Aside from all being offshoots of one another, like relatives that don't always like one another but are forced to accept the others existence even if only at family reunions.
We all come together because at one time or another we realized we weren't quite like everyone else, now this vary's in degrees based on personal experience and what not.
But really, it was a need to make our outward selves match how we view ourselves inwardly, and much of the time, this is an accurate representation. Whether going through a phase or not, this is an important quality of developing a personal identity, showing others how you see yourself, what you like etc. Which is also linked to many of the things our tribe, gaggle, group or what have you, enjoy, like body modifications for example.
It is all so very personal.
Now once you've been living an "alternative" lifestyle for a year or two, generally something about you changes almost like becoming comfortable in your own skin. Once this happens it no longer matters if you run around everyday looking Uber Goth, or you're wearing khaki's and a polo for work. People can identify that you are different or that you are "one of them", because it has a lot to do with how you carry yourself. And the more important part, is that you realize this, you realize that who you are isn't just defined by what you wear. Now, my point with saying this is that we are connected in one way or another by something that brought us to the lifestyles we currently enjoy/participate in. That in mind, i've got a story.
When I was about 11, and after surfing the net and listening to post punk, I decided that this felt right. Well, instead of slowly integrating my clothes, I threw out everything that wasn't black, and went to goodwill and bought just about everything I touched that was black.
Not a good idea.
Especially since fashion sense wasn't something I developed till I was 13, so I looked really awkward most of the time.
A small faded black spot in the distance, with acne and unruly mousy brown hair.
With glasses, can't forget the glasses!
So i'd walk around in my trench coat, with my boots, my fishnets, mens plain T's you get in packages at walmart with the smokers pocket (only I don't smoke...), and bootcut black jeans.
Yipes!
I obviously got a lot of brunt at school from this, I was already the weird kid, but now I was the weird Goth kid that people were afraid of, and of course some people would call me a poseur and what not. A lot of satan comments, but what made it worse was that my real first name is "Trinidy", yes, my first name is pretty bitchin'.
So what happened? Matrix comments, THAT'S what happened.
And sure it was funny maybe the first four times, but it got old so fast.
I don't even acknowledge it anymore.
But, everyone has something to say, it's just the way life is.
Something that I had a real problem with at this age, was being pretentious.
It was really hard to look at the other kids that claimed to be Goths and seeing them wearing tie dye shirts outside of school and smiling all of the time, listening to Slipknot and Manson.
I had never been around anyone else who I felt a kinship with, and these kids didn't fit the bill either. I mean when you first start to integrate yourself into a co-culture(to be politically correct. Woo!) you try to eliminate everything about you that doesn't fit into the group, because you want to be accepted.
So be an uber Goth and snub anyone who isn't.
Feeling as though you are sooo Goth that their tie dye shirt may burn your skin upon impact.
*palm to forehead melodrama*
Which is an immature juvenile single minded thing to do, something you'd expect from a 6th grader.
Well a friend of mine at the time, from 5th grade, her and I were hanging out at her house watching Harry Potter (which I also snubbed at the time because everyone else loved it. Now I love it dearly) and she was talking about our group of friends and she kept calling me the punk one. And I'd get so upset, because I didn't want to be a punk! I was a Goth God-dammit! Can't you see that?! Look at all my black clothes, post punk music, and depressing poetry!
By the way i'm serious, everything I said above was me when I was in middle school.
Sitting in the corner reading Interview with a Vampire, and listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees.
It is funny, but there is truth to what I am saying.
I have no problem admitting where I have been and where I am now.
Life is all about experience, be it good or bad.
As I got older, I got called a Goth a lot, but i'd still have people calling me a punk.
And I found that unsettling, till I grew up a bit.
Now, my reason for mentioning this, is that I found it to be such an interesting situation.
Where most of my life people called me a punk, and I resented it for so long.
But, as I got older I realized maybe they had something, maybe they could see something that I didn't at such a young age, because I wasn't open to understanding myself.
I realized, maybe I am a punk, maybe inside I really am and it doesn't matter what I look like, because I have a punk rock personality and people identify and see that.
Even if I don't understand what that means exactly, I somehow feel it appropriate, and i'm sure it helps that I have long ago done away with those single minded views of people, so I can better accept myself in all perspectives.
I have a friend whom I affectionately call "Skellen" or "Elle' (I should ask her if the last one is okay as a nickname, haha), and her and I are so very similar. She lives a few hours away, we are the same height, love much of the same music, dress similarly, all that fantastic stuff.
But when we are next to each other, anyone can feel a distinct difference in our energy.
She is much more of a Goth than I am, by my own understanding and experience.
She's so petite and there is something so feminine about her, in a dark seductive way almost vampiric.
You see me, and I am much more gritty by nature, I seem like someone who doesn't take myself seriously most of the time. I don't always wear make up, I don't always do my hair, hell I rarely paint my nails. I play roller derby, so i'm very much so more of a brawler type of girl, which isn't very "Goth" of me. I also have very primal energy (which is part of my spirituality), and I think that is a large part of why people identify me as a punk rocker or a deathrocker (which I prefer just because I do love Goth and I do dress like a post punker, but either is acceptable). Because there is so much primalcy in punk, so much emotion and the potential for total destruction that people find so jarring. That you see inside of me, and that I express in my art.
In short, I am the gross zombie and she's the seductive vampire.
So she lures them in to drink their blood and I eat their brains.
This is our friendship.
<3
Which is what I really wanted to share with you (even though i've said that like four times. I like sharing things!! haha), that it is okay to accept who you are for all that you are, even if there are things about you that you don't always want to accept.
Those things that you may view as chips in your personality or mars of character, no those are things that make you you, and they need to be embraced for all that they are worth, and then some.
So what am I?
I don't really know to be honest, I like to think that I am somewhere in the deathrocker range, where I bounce between punk and goth while still maintaining a sense of personal identity.
But, I don't really know.
And I am okay with that.
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