“Goth.” It has to be put in quotes, doesn’t it? How does anybody get into it? It’s kind of a cousin of heavy metal. I liked Dracula (the classic-looking Dracula) and Batman back when I was 5 years old. They were cool guys. I even drew a self-portrait of myself – featuring fangs – for a kindergarten drawing assignment and the teacher was alarmed saying, “Now, that’s not what you look like… re-do it.” But maybe that’s going back too far? Or maybe not. Batman is still with us because Hollywood keeps cranking out Batman movies and TV shows. I had no idea how many beautiful BABES were in Batman’s Universe until 1992, with the 1-2 punch of the movie Batman Returns and the TV show Batman the Animated Series. Catwoman, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and beyond.
Prior to that, 1988 saw Siouxsie Sioux on MTV with their hit “Peek-a-Boo.” (Didn’t know it at the time, but Sioux’s outfit in that performance was riffing off of Liza Minelli’s look from the 1972 movie Cabaret.)
Being an open-minded metalhead, I bought a couple Sioux & the ‘Shees albums (on cassette). Peepshow, and, Once Upon a Time – The Singles. The latter being a greatest hits album of singles that fall into a “goth punk” category. As I collected more of their albums over time I would learn that their albums had more “artsy” tunes than they did catchy rock ‘n roll tunes.
And I later learned whatever you would call the “history of goth,” and that what we see today was birthed in the late 70’s at about the same time as punk rock. Depends who you talk to and which books you’ve read. I had some Siouxsie books that went over the history of the band, but eventually gave them to my friend Mike in this new decade; the 20’s.
How old was I in 1988? 15. Let’s not forget that 4 years later at age 19 when Batman Returns came out, Siouxsie and the Banshees did an amazingly beautiful song for that movie called Face to Face. The producers knew exactly what they were doing with that movie. I’m more of a Catwoman fan than a Siouxsie fan though, lol.
What other factors were going on in life? Let’s bring up some Freudian armchair psychology for a minute. Hell, maybe it’s Jungian armchair psychology too, because we need to talk about archetypes.
Archetype 1. Back in grade school, and “the prettiest girl in the class.” In Western Civilization, the prettiest girl in the class is always the blonde. Always. Statistically speaking, you will never being “going with” her. (They used to call it “going-with” at my grade school.)
Archetype 2. In Western Civilization, this makes the female underdog the brunette.
Thusly, not only did you and everybody else get rejected by the blonde in grade school, the brunette got rejected by the grade school alpha male. By that we mean that one guy in grade school who was “going with” the blonde.
So by middle school, the typical male mind either learns, or is in the process of learning, to get over the fact that he never got to be with the prettiest girl in grade school. He now “sees” brunettes in his line of sight. Not only that, the brunettes have stepped up their game – because they learned in grade school that if they don’t compete against the blonde girl that got the alpha boy, they’re going to wind up as lonely and bitter old maids.
I can say something like that happened to me. Because when I was 13 apparently God designed me to be brutally crushed by a brunette and it would take me about 6 years before I was able to truly get over it – and I’m not exaggerating there. But even now, if her name was to be mentioned, it has like an “effect” on me let’s say. Maybe it’s like the stamp of the first crush. For example, if you know somebody who was brutally crushed over somebody and you know who that person was – just drop that name of their first crush in a conversation. You’ll see a reaction of some kind.
Off topic, but maybe that’s why we see all these women with colored hair and weird-ass hair designs these days. Ruthless competition by any means necessary? I digress.
So what else happens? Or what happened to me, that is. My early 20’s were their own “mess” involving dropping out of college and various other things beyond the scope of this article. But with respect to the entity of “Goth,” the “Goth thing” was still kind of a weird thing I was curious about, but it was outside of my world. I was playing in bands and living in Tacoma and Seattle for a while and fucking “shazam!” lo and behold there were actual “goth night clubs” in Seattle. I didn’t really know what that meant or even what it was, but I knew I wanted to know. I even saw Siouxsie and the Banshees in concert in Portland in 1995 just before turning 22, but I still didn’t really know what the “goth entity” was. So by about age 23 and 24, 1996 and 1997 respectively, I dabbled in the goth scene in Seattle. No idea what I was doing. I’ll spare you the details. It wasn’t until 1998, age 25, and moving to Los Angeles that I finally got a legitimate clue about what “goth” was.
There was also another personal thing percolating in the background. I didn’t know how to dance. And I knew this would be a problem. And I had tried and failed with different attempts at ballroom dancing in both Portland and Seattle. But we’ll get to the “dance problem” later.
What happened to me in late 1998 was, I met a “gothic princess” (kind of an archetype in the scene), at a club in Hollywood called Bar Sinister. She took a strong liking to me and more or less served as an “ambassador.” I was finally shown the ropes. How to dress, how to put on makeup and eyeliner, and to an extent… how to dance. Though I was nervous and never comfortable with dancing. That was going to take a while. Much can be said about my Hollywood goth experience, but I’ll spare you for now.
Then in 2000, I was living in Denver. Before I continue, I’ll float this out there for you.
#1. I was always a metalhead into thrash metal.
#2. While I liked Siouxsie and the Banhsees, I didn’t really care much about the “goth music” I was being exposed to at goth clubs. By that I mean I wasn’t hearing particular music and then going, “Holy shit! That was awesome! I gotta go buy that album asap!” I’m not saying I didn’t like goth music. Some of it’s pretty good. Another article needs to be written about “goth music,” but real briefly I can tell you that “goth clubs” only play select songs from literally any band, artist, or musician that happens to have at least 1 song from their discography that will fit on a gothic playlist. There are actually very few bands in this world that set out to be “goth.”
Thus,
#3. From a metal and punk point of view, what I disclosed to you with point #2 would qualify me as a poseur or an imposter if I was like that in a metal or punk rock scene. I knew that. I didn’t care. And I kind of thought it was funny. In the back of my mind I always kinda knew I was an “imposter,” lol. Didn’t bother me.
#4. There might be more imposters and poseurs in the “goth scene” than you’d think, simply because the look, the image, and the fashion of goth seemed to take priority over the music. Do you look cool? Do you look hot? If so, nobody gives a shit about what’s in your “record collection.”
So, starting in 2000, Denver is where I suppose you could say I became rooted in goth, and actually qualified (?!) as being an authentic goth dude after a while. Even though, for real, I didn’t care about “being goth.” I was in Denver until 2011. (One thing I can say about it, is I myself, and probably 99% of the Denver “goth scene” didn’t know how good we had it.)
So I need to float this out there for you too…
Men’s “fashions” let’s say, in the 2000’s-ees (the aughts) was bullshit. Remember fucking baggy ass fucking pants? Bowling shirts with flames down the side? That store called “Hot Topic”? I thought it was all pretty wretched. The only look that really seems legit and male/masculine even to this day, is probably like the “Sugar Daddy” look. Like if you show up in 1) black pants that fit, and 2) a black sport coat – you’re doing alright. But guys weren’t doing that. Guys were buying shit from Hot Topic, and, dabbling in crossdressing and making themselves look androgynous. Not androgynous gross, but androgynous hot or maybe shocking. Let’s put it another way, Marilyn Manson stage fashion was a logical extrapolation of 1980’s Motley Crue stage fashion. What’s weird, is I never liked glam metal, and yet, here I was in a scene that was more or less based on the same principles of looks, image, eyeliner, and androgyny.
(I’ll spare you the details for now, but I went with a hot-androgynous look, and in my opinion I think I pulled it off damn well. One of the things I liked about my look was that no other guy looked like me. My look was not duplicated by anyone, and even if a guy tried to duplicate it, he wouldn’t look as good as me. I had too much “experience,” lol. That’s my opinion, anyway. I digress. Since I disclosed that here, we can go a step further and also say that in the “manospherian sense,” this style and image I had would be called part of my “game strategy.”)
There is more to write about! Because, we need to talk about what the Hell the goth scene really was/is. (Lol, I guess goth is still going on, but maybe “was” is better than “is.”) It is gynocentric, matriarchal, loaded with alcoholics, and sometimes people will be on ecstasy or cocaine. (I never did anything outside of alcohol. The few times I tried pot, it made me panicky so I didn’t do pot and still don’t.) There’s reeeeeeally no alpha males in the goth scene. Every male is some kind of orbiter. Orbiting around anywhere from 1 to 10 hot chicks.
At any given club, not just “the goth club,” there’s going to be hot-chicks/hot-pussy, whatever term you prefer. But it’s going to be like a ratio. Also, everybody fits on a 1-10 scale, but we’re going to focus on chicks for this article. By “hot chicks” we’re talking about chicks that are 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s. Out of 100 chicks, your club is doing well if 1 out of 10 is an 8, 9, or 10 on the 1-10 scale. Hot chicks draw legions of men that will orbit them, and while orbiting chicks, these men will consume shit-tons of alcohol and waste years of their lives trying to “figure out chicks,” and that’ll keep a night club’s doors open indefinitely.
So when I say a male is orbiting around 1-10 hot chicks, it really depends on how many hot chicks a night club has. In my opinion, the scene is dwindling if a guy is counting less than 10 hotties. Once it goes below 5, the scene is treading water. There’s been nights when I’ve only counted 1 or 2, and that’s baaaaaaaad. The ratio matters as well. So for example, 10 chicks out of 200 is 5%. So while your club might have 10 hotties, your ratio is getting too low. If it’s too low… the dudes may as well be making friends at a death metal concert.
This is to say, that the goth scene is, and has always been, and always will be about: pussy. If there’s no pussy, or not enough pussy, your club is going downhill or maybe your whole city’s “goth” scene is dying.
Let’s not forget that drinking lowers your sexual market value in terms of looks. (Revisit my first post about glam metallers that are now post-wall for proof.) So a typical male at a goth night is doing 3 things. Orbiting chicks, inadvertently lowering his market value by drinking, and figuring out how to dance. (Some guys just avoid the dance floor altogether. Don’t be like them.)
But what is “orbiting”? Where does it come from? My armchair psychology theory would say it goes all the way back to grade school and “the prettiest girl in class.” It is a relative of pining and yearning. That’s where it’s learned, and then once you know how to do it, you can do it any time you want and nobody is the wiser.
I don’t know how many men do this. I don’t know for how long they do it. I think it is a private sin that only their personal “God” is allowed to know about. I theorize that when a 6 year old boy freaks out when a sibling discovers which girl in school he likes, what that means, is he is hardwired to know that as soon as its discovered he’s been pining and yearning about a particular girl, he will then never ever have that girl. It’s possible that getting older will snap a man out of it. I don’t know what makes a man stop. It’s possible that some men have a pattern of orbiting, pining, and yearning for their entire lives.
I got lucky. I snapped out of pining and yearning. Maybe late, but better late than never. Probably age 35-ish or so. Hard to say. I remember the last-pined-over girl’s name too, of course. Although I snapped out of pining and yearning, I wasn’t completely done with orbiting around a couple of “perfect 10’s.” (The last girl I was pining over was actually an 8.5.) Slamming the brakes on orbiting around a perfect 10 – maybe that’s more difficult because it’s probably deeper in your reptilian-brain subconscious to behave that way. But I quit that somewhere in my 40’s.
Maybe as you get older, you consider your ROI’s a whole lot more. Maybe it’s “first principles thinking” too. Less testosterone is also no doubt a factor. And you’ve killed a lot of money on gin and tonic, and your liver is getting pissed off, you might even have a “gut” or the beginnings of fatty-liver-disease, and you are not one step closer to that hot-goth-betty you’ve been stroking your limbic system to. To that end, pining and yearning qualifies as a kind of a form of masturbation. And it’s just as bad for you as actual masturbation.
How many dudes actually GET the girl they’ve been crushed over, pining over, and yearning for? And by God, was it even worth it? For example… how many of those pairings ended in heart-wrenching break ups, divorce, or even suicide? Obviously, a man can take this “love stuff” too far, but nobody is around to tell him that. Or let’s say there was somebody that told him that – would he listen? What are the chances? A guy really needs good luck on his side – that’s the one eternal principle you can take to the bank.
There is more to write about… lol, and even more details to spare you from.