And black clothes. And the eyeliner or whatever. I don’t know from makeup. And comically pale skin. Looks reasonably goth-y to me. Or at least some kind of scene type thing? Emo? Again, I don’t know from subcultures.
As someone who grew up in the Oakland punk scene and was very adjacent to other alt subcultures (including goth, emo, and later, scene), her look is none of those things. That's also true of most OF "goth/alt" girls. It's mostly just costumes from Shein that non-alt women use to commodify and profit off of non-alt dudes' fantasies of what an alt girl might be like.
Now, there are a few exceptions. But if you're not part of any alt scene I'm not sure you'd be able to learn to spot them. But a sort of okay rule of thumb is that if she's got BIG, difficult to hide tattoos that match the aesthetic she's going for, or facial piercings that are not a septum ring (easy to hide), or like, a very alt haircut that cannot be a wig like a skullet or chelsea cut or something like that, basically anything that means she's really committed to the look, there's a better chance that she really is into the culture.
But makeup and a black wig is, you know, not that.
If that's what you took from that, you desperately need to work on your reading comprehension. I'm gonna choose to believe that you're not actually this stupid, just engaging in some bad faith tomfoolery. That's way less embarrassing for you than someone taking this question seriously would be, so really I'm doing you a favor by ignoring it.
That’s not what makes a goth. It’s about the music. Unless she listens to gothic rock or darkwave she isn’t part of the subculture. Gatekeeping is necessary because of crap like this. I’ve been in the goth scene for 26 years and it’s still a thriving subculture, but people like this have nothing to do with it.
The goth subculture predates either of those music genres coming into the popular consciousness. You could make the argument that a big part of goth culture is musical but you can’t narrow it down like that.
The goth subculture doesn't predate goth rock. They are one and the same in origin. It's expanded to include more than just music, sure. But it's absolutely a music based subculture.
It’s really not though, is it? A person can identify as someone in the goth community or culture without needing to be someone who’s into the exact same subculture and criteria as you, they can be just dipping their toes in or just like the aesthetic. It’s okay, it costs you nothing. Nobody is going to force you to associate with those people.
•
u/gr1mmcr33p3r 15h ago
*Hotel Transylvania cosplayer Pinkchyu.
There, I fixed it