Join The Dark Side

I still believe we will all eventually become Goth. It's the only youthful stance that makes any sense these days. And, come on, "Razed in Black" - need I say more?

Passing through Las Vegas Paris' casino for 45 minutes last December 27th, I spotted a young Goth, dazed with either wonder or contempt, meandering through the mid-morning crowd of svelte Asian tourists waking up after a long night. I think she was the only incorruptible person in the entire establishment!:

"Most youth subcultures encourage people to drop out of school and do illegal things," she says. "Most goths are well educated, however. They hardly ever drop out and are often the best pupils. The subculture encourages interest in classical education, especially the arts. I'd say goths are more likely to make careers in web design, computer programming ... even journalism."

... Visitors to the Archangel dental surgery in west London are confronted by a goth dentist, Didier Goalard, who says: "I've got goth friends who are doing quite well. There's a dentist in Lyon, a couple of solicitors, a Church of England priest."

... According to Choque Hosein, formerly of goth band Salvation but now running a record label, "Goths tend to be the weirdo intellectual kids who have started to view the world differently." Cathi Unsworth is now a successful author, but she remembers that her own dark gothic past gave her an outlet for alienation. "I loved the bands, especially Siouxsie and the Banshees, but it wasn't a pose - I felt authentically depressed," she says. Unsworth was a teenager in Great Yarmouth, where she felt that "people didn't like me. It got to a point where I wanted to stop fighting against being different and embrace it."

... It could be tough, but being a goth can open up a world where art, current affairs and literature are embraced and openly discussed, perhaps paving the way for future networking. Unsworth remembers debates about "current affairs, Oscar Wilde, decadence, hairspray ..." "There was a lot of Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker," remembers Porter. "It was better than the Sun." For Hosein, it was Quentin Crisp and "The Day of the Triffids. Anything involving horror and death."

... Indeed, there is a certain dry humour about goth that is often overlooked amid tales of black-clad youths worshipping Satan and, in one case, carrying out the Columbine massacre. "That wasn't goths," insists Brill. "The guys who did it always wore black trench coats but they listened to Marilyn Manson. There's an academic article: Why Marilyn Manson Isn't Goth." Brill insists that goth is a non-violent subculture. "They're like hippies. I don't know any goths who are into graveyard destruction or cat slaughtering. They like their graveyards and they love their cats."