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Jan. 19th, 2007 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaI guess it's kind of silly that i get frustrated with young goths because they don't respect their elders. We were wearing black lipstick and slamdancing to Bauhaus when they were still watching Sesame Street and now they sport around in $300 vinyl boots and $200 corsets snubbing us and laughing at us. But then, it is a youthful form of rebellion, right? Well, except for the fashion industry and professional modelling and high-profile porn outlets, i guess.
They stole my freakiness from me. You know why ripped fishnets became a staple of goth fashion? Because in the old days (before "goth" was even goth) we didn't have the money to replace them when they ripped. Or, we lived in the Bible Belt where you could only buy fishnets in October. Once they ripped, that was that until next Halloween. Or both.
A lot of the older goths i know are queer and i half-suspect that the mainstreaming of goth was, to some degree, also the misappropriation by the dominant culture of yet another form of cultural dissent from moneyless queers. Think i'm off my rocker? Look at what the word "punk" meant before 1976. Look at where "voguing" came from before Madonna made millions off of it. Look it up.
(Ha, i almost talk as if i was penniless myself. I was never destitute.)
I'm worried for queer youth and young people of color, and particularly young queer people of color, but i know they'll be able to create their own new forms of cultural dissent. They're smarter than you think. It won't look like goth and it won't look like punk and it will be promptly put down by the self-appointed guardians of cultural good-taste, but that's okay because it's not intended for them anyway. Then when they're my age they'll vary between frustration that wealthy straight kids stole their clothing out from under them and large record companies snatched up their most prominent artists, and their memories, and the thought that, okay now, it's time to come up with something else.
They stole my freakiness from me. You know why ripped fishnets became a staple of goth fashion? Because in the old days (before "goth" was even goth) we didn't have the money to replace them when they ripped. Or, we lived in the Bible Belt where you could only buy fishnets in October. Once they ripped, that was that until next Halloween. Or both.
A lot of the older goths i know are queer and i half-suspect that the mainstreaming of goth was, to some degree, also the misappropriation by the dominant culture of yet another form of cultural dissent from moneyless queers. Think i'm off my rocker? Look at what the word "punk" meant before 1976. Look at where "voguing" came from before Madonna made millions off of it. Look it up.
(Ha, i almost talk as if i was penniless myself. I was never destitute.)
I'm worried for queer youth and young people of color, and particularly young queer people of color, but i know they'll be able to create their own new forms of cultural dissent. They're smarter than you think. It won't look like goth and it won't look like punk and it will be promptly put down by the self-appointed guardians of cultural good-taste, but that's okay because it's not intended for them anyway. Then when they're my age they'll vary between frustration that wealthy straight kids stole their clothing out from under them and large record companies snatched up their most prominent artists, and their memories, and the thought that, okay now, it's time to come up with something else.
