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:

I wandered past a nasty pub today. It annoyed me, as it always does, because it's called 'The Moon Under the Water', which is the name Orwell gave his imagined perfect pub in one of his essays (I'm a lazy man and can't be bothered to find the reference for one reader). It isn't the perfect pub, it's a run-down Wetherspoon's. I wouldn't begrudge this theft if the chain made the effort to follow GO's prescription, but it's horrible, although the beer is very good. 

Anyway, outside this pub was a smoking Goth. Or rather, a Goth, smoking. I like Goths, having lived with some gentle, vegetarian Goths in Bangor. This one annoyed me because smoking was clearly a part of his rebellious image. I know Goths have, like all subcultures as Hebdige pointed out, been appropriated and diluted for marketing purposes, but they think they're rebellious. I wanted to point out that in a corporate world, smoking is the ultimate act of non-rebellion. Sure, governments tell us not to smoke, but they're far less important than corporations as far as our daily lives go. Governments should be far more intrusive but they've been captured by corporate interests. Deliberately shortening your life and reducing your physical strength (and financial power) by smoking just make you a slave. I have more respect for kerb-crawlers: at least both sides are getting something out of that transaction.