I'm sure we've had a thread like this before...

[Camby Savelle]

How do YOU define gothic?

I know some of you will probably post answers such as "I'm not gothic, I'm just me". Wich is okay, but this thread is intended to be more on a large scale rather than reflection of self. So to say how would you indentify someone else as gothic.

[Kidthorazine]

an appreciation and liking of goth music to me is the most important thing (i define gothic music as old school goth (Bauhaus, SoM etc) and deathrock both old and current. Everything else is pretty much secondary.

[Lady Alias]

You gotta like yougurt. First and foremost, end of discussion.

[the_darkness_calls]

ooo, yogurt! haha, but really, for me it's about the music mostly. But that doesn't stop other people from categorizing based on look (yes, i do wear black all the time)

[Morning Glory]

You gotta like yougurt. First and foremost, end of discussion.

do you mean the guy from Spaceballs?

[Black Spiral Dancer]

do you mean the guy from Spaceballs?

Use the Schwartz!

I define Goth as a music genre that evolved from Punk, New Wave and New Romantic. Thus, many bands can be considered to be goth even if they don't realise it. Adam Ant was a Punk that went onto New Romantic, but you can still find his music being danced to in Goth clubs. Siouxie & the Banshees the Damned were punk, but again you'll find them played at Goth Clubs. One thing the music genre has in common is that the general themes of the songs have a darker edge to them. To be honest, I consider early U2 to be quite Goth, as well as SoM, Bauhaus, The Cure, Alien Sex Fiend. Some newer bands have taken up the Mantel of the traditonal goth genre. In the UK, Killing Miranda, in the US, The Cruxshadows.
But now, the genre has become split into different sub-genres. You have your Cyber-Goths (though in the UK, they deny any connection to the Traditional Goths, I know some Trad Goths that converted to Cyber-) Trad-Goth (People that still believe that the old school is the way to go) Punk-Goth (The ones going even further back to Goth's Angrier roots) Industrial-Goth (The people that like songs that sound a tad "military")
Example Bands

• Trad Goth - Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, The Cure, The Cruxshadows
• CyberGoth - Cybertech Project, Children on Stun, Front 242, AFI
• PunkGoth - Alien Sex Fiend, New Model Army, Action Directe, Lords of the New Church
• IndustrialGoth - Rammstien, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, White Zombie

These are just some examples, and obviously not and exhaustive list. Feel free to add any that you feel should be added. It would be interesting to see if people agree with my choices.

[CherryCola]

to be honest i dont i may say to my friend "oh very goth" or "check out the goth ass on that"
but when it comes to labeling things i find it can nearly always end up in a argument so i dont I might say "gothic style" or something to describe when im being serious...which is rare,,,, when it comes to fashion though i guess i do lable.

[Mr Karl]

I think it's some sort of fashion statement

[Bondage Clown]

Dark, But Romantic, with a bit of psychosis, and general disdain for the Sheep of Society

[Lady Alias]

Heh heh, completely unrelated, but I remember crying out "Cattle, cattle," to the mass of an innumerable amount of students who ran to the source of two pre-pubescent kids hitting each other when I was in high school. Which was...frighteningly frequent.
/scratches in Assemblages 23 and Covenant in BSD's list
By AFI...are you referencing to that one band...yeah, that's specific. I think it stands for A Fire Inside. Cause that didn't make sense to me.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

By AFI...are you referencing to that one band...yeah, that's specific. I think it stands for A Fire Inside. Cause that didn't make sense to me.

AFI is a band from the UK, As far as I know, it doesn't stand for anything.

[CherryCola]

AFI is for A Fire Inside im pretty sure of it

[Camby Savelle]

AFI is from the eastbay of california, not the UK. It does stand for A Fire Inside. It used to stand for something else but was changed with the addition of Jade Puget to the band.

[the_darkness_calls]

I looooooove AFI (the US one), though I wouldn't consider them "goth" per se, and certainly not cyber- anything.... must be a band called that in the UK too?

And I'm pretty sure AFI has always stood for A Fire Inside, but they've made up other stuff over the years for different things (example: for fan mail, they used to use Asking For It). Ah, i digress.

[inox]

I don't like music for its own sake; I like it for how it makes me feel, what it makes me think about, etc.

Similarly, I think goth isn't as much about the music as it is about certain mindsets that make the canonical "scene" music (and aesthetics in general) palatable.

It is left as an exercise for the reader to identify that mindset.

[Camby Savelle]

Asking For It.

That's what I thought it used to stand for. Ask For It

[RAGE]

I dont define anyone as "Gothic".

If they're a heavy fan of Goth rock bands than I'd concider them Goth, Not gothic.

If they wear alternative styles I'll concider them Alternative.

If they dress like a wack job in half-ass loli and rave about Japanese bands they know shit about, they're Otaku dolls.

If they wear honest to god well done Japanese styles, I'll associate them to that fashion and/or line. And probably beat the ever living shit out of them and steal their clothes if its an imported brand of preference... Like H. Naoto... *drools*

If they sit in the mall writing shit-poetry I'd call them a mall-goth.

If they wear corsetry, gowns or enjoy tragic-romantic themes, I think Neo-Romanitc.

*shrugs*
Alternative sub-cultures, styles, life-styles and what not is such a wide area. I personally identify them with what their primary interests, styles and music genres associate them to.