Goth, what have ye become?

Fifteenish years ago, when I was a wee lad, it was just becoming cool to be goth (or maybe it had been cool for ages and I was at last aware of it, but whatever). I had friends who were goth, and I even owned a few goth-ish clothing accessories, like black tights (which are surprisingly warm and comfy). It was fun, even though I was never really into The Cure or emo or punk rock or whatever it is gothers (gothites? gothophiles? people who are goth?) listen to. I was also much darker than all the goth people, who, in my shadow, were mere emotional posers. I was goth on the inside.

But anyway, goth has been good for some things. It helped push BDSM into the mainstream, and it brought us pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar dressed like a leather-clad vixen. In high school, goth let you know which side of the cafeteria you'd be welcomed on. Yes, goth has had a good run; goth has given us many things to be thankful for.

Now it is time for goth to die.

For serious.

Get the fuck rid of it already.

The Internet has killed goth. Or maybe goth killed itself, as subcultures tend to do once they become unconsciously self-parodying, which is what goth now is. Click over to goth.com and you'll see what I mean.

First, that's a cute goth girl on the main page. You have to compensate for the fact that some photoshop lackey blew-out the contrast, making her features a bit flat, and he then tweaked the color curves a few degrees the wrong way, giving her a yellow-green pallor. But she has the look of someone who, you know, might actually get some exercise. And she's blemish free, which means, if she is vegan (as so many gothfolk seem to be), she at least knows how to get enough protein in her diet. Pretty amazing. Unfortunately, 90-percent of goth girls are nowhere near that cute. They tend to be anti-cute, which isn't the same as ugly, but more like at deliberate odds with being attractive. Which I guess is the whole point of being goth. Or something. My point though, is, when a subculture of people who seemingly cultivate unattractiveness are marketed to with cute models, there's a good chance things have gone astray.

Second, the quote at the top of the page ("Who cares what you think?") is the embodiment of the age-old King Missile lyric, "I want to be different, like everybody else I want to be like." This isn't a new phenomenon -- being different just like all your friends is something that's defined every teen generation since the '60s. But there are now goth kids in cellphone commercials, and on teh Interwebs, "goth" is now code among the non-goth for "I'm so fucking ironically cool because I'm ironically aware of being emotionally impenetrable."

Goth has become a joke, and every time I see a goth teen on the street, in the mall, peering out the window of a passing school bus, I can only feel sorry for him. Not because he is so miserable that he feels compelled to dress up like a black and white Joker, but because he's letting his misery turn him into an absolute dork, and that's just too sad for words.