Conversation:

Vivaldi was a dude. Classical composer from the *mumbles* century. Pax hominibus should be the goth anthem!

cool. Have you heard Darklore manor by "Nox Arcana"

No but I'll have a look on Napstar in a bit...

cool. i'm confused are you the same person who sent me the sup homie thing? xxx

I am. But I don't always talk like a black ghetto gangsta.

good. lol. nah one of my mates is an Texan goth and he speaks like that alot. xxxx

Do they backcomb their hair?

well this guy doesn't.

I tried to backcomb my hair but it wouldn't stay. even after using several cans of hairspray! lol. xxx

Use gel or wax. Although, vanity IS more important than the ozone layer.

Being a goth is a state of mind, rather than what music you listen to, though by that form, your state of mind dictates what you like in music, art etc.... though i do believe you must percieve what is "taboo" in a diferent light, death, destruction, and the like, all have a beauty to themselvs that is uncomparable, even in this day and age.
i only considerd myself to be a goth recently, though I still don't think I live up to all my own preconceptions and opinions of this group. I do not have suficient self esteem.

"Being a goth is a state of mind, rather than what music you listen to"

I disagree, partially at any rate. If goth were soley a state of mind then there wouldn't be a perky/mopey polarisation. However, I do agree with the beauty, life, death etc statements. They are major parts of the trend, though it cannot be universally characterised by one of these instances. I think the literature and the architecture are the only sections which can be undeniably definate. And inspired by music, art, literature, philosophy, life and death, existentialism/ romantacism/ metaphysics you begin to think in a gothic way. So it kinda goes full circle.

But hey, you shouldn't be stereotyping anyway!

no i shouldn't it's true, but one cannot realy think about groups of people without stereo-typeing. But sill i apologise. and i do agree, to be a goth you do need the ability to think, and the love of thinking, coupled with an enjoyment of some of the darker sides of art/humanity. In my physics classes there are a number who are, at least to some extent goths, not all of them wear black, all of them think, and not all of them listen to the same music.

Myself, I've only got three classes of music: music I like, music I don't like, and "music" that's a travesty and whose perpetrators need to be tied to the core vessel of a fission reactor.

That said, where would you lot put bands like The Cruxshadows, Seraphim Shock, and Bella Morte?

In category four. Music I havent heard but will maybe someday, should I get around to it. Right now I'm happy with Chrisitan Death and a glass of absinthe.

Oh FFS... Goth is not "a state of mind", it's a genre of music...

I can see where the person who came up with this was coming from, I think they were trying to say that listening to goth music and wearing goth clothes does not make you a goth, but all to often people quote the phrase to say that "I don't like goth music, and I don't look like a goth, but I have the goth state of mind"
In other words, it's just an excuse for wannabes to call themselves goths when they obviously have no idea what they're on about.

Alot of people like to say that Gothism was born in the 1980's and part of it was, but part of it was not. As much as some goths hate the vampire scene, and I don't know why, the vampire scene was originally the goth scene.

Vampires images are the creation of centuries of mythological concepts about the dead rising from the grave. Bats, old houses, wolves, fog, castles, graveyards, old tombes, all were part of the image, especially after Abram Stoker got ahold of it and largely defined vampirism in the 1890's. His book became so popular it never went out of print. In the 1930's Bela Lugosi gave the vampire it's image of black capes, bats, castle, etc, and that definition stuck. the vampire is the ultimate creature of the night, powerful, rejected and hated, but lurking in the shadows noto to be messed with.

Real coffin dwellers don't exist among the dead, but people who's natural taste inclines them to live in candle lit houses and have fixations with the trappings consider themselves vampires. The imagery fills alot of the goth culture through victorian and vampire goths who frequent the clubs and are basicly the same people.

We also have very different taste from mainstream. Personally, me and my friends live in both the regular goth world and the vampire world. It's home, it's us. We consider ourselves part of a very old culture.

Goth is actually very old, has many different parts like the 1980's crowd and has it's won beauty. It is the most misunderstood subculture there is.

"Do not fear me.... everyone fears me"....................