the.com/goth
the unbothered art of dressing for your own funeral and looking incredible
means a subculture (and its devotees) built around dark aesthetics, melancholic music, and black clothing — though the word also stretches back to the ancient Germanic tribe and a style of medieval architecture.
from From the Goths, a Germanic people who helped topple the Western Roman Empire. Renaissance Italians later sneered the word "Gothic" at the pointed, shadowy medieval architecture they found barbaric — naming a beauty they meant as an insult. That dark, brooding flavor carried into Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries (crumbling castles, dread, romance), and by the late 1970s and early '80s music critics borrowed "gothic" to describe the moody post-punk sound — and the black-clad scene that grew around it took the name as its own.
- origin
- Named after Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD
- architecture
- Cathedrals were called goth as a medieval insult
- music birth
- Coined in 1979 to describe Joy Division
- science
- Goths show no higher depression risk than average
- durability
- Subculture outlived punk, disco, and grunge combined
bauhaus — german band formed 1978, pioneers of goth rock with peter murphy's haunting vocals
the sisters of mercy — british band formed 1980, defined goth sound with 'temple of love' and industrial aesthetic
siouxsie and the banshees — british post-punk band formed 1976, siouxsie sioux became goth icon with dark theatrical style
depeche mode — english synth-pop band formed 1980, influenced goth culture with dark themes and electronic sound