The Beginning Of The Gothic Subculture
Any informed source will tell you that the Gothic subculture, the glamour of it all, the bangles, and fishnets, the eyeliner, began in the late 1980’s during America’s biggest fashion crisis. Some people say that Stevie Nicks was the original goth girl, with her sometimes Renaissance style clothing, and flowing attire. Others, attribute the first goth status to Johnny Cash, dubbed, The Man In Black. The film biography, Walk The Line, depicted Johnny Cash as an outlandish, and zealous man with a dark personal outlook, that very much coincide with the gothic culture of the present.
Whomever started the Goth look, it did have its first widespread trend in the United Kingdom, in the early 80’s after the punk scene had slowly begun to fade out. But the gothic subculture has maintained, and survived, as a still popular trend, unlike many other fads of the same era, and still continues to change, and produce followers. The style, imagery, and cultural proclivities imply a good deal of nineteenth century Gothic literature. Gothic literature, or gothic fiction, is a genre of fiction that combines the elements of both romance, and horror. Despite the confusion between emo and Gothic subculture, the two cultural movements are often very well able to tell one another apart; whereas emo trends revolve around mainly music, Gothic trend, fashion, beliefs, are a more complex structure.
Gothic ideology is mainly an anti-conformity movement; society as a whole prefers the world of the living, Goth interests focus on the macabre. Where bright colors and tan skin are preferred, or at least were in the Western world, Goths prefer black hair, clothing, and pale skin. There are other dissimilarities, such as the youthful trend of showing a lot of skin, whereas Gothic females flaunt their sexuality, but most usually maintain a style of dress that while flattering their sexual form, also keeps it concealed. Other deviations from the norm are also cultural tendencies towards the S/M lifestyle, although it is not a major influence in life, so much as a proclivity for the S/M fashions of leather, collars, and piercings.