Every so often we here at CastleDTC are contacted by a representative of the “Press” or by some enterprising college student conducting a survey/doing a study in regard to just what Goth is. In recent years it has typically coincided with some maniac shooting up a school or something equally violent and when it is discovered he listened to Marilyn Manson out go the feelers into the Darksider community probing just what this whole “Goth phenomenon” is about.

You could ask 100 different people what “Goth” means and get 100 different answers. It would be dependent upon their own experiences, their friends’ influence, the locale in which they were raised, their knowledge/ignorance of history and the era in which they grew up. Unfortunately many articles that come out only interview mall kids whose concept of “Goth” doesn’t extend much further than their local Hot Topic (which has often humorously been referred to derisively as “Not Gothic“).

Well, now the New York Times is getting in on the act, discussing Goth’s influence on Fashion, culture and a new coffee table book that will most likely wind up in our very own Haakon’s living room eventually. The “interviews” with clueless teens make for an especially annoying read but I’ve always found journalists’ attempts at describing “Goth culture” to be akin to a train wreck from which I just can’t look away.