A y2k kinda outfit inspired by an old 00s lolita blogger who I'm not sure many people know of anymore but I'm kind of obsessed with her style, Exquisite Lass.
T-shirt - Peace Now
Skirt - Tunnel Vision
Jacket - Novala Takemoto
Socks - Ebay
Shoes - Antaina
Accessories - Tunnel Vision, vintage, thrifted
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Please "enjoy" this long, rambling, text post about all the toxic parts of being an early 2000s mall goth that's been sitting in my drafts for weeks.
I’m keeping this blog to be nostalgic for the years 1999-2004, but holy shit “mall goth” was such an insult back then, it meant you were a poser who just bought your outfit at Hot Topic.
Listening to Evanescence was a social death sentence and for posers, Emo meant “indie rock” about suicide and breakups, no one had heard of MCR yet and when they eventually did, it was for 14 year old posers. Marilyn Manson was corny and decidedly “not goth”, Blink 182 was for tweens who just discovered Avril Lavigne or for gross frat boys. All pop punk was for tweens and gross frat boys, if you liked them before the genre got big, too bad, but you could say they’re sell outs and you only like their older stuff. Nine Inch Nails wasn’t industrial because it was on the radio. If anyone had heard of an industrial band, they were too mainstream to be industrial. Wumpscut was for try hards trying to prove how industrial they were, some Skinny Puppy was ok, but only their oldest stuff, KMFDM was basically mainstream rock. Kittie was acceptable if you were a girl, all that 90s girl metal was fine actually, but probably only if you were a girl. Korn was for middle schoolers.
“Cringe” wasn’t really a word, but “poser” was, and if you spelled it “poseur”, you were trying too hard and obviously a poser yourself. If you said you hated preps, you were a poser. You were generally allowed to like one or two mainstream pop bands, but it couldn’t be anything current, and you had to be kind of ironic about it.
We used to call goths who we thought were beneath us “gawfs” or “goffiks” (side note: this is why it drives me crazy when people say they think My Immoral isn’t a troll, because saying “goffik” was like a huge “I’m actually a goth, making fun of worse goths on the internet” dogwhistle). These were, of course, all online because we only knew other mall goths in real life, and we all generally stuck together even if we didn’t like each other. We denied being goth if anyone called us such, because we knew we weren’t good enough at being goth to call ourselves goth. “Scene” meant any kind of alternative scene for a little bit, and when it finally mean big haired screamo, they were obviously posers, and they didn’t want to be called goth and we didn’t want other people to call them goths anyways.
The only acceptable goth music that was like real goth goth was either really unknown local stuff, stuff from the 90s that you had to have already been liking since the 90s, and like the iconic 80s goth bands. But not really The Cure, everyone liked The Cure, so you couldn’t just like them alone. But it couldn’t just be iconic 80s goth, because then everyone would be suspicious if you were a poser because everyone knew you were like just a baby when those songs came out.
We all shopped at Hot Topic because it was the only place to buy black clothes. But admitting your clothes were from Hot Topic was so embarrassing. Because everyone knew we should be buying from expensive indie designers online, or thrifting, or sewing our own clothes, or being more creative. So much goth style was vinyl fetish and BDSM stuff. If you were even vaguely goth people just assumed you were into that, or you pretended you were, even if you were like 14, which is really kind of fucked up?????
You could break all these rules if you were pretty and did good makeup. But maybe the rules were totally different for your friend group, there was no social media, this was even before MySpace, the internet was dialup and you only has access to it a little bit in the evenings or in the weekends. So there was no larger community to check up on. Just some forums full of completely anonymous people.
It’s weird seeing gen z use “mall goth” as a neutral description of an aesthetic, and actively calling themselves that. I’m intensely nostalgic for it, but still instinctively cringe when I see someone call themselves that and I think “No! Don’t say that! They’ll know you’re trying!”
Anyways, these are the toxic parts that came along with being a self loathing teen goth in like 2002.
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