but on reflection that is misleading.

Sub-cultures tend to have their own social norms, this changes the rules of interaction, I'll explain,


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Thier is contempt, fear and misunderstanding surrounding sub-cultures. And this is built in the same way racism is built. It's two seperate cultures which rarely if ever touch, as a reslt a cerain tribalism builds. Alternatives tend to be the outnumbered and as such become the out-group.

And this breeds ostrisisation, which inevitably leads to smearing.


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Now I'm going to flick this to show how goth sub-culture has developed.

Put simply goths are used to being the out group, by social norms they are aware that they are the "them" not the "us". The sub-culture has a result tended to adopt a certain clannishness, which means inter-acting with those you don't know on a deep level is seen as abnormal.

An example would be if I see a goth friend of mine and I approach him and we can be smiling and laughing, shaking hands, hugging whatever but that doesn't mean I will get anything more than a second glance from the people he is with, unless two things happen, A: I am in goth gear, or non "preppy" clothes, B: I am FORMALLY introduced to them.

Some goth girls will not respond well to cold approaches from your "Hello" magazine guy. They will feel uncomfortable as they are used to viewing these people from a distance.

That's about all I can really say on the specefics of "goth interaction", but I may aswell forewarn you about some misconceptions.

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1. Goths are deppressive/ they are KNOWN for being positive and happy, in fact the origonal name for the goths was "possy punks".

2. Goths listen to metal/ Nope, their is cross pollination between the genres of metal and goth, but goth rock and goth metal are different genre's to heavy metal, in fact one of the most popular genre's of music in the goth scene is techno, which surprises alot of people.

3. Goths are clones/ Clothing wise it could be argued so, but the goth "theory" was kept deliberatly vague to allow for individualisation which is a huge thing in the goth sub-culture.

4. Goths are anti-social/ They are social, simply their culture is quite tightly knit.

5. Goths hang around town all day/ Some do, and they tend to be the minority, within all of the sub-cultures, rebellion is an inadverted theme, so you will meet people who take about a sub-culture for rebellion purposes, but most of those types do not stay in the sub-culture for long.

You will with a bit of looking within the culture begin to meet alternatives that tend to have really complex and busy lives, and trust me, those girls are worth finding, they are incredible people.


6. Goths are clannish/ Not all goths are clannish.
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Punks, with a background based on anti-consumerism, anti-establishment, anti-pop-culture, will give you a rough ride once again if your dressed for a fashion shoot.

They tend to respect people who "live on the edge" so to mix in "a rock n roll" attitude and general carelessness of consequences is essential.

Anyone want to add to this?

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Emo, is essentially an offshoot of goth, and it's dieing quite fast now, unless something is done to rejuvinate it, it won't be long before it's dead.

I only really got a grasp of the ideology about 2 months ago, and I have no experience with emo specefic sub-culture so again..

..anyone?


Submit your thoughts and it will be edited in to the main post, you will be credited!

dont take this the wrong way because im not trying to be "racist"? but most goths ive met have things wrong with them like there parents died and now there oraphaned and really depressed and because of that they become outcasts then become a goth. this may be very steryotypical of me however this view seems to put me off gaming goth girls becuase of there unstable emotions and personalitys, i seem to find the ones that are hyper all the time and wear colourfull clothes attractive (might be emo, i cant tell the diffrence). i thought i would just share my opinion on the subject. i think your right about cold approaches being harder on goth girls they seem more closed off from people.

p.s. goths dont exsist in my part of the country so much its more emo dominant

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I'm going to be a complete moron here - I just can't respect people who dress and act so freakin 'weird'. What you stereotype as 'emo's' and 'punks' or whatever, that is often merely an expression of oneself, which I'm cool with and is usually very interesting. But dressing dark and acting morose to me is just fucking messed up. Well, it's not messed up - it's just immature. They're probably very interesting and nice people on the inside. Further to the above poster, if they're sad or insecure about life events, then they should get a grip and look at the billion people in the world living in absolute poverty. Grow the fuck up is what I say. I also hate all the labelling (hence the inverted commas) which can only breed prejudice and discrimination. Goths are not this, goths are not that, goths are freakin people, and should be treated as such. (If immature people, I would contend). But hey, I digress.

In retrospect, on the odd occasion I have found myself talking to such a person (why I would do such a thing I have no idea), I treat them the same as I do with other people who live outside social norms, such as disabled people. And that is to treat them normally. Normally doesn't mean overly-respectful, it still means tease them etc. I find this works for me.

The whole, "lets be dark" thing, is alot stronger in americanised societies, it's an attempt to "shock" a very conformist culture.

Rather Ironcially, this ends with the result of them becoming MORE conformist, they've simply swapped one socialising agent with another.

And no, welll actually rafiel, ALL offense to you

You've admitted that you rarely come into contact with goths and then you pass this idea that they are insecure and sad, (rather ironically that's a trademark of emo sub-culture, not goth).

Also, I hope you don't think the whole "think of poverty, get a grip" actually helps the depressed; if you do I hope none of your friends contract depression (naturally having actually experienced three months of it last year I would NEVER wish it on anyone anyway)

Now I've spent roughly three years within that subculture, I've been to the gigs, I've debated it's philosiphy, I've hung out in gothdoms been to "graves", the fucking lot.

I have met very little in the way of orphans or those depressed, any one at all who has spent time with them can tell you that goths are far more perky than your average person.

Now yes you treat them normally the whole point of the post is to get used to sub-culture norms, we're not treating them as "different" simply pointing out that the socialising enviroment has a couple of different rules.

You also rambled about people who dress so "freakin wierd", most goths don't dress "freakin wierd", unless they are heading to a "grave" (Goth rave, G-rave, Grave; should point out that rave origonally came from goth before it became a dance thing). I haven't worn black for almost a week now.

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Obviously I will have to address the next point in detail, I personally thought the whole goth fad was over, and it was just the "true" sub-culture that survived.

Put it in GLBT terms, their are kids out their who use "gay" to rebel, understand that these people may do everything in their power to look the part and act it, but they move on.

The VAST majority of most sub-cultures precicely becuase of attitudes such as rafiel's attract those who want to be oggled at, and seen as "creepy" or "wierd" now they do give the subculture a bad rep. But these people tend to pass through it.

I can't speak much for american society becuase in the u.k. alot of sub-culture groups tend to dissapate after they grow up and realise they are just doing it for attention.

American society is ALOT more conformist Identification type conformity tending to be the most common within american sub-cultures.

punks, emo's, goths and metalheads are 4 different type of groups with specified music.
I know not everyone listens to 1 style only, but the clothing is different and sometimes the behavior.

A couple of years ago, I often went to a metal bar with lots of goths and metalheads. Not so much emo's around (luckily). Compared to the places i go now, I now have more interactions with ppl. They arent anti-social, but they dont want that much interaction with "strangers".

Reason why I changed:
1. finished school and started to work
2. tired of always the same ppl and the same topics to talk about
3. I listen to more different music styles

The kids who used to become goths to become "popular" are now turned into emo

I had some contact with some emo girls, but they were always complaining, almost never happy. Really depressing to hang out with them.

I hope that this emo culture is over quick, but i doubt it...


@olie:
I think your opinion about goths is narrowminded and generalized

100% true

btw whats a reo?

im about to head out so i cant type much but what everyone calls emo is really scene if you guys are describing people by how they look/dress. emo is actually a music genre but i guess you could call all those depressed kids emo but at my old school where a large population was scene they were all normal happy people but they just were called emo/scene because that was how they dressed. i can only think of one that was actually depressed and i wouldnt even call her emo.

Thanks for trying to break of some of the stereotypes. Have you seen the South Park episode when Butters when vampire/goth? Pretty funny.

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Giovanni

For clarification saint jimmy, "reo" I meant rafiel gamble... ahh shit!

Anyway, from what I gather, scene, is just a stramache of pop culture and emo.

From what I've experienced most emo's or goth or punks for that matter who spend alot of time talking about how depressed they are.

Tend to be the ones in it for attention.

Ha ha, this is a very strange comment to make in a forum full of peacocked PUAs... Well we dont all peacock but it is still quite ironic.

^^Haha, yeah, it is pretty strange. I think Fin might inform you that peacocking only during picking up girls is worlds away from dressing in a gothic manner most of the time.

Fin, your comments were interesting. That’s cool.

Define dressing in a gothic manner for me?

I think you have goth style confused with "gothing up".

Well, people can wear whatever they want to wear. Maybe they wanna make a statement, maybe they just like it. People think that I am peacocking even when I am not.

The clothes you wear does not tell anyone who you really are.

Haha. Why would I want to do that.
I think I don't care.

Chill out man. You're a cool dude. If you want an argument I'm far too lazy to provide one (unless you bring my ex into it, what a bitch).

Aaaaaaand in the first corner We have Rrrrrrrrafiel Gamble! Get rrrrready to AMOG!

1. Becuase your idea of goth fashion is clearly affecting your perception of them.

2. Wow your ill-formed and you don't care, Congrats on that one.

3. I don't want to argue, becuase frankly you are not in a position to argue.

I'm calling you on your opinion, so you stop making assumptions about something you clearly know nothing about. It frankly pissed me off to write a whole thread paying specefic attention to mis-conceptions and how they arise, only for you to trundle in and talk out of your ill informed arse. By getting goth and emo mixed up, then thinking punk is an expression of indiiduality, forgetting completely that's it's a POLITICAL sub-culture, which has fuck all to do with individuality.

/rant

AHHHHH SWWWEEET CAATTTHHARRRSSIISSSS!!!!