The Facebook page Goth Memes was created in 2014 and in the 8 years that it has been posting memes, it has gathered a following of about 200k people. The page doesn’t bombard you with several memes a day, but there are quite regular posts because it is the quality that counts and not the quantity.
When Bored Panda reached out to the creator of the page, they explained how it started, "The page was a collaboration between two like-minded individuals who both felt that the gothic community needed a platform that focused solely on the humorous aspects of being goth. While there are many great pages that showcase the music, art, literature and fashion attached to gothic culture, there weren't many that showed the humorous side, so we created a page just for that."
As the likes and the comments under the posts show, people enjoy the memes quite a lot, but at the start it was a bit different than it is now. The creator shared how the page evolved, "When the page first started out, it was me and my collaborator creating memes mostly in relation to the music or movies in goth culture but with that there wasn't much room for people who were just getting into the goth culture to feel included. Now my main focus is creating or finding content that a wide range of people can relate to and laugh at. And if I happen to help baby bats discover goth music or artists in the process, then that's a bonus."
The followers are the key ingredient that makes the community the way it is and the creator appreciates them deeply, "It's also important for me to note that the page wouldn't be anything without its many followers, a good amount of the memes I post are from people who find and send them to us or create them specifically for the page in hopes that I post them. So a big thanks goes out to them."
The other meaning of the term goth was coined by music critic John Stickney in 1967 when he called The Doors’ rock Gothic rock. The name caught on as the movement actually originates in a music style. In the early 1980s, a branch broke off the post-punk music genre which was called Gothic rock.
The new music genre gained popularity quite quickly and by the mid-1980s, it had already spread in Europe, traveling overseas into clubs in New York and Los Angeles and in the 1990s, when dance music became the dominant style, the goth movement went underground and never really went away.
Because Gothic rock was so popular, it expanded and wasn’t just about music. It was a form of rebellion and it was born from the feeling of being different. That is what makes it so appealing to young people who feel like they don’t fit in.
It is also the aesthetic that many people find attractive, because even though parents like to say that being goth is just a phase, it is actually one of the longest-running subcultures still existing.
The subculture takes inspiration from the Medieval times, Gothic literature, which showed a fascination with dark romanticism, science and the occult. It is also associated with horror movies, vampire cults and various traditional mythology, such as Celtic, Christian and Egyptian.
The creator of the Facebook page shared with us what the Goth subculture means to them as a person and as the administrator of a Goth community, "As a person, and as cliche as this sounds, for me the gothic subculture is a place I feel a sense of belonging. In this subculture you are free to be your unapologetic self and not give a shit what anyone else has to say about it. As a meme page, being a part of the gothic subculture is important in the sense that it opens the gate for people to find community within the gothic subculture. It also allows new people to discover goth culture, and helps others outside the community understand us a little bit more."
Even though what makes goths goths is them being drawn to darkness and the morbid, melancholy and the occult, fashion plays a big role as well as it is the external signal that they belong to the group.
They often are seen wearing black eyeshadow, black clothes and exaggerated silhouettes taking inspiration from the Victorian and Elizabethan periods. American anthropologist Ted Polhemus described the style as a “profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes” in his book Street Style.
But there are some misconceptions about people who belong to the subculture and the creator of Goth Memes page wanted to clear up one that they experienced personally, "I think one of the biggest misconceptions that goths face and that I have personally faced, is that many people believe that goths or alternative people in general are bad people. I've certainly had people assume that I was mean or evil in a sense because of how I dress. And I've seen many others harassed for dressing goth as well. We've seen this across the alternative communities in many forms, from the west Memphis three to Sophie Lancaster. There are many people who have wild assumptions about alternative people that just aren't true. If you look closely, you'll find that many of us are truly kind people who just see the world a little bit differently and find beauty in things where most people wouldn't think to look."
The Goth Memes page isn't just for Goths to come and see their lifestyle represented with humor, but it serves another purpose that is not that obvious, "we have had people message us to ask questions about goth culture because their child or someone they know, is starting to dress 'weird' and listening to rock music or asking about getting their hair dyed or face pieced and they're worried that they're getting into something evil. And every time I get those messages I'm thankful that those people are out there taking the steps to try and understand what our culture is really about instead of continuing the long tradition of fear and hatred."
Do you relate to any of these memes? What do you think is the biggest misconception about goths? Are there any other important aspects of the goth subculture that the memes didn’t represent? Let us know in the comments!
