Gothicisity

I looked up Goths on google and this came up (as expected):

"Goths are likely to grow up to be doctors, lawyers or architects, a study by Sussex University says.

They are refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour. They are also likely to carry on being goths into their adult life.

They have an ability to express their feelings and are believers in romance rather than one-night stands, it says. In fact, the only things dark about them are their clothing and their sarcastic sense of humour."

image and text from: TimesOnline 2007


Searching further back, I find this article from Sussex University, which tells us how Goths are basically middle-class emo kids with a thing for pink hair.

Not so, the website on What is Goth, argues. We are free thinkers who shun the sheep like dogma of the masses - or something. They do, however, agree with Sussex about the sarcastic sense of humour .

And here, at long last (have I lost you yet) we arrive at the reason for my interest in this topic.
But first, hang on a bit longer, we have to go back in time a bit; oh, all of 20 years back, I'd say.

And it so happened that one sunny day, I was asked by a newly acquired acquaintance if I saw myself as a Goth.

"'Tis hard to say," I responded with my customary sneer, looking the guy up and down with laconic indifference John Wayne would have been proud of and trying to make my mind up weather to cut him down with one quick sharp witticism or let him stew for a bit first, "what's a Goth?"

To my surprise, he seemed surprised. "Oh. Well, er, are you joking?"

"Nope," I said, quite seriously. "What is it then?"

"Well, you know," the guy hesitated, not quite sure what to make of this now, "people who dress all in black and are all dark and snidey and stuff." And he looked at me pointedly with raised eyebrows.

I looked down at my all black clothes and at my nails covered in black varnish and at the shop window from which my black lips pouted derisively from a seriously scornful pale face.

"I see what you mean." I conceded eventually.

"Well," he persisted, "are you?"

"Nope." I said. "I just like black, the rest is a coincidence."


Two decades later and I'm neither a doctor nor a lawyer; I love wearing vivid colours and have never died my hair pink, not even a tiny bit. My sense of humour has devolved from sarcastic to downright rude and most days it borderlines on heckling.

However, I still have enough garments in my meager wardrobe to dress top to toe black if I so chose. And it's not because it's slimming - coz it isn't. It's because wearing all black is like being permanently wrapped in a gauzy cloud. And underneath this cloud is a barrier, impentetrable to all evils, that clings tightly to your skin. And you walk around knowing that noone else can touch or harm you as long as you wear your black armour.