Gothic Evolution

This collection of resources is designed to inform, enlighten and entertain every ridiculous notion any of you out there might have about the goth sub-culture.

By Jake Gaskill
The Wily Oak Times

King of the Visigoths Alaric I led the siege of Rome in 410, which ushered in the Middle Ages.
A typical goth today. The application of eyeliner and dependence on vacant stares often lends a standoffishness to most goths.

There were two main factions within the East Germanic tribe known as the Goths (300-700 AD): the Western (Visigoths), and the Eastern (Ostrogoths). The Goths' greatest accomplishment came when they successfully sacked Rome in 410 AD under the leadership of King Aleric I.

The Goths continued to be a significant threat to the Roman Empire for roughly the next 250 years, due in large part to the establishment of a series of "successor-states" in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy.

Moving ahead slightly, many people credit the 70s punk movement with introducing the world to the goth counter-culture. Accroding to goth historian Peter Scathe, "In the aftermath of punk in the late 70s and early 80s a bewildering variety of new and re-invented musical styles began to crop up, and around 1978-9 a style began to appear which the press had by late 1979 started to call 'gothic'".

Scathe goes on to say that, musically, goth can be traced to a handful of bands such as Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhau and UK Decay.

"The first Banshees album ("The Scream", November 1978) and the first Joy Division album ("Unknown Pleasures", June 1979) laid much of the template for goth, with a notable absence of loud punk guitars and the emphasis on the rhythm section instead, along with a stark, hollow sound."

What Kind of Goth Are You?
If there is one thing goths hate, it's labels. So it was perhaps inevitable that the umbrella term "goth" would eventually be splintered into dozens of distinct categories, which would only futher serve to isolate even more people who had initially responded to the culture in the first place because they were isolated from mainstream culture.

Some of the more popular categories include: baby bat, batcaver, cybergoth, corporate goth, doom/gloom cookie, graver, romantigoth, mallgoth, mansonite and the paramount of solitude, ubergoth. For a more in-depth analyisis of these categories check out this link.