lullabycurses

[lullabycurses]

E-Gothic Conformity: The Horror of the Algorithm (Part ??/??)

(x)

Hey Ghouls! Been a While!

Today I'm going to talk about something I've been telling my friends about (though with no nuance, so they always look at my like I've got three heads! Arguably not a bad thing...) for probably the last year. That is... This new, almost obsessive behavior... with conformity. I've mostly seen this on "The Tiktoks" and "The Reels", so this is totally connected with structurally oppressive preferences of the Algorithm.

This may need to be in two parts; Here I know I want to write a big regretfulesc love letter to my community, which even though I adore... I cannot help but feel afraid for the future. I also don't feel like finding sources this time

TW for mentions of ED and Racism

It's no secret that the algorithm pushes videos with thin white people who (seemingly!) overconsume off of websites like Dolls Kill and Shein, or even sites like Depop. There's obviously nothing to feel guilty about with buying things that you need (I've covered this in a past post).

But, I worry about the future of the community. I've seen baby bats ask if they are still goth if they don't wear a white face, I've seen creators tight-lace their corsets so tightly that they could receive bodily damage. I worry about those who develop eating disorders to fit this standard. I also worry about those who believe they have to hide their skin color to be apart of our extremely diverse community. I worry about people who feel that they need to buy into this mass amount of overconsumption to feel "goth enough".

The truth is, this is an arts-based subculture- you can do anything you want with it. It is necessary that we keep our fondness of Life as a cycle, all aspects of death are within that. Within life there is death and within that, there is death, in an endless cycle. But IMO it's more of a prompt than anything, Goth is The People.

But enough of that talk, I mean, I have a whole post (which I should probably update as new information comes to light) about it!

I think that a lot of this prioritizing looking as thin and as pale as possible is really dangerous. I know that it's under this guise of looking "dead, sickly, or ghoulish", but that's honestly such bull. We can look at gothic artist Tim Burton's reasons for his exclusion within his "aesthetic".

Not to mention this criticizing article on Wednesday! (From the Independent)

So, "Get on with it!" I hear you say.

Alright, alright. What does this mean for the future of the goth community? I mean, the culture of each social media garbage app is entirely different. Tiktok is kind of a deep pit that I avoid like the plague for how addictive it is (only for myself to replace it with reels). Instagram reels is honestly the place i have the most beef with.

There's this huge uptick in people minimizing what goth is (some of these people aren't even goths!).

They're the ones who are lowkey hierarchal assholes who think that Trad goth is the only form of gothic expression. (Like these dudes haven't read any gothic literature, written any annoying poetry, contemplated religion, spoken to a goth, or even been to a cemetery!)

So, TLDR, if we are not anti-white supremacist about this whole thing, we could see the next generation fall into consumerist patterns favoring whiteness over the beauty of gothic art.

As always, Thanks for reading!

Let me know if I'm missing anything, or if I should spend more time researching this topic!

Song recommendation; I have been obsessing over this band recently! Genre is like darkwave-alternative rock I suppose.

-Cat (Catofthenine)