#gothisgoth

[thatonebabybat]

Hey btw idk who lied to some of yall but just to be totally clear you absolutely do not need to be pale or do pale makeup to be goth. You also don't need to be thin or young. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is just some bigot and they're not part of my subculture.

You don't need clear skin. You don't need to be white. You don't need to be pale. You don't need to fade your freckles. You don't need an hourglass figure. You don't need expensive clothing. You don't need to hide your wrinkles. You don't need to lose weight. You don't need to conform to some set of gender roles. You don't need to be able-bodied. You don't need to dress up all macabre and elaborate every single day and put tons of effort into your appearance or wear anything that causes you discomfort.

You don't need to act a certain way, you don't need to look a certain way.

Just listen to the music and follow your heart from there and you're in the club, it really is that simple.

[thatonebabybat]

Okay. Long rant ahead, but... I'm bothered by those ppl who use "SaYiNG GoTH IS A MUsIc SuBCULtUrE IS ABLEISt BC DEaF PeOpLE CaN'T LIStEN TO It--" as a reason for why they think they can call it an aesthetic or a fashion style. Like.

1. Blind people can't see aesthetics so what are you getting at here exactly?? Is liking aesthetics bad because some people can't see them? Your own logic is working against you here tbh..

2. The people saying this generally aren't deaf and therefore probably shouldn't be speaking for the deaf community. (I don't intend to either, so if you're deaf and reading this and there's something you'd like for me to correct or work on, please feel free.)

3. I'm sure most goths would be chill w a deaf person hanging out w them as long as they understand the history and are participating in the community in some meaningful way. Like, they might not be able to hear the music, but they may still be able to read/appreciate the written lyrics, or maybe they can't hear the music but they still enjoy clubbing and like participating in goth nights… And there are still deaf music artists so that's always an option too- Plus, some deaf people can still like music on occasion bc hearing aids have gotten really advanced, so to lump them all together as being completely unable to enjoy it at all is strange… There's a lot of ways a deaf person could still be able to chill in a music subculture. I don't think anyone is intentionally excluding deaf people from the scene. I would like to think most people would be understanding in that specific scenario.

..Doesn't explain why an able-bodied person with access to as much music as they could ever possibly want through the internet gets to totally ignore it though. I think it says a lot that these people are aware of their privilege to be able to listen to music and participate in the community in that way, but instead decide to use disabled people as a shield for why they shouldn't have to put in even a tiny bit of effort before claiming a 40+ year old subculture for themselves. They don't actually care about making goth more accessible, if they did they'd be subtitling music videos, or posting the lyrics and translations of goth songs to lyric sites, or making more efforts to make goth events more comfortable for disabled people… But no. It's just about them.

4. Even if someone decided being goth wasn't for them because they were deaf and couldn't hear the music, no one is saying you're a lesser person or "bad" somehow for not being a goth. Like. Deaf people can be goth. But becoming a goth isn't a requirement. If it's not your thing it's not your thing, but it does mean a lot to the people who have been in the subculture for a long time. If you like the fashion and not the music, just use another word for it (alt/darkalt is a personal favorite of mine, but there's other tags you can use too) and call it a day, no one's judging you for that. It's not like people who don't like goth music can't express themselves with fashion or moodboards, I'm fine with that. I like doing that myself. Just don't call it goth if it doesn't have anything to do with goth music. Don't flood a music tag with completely unrelated content. It's rlly not that hard. Idk why people get so hung up on NEEDING to use this one word for things that have nothing to do with that word. It's absurd the lengths people will go just to take over someone else's label when it's totally unnecessary.

I'd love to hear thoughts from the actual disabled community on the topic though. What do you think goths could do to make the space more accessible? How do you feel about these kinds of arguments?? I'd like to get to know more about the subject.