
A German Goth.
The
goth subculture is a contemporary
subculture found in many countries.
It began in the
United
Kingdom
during the early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has
survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued
to diversify. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate
influences from nineteenth century
Gothic literature along with
horror films and to a lesser extent the
BDSM culture.
The goth subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and
fashion, whether or not all
individuals who share those tastes are in fact members of the goth
subculture. Gothic music encompasses a number of different styles.
Styles of dress within the subculture range from
deathrock,
punk,
androgynous,
Victorian, some
Renaissance and
Medieval
style attire, or combinations of the above, most often with
black attire,
makeup and
hair.
Origins and development
By the late 1970s, there were a few
post-punk bands labeled "gothic." However, it was
not until the early 1980s that
gothic
rock became its own
subgenre within
post-punk, and that followers of these
bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable
movement. The scene appears to have taken its name from an article
published in UK rock weekly
Sounds: "The face of Punk Gothique",
written by Steve Keaton and published on February 21,
1981.
The
opening of the Batcave
in London
's Soho
in July 1982
provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which
had briefly been labeled positive punk
by the New Musical
Express. The term "Batcaver" was later used to
describe old-school goths.
Independent from the British scene, the late 1970s and early 1980s
saw
death rock branch off from American
punk.
In
1980s and early 1990s, members of an emerging subculture in
Germany
were called Grufti[e]s (English "vault
creatures" or "tomb creatures"); they generally
followed a fusion of the gothic and new
wave with an influence of new
romantic, and formed the early stages of the "dark culture" (formerly called "dark wave culture").
After post-punk
After the waning in popularity of
post-punk, the subculture diversified both
musically and visually. This caused variations in the "types" of
goth. Local scenes also contributed to this variation. By the
1990s,
Victorian fashion saw a
renewed popularity in the goth scene, drawing on the mid-19th
century
gothic revival and the more
morbid aspects of
Victorian
culture.
Current subcultural boundaries
By the 1990s, the term "goth" and the boundaries of the associated
subculture had become more contentious. New subcultures emerged, or
became more popular, some of them being conflated with the goth
subculture by the general public and the popular media. This
conflation was primarily owing to similarities of appearance,
social customs, and the fashions of the subcultures, rather than
the musical genres of the bands associated with them. As time went
on, the term was extended further in popular usage, sometimes to
define groups that had neither musical nor fashion similarities to
the original gothic subculture. This has led to the introduction of
goth slang terms that some goths and others use to sort and label
members of loosely related or at times unrelated subcultures.
The response of these pseudo-groups to the older subculture varies.
Some, being secure in a separate subcultural identity, express
offense at being called "goth" in the first place, while others
choose to join the existing subculture on their own terms. Still
others have simply ignored its existence, and decided to
appropriate the term "goth" themselves, and redefine the idea in
their own image. Even within the original subculture, changing
trends have added to the complexity of attempting to define precise
boundaries.
The goth scene
The bands that began the
gothic rock and
deathrock scene were limited in number,
and included
Bauhaus,
Specimen,
Siouxsie & the Banshees,
The Damned,
Southern Death Cult,
Ausgang,
Sex Gang
Children,
45 Grave,
UK Decay,
The Virgin
Prunes,
Kommunity FK,
Alien Sex Fiend and
Christian Death.
Gloria Mundi,
Joy
Division,
The Cure,
This Mortal Coil,
Dead Can Dance,
mittageisen, early
Adam and the Ants and
Killing Joke have also been associated.
By the mid-eighties, the number of bands began proliferating and
became increasingly popular, including
The Sisters of Mercy,
The Mission (known as The Mission UK in
the US),
Xmal Deutschland,
The Bolshoi and
Fields of the Nephilim. The nineties
saw the further growth of eighties bands and emergence of many new
bands.
Factory Records,
4AD Records, and
Beggars Banquet Records released
much of this music in Europe, while
Cleopatra Records among others released
much of this music in the United States, where the subculture grew
especially in New York, Los Angeles, and Orange County, California,
with many nightclubs featuring "gothic/industrial" nights. The
popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of a similar US
label called
Projekt Records. This
produces what is colloquially termed
ethereal wave, a subgenre of
dark wave music.
By the mid-1990s, styles of music that were heard in venues that
goths attended ranged from
gothic rock,
death rock,
industrial music, Gothabilly,
EBM,
ambient,
experimental,
synthpop,
shoegazing,
punk rock, to 1970s
glam rock.
Recent years have seen a resurgence in the early positive punk and
death rock sound, in reaction to
aggrotech,
industrial and synthpop, which had taken
over many goth clubs. Bands with an earlier goth sound like Cinema
Strange, Bloody Dead And Sexy, Black Ice, and Antiworld are
becoming very popular. Nights like Ghoul School and Release The
Bats promote death rock heavily, and the
Drop Dead Festival brings in death rock
fans from all over the world.
Today, the
goth music scene thrives in Western
Europe - especially in Germany
, with large
festivals such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen, M'era Luna
and others drawing tens of thousands of fans from
all over the world. However,
North
America still sees large scale events, most recently, Chamber's
Dark Art & Music Festival
[1567].
Historical and cultural influences
Origins of the term
The original
Goths were an
Eastern Germanic tribe who played an
important role in the fall of the western
Roman Empire. In some circles, the name "goth"
later became pejorative: synonymous with "
barbarian" and the uncultured due to the
then-contemporary view of the fall of Rome and depictions of the
pagan Gothic tribes during and
after the process of
Christianization of Europe. During the
Renaissance period in
Europe, medieval
architecture was retroactively labeled
gothic architecture, and was considered
unfashionable in contrast to the then-modern lines of
classical architecture.
In the United Kingdom, by the late 1700s, however, nostalgia for
the medieval period led people to become fascinated with medieval
gothic ruins. This fascination was often combined with an interest
in
medieval romances,
Roman Catholic religion and the
supernatural.
The
gothic novel of the late eighteenth
century, a genre founded by
Horace
Walpole with the 1764 publication of
The Castle of Otranto, was
accountable for the more modern connotations of the term
gothic. He originally claimed that the book was a real
medieval romance he had discovered and republished. Thus was born
the gothic novel's association with
fake
documentation to increase its effect. Henceforth, the term was
associated with a mood of
horror,
morbidity, darkness and the supernatural as well as
camp and self-parody. The gothic novel
established much of the iconography of later horror literature and
cinema, such as
graveyards, ruined
castles or
churches,
ghosts,
vampires,
nightmares,
cursed families,
being
buried alive and
melodramatic plots. An additional notable element
was the brooding figure of the gothic
villain, which developed into the
Byronic hero. The most famous gothic villain is
the
vampire, a
folklore legend of Eastern Europe and the Balkans,
best known from
Bram Stoker's novel
Dracula and the horror movies it
influenced.
Certain elements in the dark, atmospheric music and dress of the
post punk scene were clearly
gothic in this sense. The use of
gothic as an
adjective in describing this music and its followers led to the
term
goth.
19th century
The Revolutionary War-era "American Gothic" story of the
Headless Horseman, immortalized in
Washington Irving's story
"
The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow" (published in 1820), marked the arrival in the New
World of dark, romantic story-telling. The tale was composed by
Irving while he was living in England, and was based on popular
tales told by colonial Dutch settlers of New York's Hudson River
valley. The story was adapted to film in 1922, and in 1949, in the
animated
The
Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It was readapted in
1980 and again in
Tim Burton's 1999
Sleepy Hollow. Burton,
already famous through his films
Edward Scissorhands,
Beetlejuice and
Batman, created a storybook atmosphere filled
with darkness and shadow.
Throughout the evolution of goth subculture, classic romantic,
gothic and horror literature has played a significant role.
Keats,
Poe,
Lovecraft,
Baudelaire and other tragic and romantic
writers have become as emblematic of the subculture as has using
dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his
preface to
Les Fleurs du
mal (
Flowers of Evil) penned lines that as much
as anything can serve as a sort of goth malediction:
- C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur
involontaire,
- Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
- Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
- —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!
- It is Boredom! — an eye brimming with an involuntary tear,
- he dreams of the gallows while smoking his water-pipe.
- You know him, reader, this fragile monster,
- —hypocrite reader,—my twin,—my brother!
20th century influences
The influence of the gothic novel on the goth subculture can be
seen in numerous examples of the subculture's poetry and music,
though this influence sometimes came second hand, through the
popular imagery of
horror films and
television. The powerful imagery of horror movies began in
German expressionist cinema after the
first world war and then passed onto the
Universal Studios films of the twenties
and thirties, and then to the horror films of the English
Hammer Studio. By the 1960s,
TV series, such as
The Addams Family and
The Munsters, used these
stereotypes for camp comedy. The
Byronic
hero, in particular, was a key precursor to the male goth
image, while Dracula's iconic portrayal by
Bela Lugosi appealed powerfully to early goths.
They were attracted by Lugosi's aura of camp menace, elegance and
mystique. Some people even credit the band
Bauhaus' first single "
Bela Lugosi's Dead", released August
1979, with the start of the goth subculture, though many prior art
house movements also influenced gothic fashion and style, the
illustrations and paintings of Swiss artist, H. R. Giger being one
of the earliest. Notable other early examples include
Siouxsie Sioux of the musical group
Siouxsie & the Banshees, and
Dave Vanian of the band
The Damned. Some members of Bauhaus were,
themselves, fine art students or active artists.
Some of the early
gothic rock and
death rock artists adopted traditional
horror movie images, and also drew on horror movie soundtracks for
inspiration. Their audiences responded in kind by further adopting
appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props like
swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs were used as gothic club
décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in their
music and image were originally
tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands
and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously.
As a result, morbid,
supernatural, and
occult themes became a more noticeably
serious element in the subculture. The interconnection between
horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by
The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film, which
starred
David Bowie,
Catherine Deneuve, and
Susan Sarandon. The movie featured gothic
rock group Bauhaus performing "
Bela
Lugosi's Dead" in a nightclub.
In 1993, Whitby
became the
location for what became the UK's biggest goth festival as a direct
result of being featured in Bram Stoker's
Dracula.
A literary influence on the gothic scene was
Anne Rice's re-imagining of the idea of the
vampire. Rice's characters were depicted as
struggling with eternity and loneliness, this with their ambivalent
or tragic sexuality had deep attractions for many goth readers,
making her works very popular in the eighties through the
nineties.
Later media influences
As the subculture became well-established, the connection between
goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with Goths quite
likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For
example,
The Crow drew directly on
goth music and style.
Neil Gaiman's
acclaimed graphic novel series
The Sandman influenced Goths with
characters like the dark, brooding
Dream and his sister
Death.
Visual art influences
The Goth subculture has influenced different artists - not only
musicians - but also painters and photographers. In particular
their work is based on mystic, morbid and romantic motifs. In
photography and painting the spectrum varies from erotic artwork to
romantic images of vampires or ghosts. To be present is a marked
preference for dark colours and sentiments, similar to
Gothic fiction,
Pre-Raphaelites or
Art Nouveau. In the Fine Art field,
Anne Sudworth is a well known goth artist with
her dark, nocturnal works and strong Gothic imagery.
Some of the graphic artists close to Goth are
Gerald Brom,
Nene
Thomas,
Luis Royo,
Dave McKean,
Jhonen
Vasquez,
Trevor Brown,
Victoria Francés as well as the
American comic artist
James O'Barr.
H. R.
Giger of Switzerland is one of the first
graphic artists to make serious contributions to the
Gothic/Industrial look of much of modern cinema with his work on
the film "Alien" by Ridley Scott.
Ideology
Defining an explicit ideology for the gothic subculture is
difficult for several reasons. First is the overwhelming importance
of
mood and
aesthetic for those involved. This
is, in part, inspired by
romanticism and
neoromanticism. The allure for goths
of dark, mysterious, and morbid imagery and mood lies in the same
tradition of Romanticism's
gothic
novel. During the late 18th and 19th century, feelings of
horror, and supernatural dread were widespread motifs in popular
literature; The process continues in the modern horror film.
Balancing this emphasis on mood and
aesthetics, another central element of the
gothic is a deliberate sense of
camp
theatricality and self-dramatization; present both in gothic
literature as well as in the gothic subculture itself.
Goths, in terms of their membership in the subculture, are usually
not supportive of violence, but rather tolerant. Many in the media
have incorrectly associated the Goth subculture with violence,
hatred of minorities, and other acts of hate. However, violence and
hate do not form elements of goth ideology; rather, the ideology is
formed in part by recognition, identification, and grief over
societal and personal evils that the mainstream culture wishes to
ignore or forget. These are the prevalent themes in goth
music.
The second impediment to explicitly defining a gothic ideology is
goth's generally apolitical nature. While individual defiance of
social norms was a very risky business in the nineteenth century,
today it is far less socially radical. Thus, the significance of
goth's subcultural rebellion is limited, and it draws on imagery at
the heart of Western culture. Unlike the
hippie or
punk
movements, the goth subculture has no pronounced political messages
or cries for social activism. The subculture is marked by its
emphasis on individualism, tolerance for diversity, a strong
emphasis on creativity, tendency toward intellectualism, and a mild
tendency towards cynicism, but even these ideas are not universal
to all goths. Goth ideology is based far more on
aesthetics and simplified
ethics than
politics.
Goths may, indeed, have political leanings ranging from
left-wing to
right-wing,
but they do not express them specifically as part of a cultural
identity. Instead, political affiliation, like religion, is seen as
a matter of personal conscience. Unlike punk, there are few clashes
between political affiliation and being "goth". Similarly, there is
no common religious tie that binds together the goth movement,
though spiritual, supernatural and religious imagery has played a
part in gothic fashion, song lyrics and visual art. In particular,
aesthetic elements from
Catholicism often appear in goth
culture. Reasons for donning such imagery range from expression of
religious affiliation to satire or simply decorative effect.
While involvement with the subculture can be fulfilling, it also
can be risky, especially for the young, because of the negative
attention it can attract due to public misconceptions of goth
subculture. The value that young people find in the movement is
evidenced by its continuing existence after other subcultures of
the eighties (such as the
New
Romantics) have died out.
Fashion

Gothic Model Lady Amaranth
Goth fashion is stereotyped as a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized
fashion and style of
dress. Typical gothic
fashion includes dyed black hair, dark eyeliner, black fingernails,
black period-styled clothing; goths may or may not have piercings.
Styles are often borrowed from the
Elizabethan,
Victorian or
medieval
period and often express Catholic or other religious imagery such
as
crucifixes or
ankhs.
The extent to which goths hold to this style varies amongst
individuals as well as
geographical locality, though
virtually all Goths wear some of these elements.
Fashion designers, such as
Alexander McQueen and
John Galliano, have also been described as
practicing "Haute Goth".Goth fashion is often confused with
heavy metal fashion: outsiders
often mistake fans of heavy metal for goth, particularly those who
wear black trench coats or wear "
corpse
paint" (a term associated with the
black
metal music scene).
Controversy
The gothic fascination with the
macabre has
raised public concerns regarding the well-being of goths. The
mass media has made reports that have
influenced the public view that goths or people associated with the
subculture, are malicious; however this is disputed and the Goth
subculture is often described as non-violent. Some individuals who
have either identified themselves or been identified by others as
goth, whether correctly or incorrectly, have committed high profile
violent crimes, including several
school shootings. These incidents
and their attribution to the goth scene have helped to propagate a
wary perception of Goth in the public eye.
Public
concern with the goth subculture reached a high point in the
fallout of the Columbine High School massacre
that was carried out by two students, incorrectly
associated with the goth subculture. This misreporting of
the roots of the massacre caused a widespread public backlash
against the North American goth scene. Investigators of the
incident, five months later, stated that there was no involvement
between the goth subculture and the killers, who held goth music in
contempt.
The
Dawson College
shooting
, in Canada, also raised public concern with the
goth scene. Kimveer Gill, who
killed one and injured nineteen, maintained an online journal at a
web site,
VampireFreaks, in which he "portrayed himself as a
gun-loving Goth." The day after the shooting it was reported that
"it are rough times for industrial / goth music fans these days as
a result of yet another trench coat killing", implying that Gill
was involved in the goth subculture.
During a search of
Gill's home, police found a letter praising the actions of Columbine
shooters
Eric
Harris and Dylan Klebold and a CD titled "Shooting sprees ain't
no fun without Ozzy and friends LOL".
Although the shooter claimed an obsession for "Goth", his favorite
music list was described, by the media, as a "who's who of heavy
metal.
Mick Mercer, author, noted music
journalist, and world's leading historian of
Goth music stated, of
Kimveer Gill, that he was "not a Goth. Never a
Goth. The bands he listed as his chosen form of ear-bashing were
relentlessly
Metal and standard
Grunge,
Rock and
Goth metal, with some
Industrial presence.", "Kimveer Gill
listened to metal", "He had nothing whatsoever to do with Goth" and
further commented "I realise that like many Neos this idiot may
even have believed he somehow was a Goth, because they're only
really noted for spectacularly missing the point." Mercer
emphasized that he was not blaming
heavy metal music for Gill's actions and
added "It doesn’t matter actually what music he liked."
Another school shooting that was wrongly attributed to the goth
subculture is the
Red Lake
High School massacre.
Jeff Weise
killed 7 people, and was believed by a fellow student to be into
the goth culture: wearing "a big old black trench coat," and
listening to
heavy metal music.
Weise was also found to participate in
neo-nazi online forums.
Other murders which are attributed to people suspected of being
part of the goth culture include the
Scott
Dyleski killing, and the
Richardson family murders,
although neither of these cases raised the same amount of media
attention as the school shootings.
In part because of public misunderstanding and ignorance
surrounding gothic aesthetics, goths sometimes suffer
prejudice,
discrimination, and
intolerance. As is the case with members of
various other controversial subcultures and
alternative lifestyles, outsiders
sometimes marginalize goths, either by intention or by accident.
Goths, like any other alternative sub-culture sometimes suffer
intimidation,
humiliation, and, in many cases, physical
violence for their involvement with the subculture.
In 2006
James Eric Benham, a Navy sailor, along with
his brother, attacked four goths in San Diego
California
. One goth, Jim Howard, had to be rushed to
the hospital. The perpetrators of this attack were found guilty in
August 2007 on four related accounts, two of which were felonies,
though Benham only spent 37 days in jail. During the trial, it was
made clear that the goths were assaulted due to their subculture
affiliation. This can be otherwise known as a "hate crime" though
the San Diego courts do not recognize this attack as such at this
time.
On August 11, 2007, two goths, walking through Stubbylee Park in
Bacup, Lancashire, England were attacked by a group of teenagers
because they were goths.
Sophie
Lancaster subsequently died from her injuries. On April 29,
2008, two teens Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris were convicted for
the murder of Lancaster and given life sentences, three others were
given lesser sentences for the assault on her boyfriend Robert
Maltby. In delivering the sentence Judge Anthony Russell stated
“This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people
targeted because their appearance was different to yours.” He went
on to defend the goth community, calling goths “perfectly peaceful,
law-abiding people who pose no threat to anybody.” Judge Russell
add that he “recognised it as a hate crime without Parliament
having to tell him to do so, and had included that view in his
sentencing.” Despite this ruling, a bill to add discrimination
based on subculture affiliation to the definition of hate crime in
British law did not pass.
In 2008,
Paul Gibbs, a Briton from Leeds
, UK
was attacked
by three men. He and his group of about 20 young goths were
on a camping trip in the vicinity of Rothwell when two 18-year-olds
(Quinn Colley, Ryan Woodhead) and one 22-year-old (Andrew Hall)
raided, stabbed four of the men and robbed two women.
Quinn Colley had previously appeared in a homemade clip rapping on
his love of violence.
Gibbs was offered a motorbike ride by the attackers who at first
insidiously befriended the group. On their way Gibbs was knocked
down from the bike, rendered unconscious by a helmet and had his
ear sliced off. Afterwards, the attackers returned to the
camp.Colley and Woodhead were sentenced to at leat 2.5 years of
prison while Hall at least 4.5 years.
Gibbs' ear was found 17 hours later thus doctors could not
immediately reattach it. Instead they stitched it inside his
stomach with the hope that some of the
tissue will re-grow. The ear could be
reconstructed by using
cartilage removed
form Gibbs'
ribs.
A study published on the
British
Medical Journal concluded that "identification as belonging to
the Goth subculture [at some point on their lives] was the best
predictor of self harm and attempted suicide [among young teens]",
and that it was most possibly due to a selection mechanism (persons
that wanted to harm themselves later identified as goths, thus
raising the percentage of those persons who identify as goths). The
study was based on a sample of 15 teenagers who identified as
goths, of which 8 had self-harmed by any method, 7 had self-harmed
by cutting, scratching or scoring, and 7 had attempted suicide. The
authors said that most self-harm by teens was done before joining
the subculture, and that joining the subculture would actually
protect them and help them deal with distress in their lives. The
authors insisted on the study being based on small numbers and on
the need of replication to confirm the results. The study was
criticized for using a small sample of goth teens and not taking
into account other influences and differences between different
types of goth.
See also
References
- Books
- Baddeley, Gavin: Goth Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark
Culture (Plexus, US, August 2002, ISBN 0-85965-308-0)
- Davenport-Hines, Richard: Gothic: Four Hundred Years of
Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin (1999: North Port Press. ISBN
0-86547-590-3 (trade paperback) - A voluminous, if somewhat patchy,
chronological/aesthetic history of Gothic covering the spectrum
from Gothic architecture to The Cure.
- Digitalis, Raven: Goth Craft: The Magickal Side of Dark
Culture (2007: Llewellyn Worldwide) - includes a lengthy
explanation of Gothic history, music, fashion, and proposes a link
between mystic/magical spirituality and dark subcultures.
- Fuentes Rodríguez, César: Mundo Gótico. (Quarentena
Ediciones, 2007, ISBN 8493389161)-In Spanish. Covering Literature,
Music, Cinema, BDSM, Fashion and Subculture topics-
- Furek, Maxim W.: The Death Proclamation of Generation X: A
Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Goth, Grunge and Heroin." (i-Universe,
US 2008; ISBN 978-0-595-46319-0)
- Hodkinson, Paul: Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture
(Dress, Body, Culture Series) 2002: Berg. ISBN 1-85973-600-9
(hardcover); ISBN 1-85973-605-X (softcover)
- Kilpatrick, Nancy: The Goth Bible : A Compendium for the
Darkly Inclined. 2004: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN
0-312-30696-2
- Steele, Valerie and Jennifer Park: Gothic: Dark
Glamour. 2008: Yale University Press and the Fashion Institute
of Technology New York. ISBN 978-0-300-13694-4 (hardcover)
- Voltaire: What is
Goth? (WeiserBooks, US, 2004; ISBN 1-57863-322-2) — a view of
the goth subculture
- Andrew C. Zinn: The Truth Behind The Eyes (IUniverse,
US, 2005; ISBN 0-595-37103-5) — Dark Poetry
- Articles
- La Ferla, Ruth: "Embrace the Darkness". New York
Times, October 30, 2005.
- Notes
- César Fuentes Rodríguez "Mundo Gótico", pages 18 &
ss./pages 206 & ss.
- Carol Siegel "Goth's Dark Empire", pages 8-13 and ss.
- Cintra Wilson, "You just can't kill it", The New York
Times, September 17, 2008. [1] Access date: September 18, 2008.
- Batcave club history
Scathe.demon.co.uk. Retrieved April 23, 2006.
- Archived Interview with Ms. Dinah Cancer
Alicebag.com. Retrieved April 23, 2006.
- ReligiousTolerance.org's article on "
Goth"
- Eric Lipton Disturbed Shooters Weren't True Goth from the
Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1999
- A Brief Guide to Goth
Scathe.demon.co.uk. Retrieved July 19, 2008.
- Marcia Montenegro The
World According to Goth Christian Answers for the New Age
- Columbine retrospective
- September 14, 2006. Shooting by Canadian trench coat killer affects
industrial / goth scene Side-line.com. Retrieved on March 13,
2007.
- Kimveer Gill's VampireFreaks.com profile.
- Singh, Raman NRI Kimveer Gill, Montreal native gunman called
himself 'angel of death', kills one and injuring 20. NRI
Retrieved on March 22, 2007.
- Blu Interview with Mick Mercer Starvox.net
- Kyshah Hell Interview with Mick Mercer
Morbidoutlook.com
- Mick Mercer Broken Ankle Books
- Mick Mercer Mick Mercer talks about Kimveer Gill
mickmercer.livejournal.com
- "Shooter is described as 'Goth kid'",
Star-Telegram (subscription
required)
- NBC, MSNBC and news services Teen who
killed 9 claimed Nazi leanings MSNBC
- CNN.com. October 22, 2005. Vitale slaying suspect charged with murder. Retrieved
on March 13, 2007.
- Reynolds, Richard, "Accused killer, 12, linked to goth site",
The Sydney Morning Herald, April 28, 2006.
- Johnsrude, Larry, "Goths say Medicine Hat killings give them bad
name", Edmonton Journal, April 26, 2006.
- Carey Goldberg " TERROR IN LITTLETON: THE SHUNNED; For Those Who
Dress Differently, an Increase in Being Viewed as Abnormal" New
York Times - May 1, 1999
- Goths and Violent Crime Gothic Angst Webzine Sept 8,
2007
- Goth Help Us, San DiegoGothic Angst Webzine May 1,
2007
- Vindication Jim Howard sept 1, 2007
- Goth couple badly hurt in attack BBC
News-UK
- Bonnie Malkin and agencies Woman 'attacked for being a Goth' dies
Telegraph.co.uk News
- Life jail trms for teenage thugs who killed goth
girl
- Two teenagers sentenced to life over murder of
Goth
- Teenage Murderers of ‘Peaceful’ Goth Sentenced to
Life
- Sophie's family and friends vow to carry on
campaign
- Call for hate crimes law change
-
http://www.rothwelltoday.co.uk/news/Video-Rothwell-thug-who-rapped.5348257.jp
-
http://alterophobia.blogspot.com/2008/09/mass-assault-on-goths-in-leeds.html
-
http://www.rothwelltoday.co.uk/news/Rothwell-park-attack-Goth-victim.5348497.jp
-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5500384/Man-who-had-ears-cut-off-had-it-stitched-to-stomach-to-save-it.html
- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525826,00.html
- Sources: * Letter to the editor * Letter to the editor *
Author's reply
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/fashion/sundaystyles/30GOTH.html
Further reading
- (goth communication on the internet)
External links