DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

Goth : 1. A subculture of ancient Earth which grew out of the Punk Rock subculture of the early 1980’s in Northern Europe and English-speaking countries. England and Germany were the two cultural focii of this subculture. Its members were diverse but were characterized by their extreme dislike of being defined as possessing any similar characteristics (and they would hate any attempt at a definition here in the Guide, but since they’re mostly unhappy anyway… this will give them one more reason to be depressed).

The Goth subculture unashamedly celebrated the dark recesses of the human psyche. A fascination with medieval, Victorian and Edwardian history, music, and literature. Dark sensuality, sweeping sadness, morbid fascination, forbidden love, the beauty of enduring pain, the moribund fascination with cemetaries, excessive Romanticism… They also tended to spout a lot of fishnet (more usually on the arms for men) and had a distinctive style of makeup, with very white faces and lots of black eyeliner (for both men and women). Hair was usually dyed black, crimped and backcombed. Picture a room full of morose people dressed in black with white face paint, and you can’t help but laugh… it was a self-deflating culture that, on observing such a scene, would have laughed at itself as the Goth subculture delighted in self-parody and in ridiculing itself.

Goth made angst and depression a lifestyle and was adopted mostly by young under-achievers. Marvin the Paranoid Android, if painted black, might have fit right in. “Ohhh… the pain….”

2. The words “Goth” and “Gothic” have had many, largely unrelated meanings throughout Earth history:
- the name of the Germanic Visigoth tribes that overthrew the Roman Empire. From this source arose the concept of a Goth as an uncivilized person, a barbarian.
- a style of architecture in Western Europe which was popular from the 12th to the 16th century.
- a style of horror/mystery literature that is dark, eerie and gloomy.