Wearing black on the outside…

If you recognise the quote, you'll know what I'm up to this morning. I'm taking a class on a subcultural tour of the notion of identity, starting with Paul Hodkinson's paper on Goths. Are they a substantial enduring subculture or a transient, fluid, postmodern grouping?

I'm both too young and too old to be a Goth - the original Sisters of Mercy/Cure/post-Siouxsie grouping turned up when I was about 6, whereas the new ones didn't appear until my identity was fixed as 'fat reader'. I've a soft spot for a lot of the music - Rosetta Stone, Fields of the Nephilim were a guilty pleasure (what's not to like about cheery Cowboy Goths?) but the dedication required to be True Goth is entirely beyond me.

I recently saw the South Park episode in which the Goth kids were infuriated by the Emo wannabes - exactly what I'll be using the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies approach to discuss this morning.





Here's a prime slice of the Nephilim: