Before I start I would like to tell Gothic Booty, I mean Beauty, that I own the domain and website of this blog and that I answer to nobody as to how it is run. So take-down threats aren’t going to work on me. Hiya!!!!!
So, for the last few weeks a bunch of people have been calling out Gothic Beauty for the AI images that they are using in their social media posts. How have Gothic Beauty responded? By getting the posts of people sharing the AI images taken down for copyright claims. Does that sound like an innocent company to you? It sure as hell doesn’t to me and it is the major reason as to why I am sharing this information. Shit like this needs to be called out.
The thing that is really pissing people off, myself included, is the fact that the AI images are of thin white young women; a stereotype that needs to just die already. It really just shows exactly who they are trying to cater to; thin white young women and the men who have a fetish for them. Do they give a shit about those of us who are over fifty and have been into the music for literally decades? Nope. I am very used to not being represented in goth online spaces because of my age, but each time it happens it still pisses me off.
I am known for questioning Killstar and not once have they ever tried to copyright claim me. Not a single time. It is a sad state of affairs that a so called ‘goth’ magazine, that is supposedly catering to the ‘alternative’ community, can’t take criticism and choose to perpetuate a stereotype rather than listening to their readers. They aren’t using AI in their actual magazine right now, but judging by their response it sure seems like they want to go into that direction. Not to mention the fact that the images they use in the magazine are manipulated to hell and back. They are making their real models look like AI images by their overuse of blurring tools. You can’t be goth apparently if you have pores or wrinkles in your skin.
I think more and more ‘alternative’ companies are going to try to pull this and each time they do they need to be called out for it. Make your disapproval of this kind of thing known to them, because if you don’t it is going to get far worse than it is already.
Notice something a bit strange about Killstar’s LinkedIn page? They no longer have photos of the people running the show; no Director Head Of Global Operations or Operation Professional MBA photos. Proof that they are really trying to hide the fact that the private equity firm Bertram Capital has a major stake in the company. The funny thing about this is that the way I found out about Bertram Capital was from the photo of Tom Beerle whose profile said he was a partner with the firm on Killstar’s old LinkedIn page. One of them is probably Beerle and the other Tequila-Rose Hanses, who is the original owner. Too late Killstar, too late. Here is a linkof the article I wrote explaining Beerle and his role in the company in case you are catching up with the saga.
Since Killstar is laying off their remote workers who refuse to move to Brighton they have listed some job openings. I found something quite telling about the role Product Technologist. They have to report their findings not to a manager but to ‘stakeholders’. Oh, it gets better.
Working with a team and then having to report to multiple stakeholders? What I get from this is that Bertram Capital wants a say in every single product or idea that crosses their desk, even though they don’t really know anything about alternative subcultures. This has been proven with their Avril Lavigne collection disaster. I can’t imagine that it would be a healthy work environment at all. You know quite a bit about alternative subcultures and you design something that you know ‘alternative’ type people would like, and then being told by the ‘stakeholder’ from Bertram Capital that the design doesn’t work. On top of that you would more than likely also have to run the design past Tequila-Rose since she is also still a ‘stakeholder’. What happens if the two sides don’t agree, does she get the last word or does Bertram Capital?
I suspect that Bertram Capital are the ones who insisted that the company be moved from Glasgow to Brighton. They probably think the area is more ‘hip’ than Glasgow. Plus, it is closer to London. However, what they didn’t manage to fit into the equation is that it is very expensive to live in Brighton. Personally, I think all of this is going to backfire spectacularly.
Bertram Capital and Tequila-Rose have done fucked up and are in the stage of finding out.
Well it looks like things are coming to a head because they have decided to make their remote workers redundantif they don’t agree to work in their office located in Brighton. I find this interesting because their office used to be in Glasgow. I’m guessing that they let people work remotely instead of having to be in Glasgow, so something major must be happening to move the office to Brighton and to make people physically come into work.
My guess as to what is going on? They are making people come into the office because they want to consolidate positions and make people do more than just one role, which means that the company is more than likely in financial trouble. Since Bertram Capital bought a stake in the company the quality of the clothes has gone south and they have pumped out new clothes every single week, and sometimes several times in a week. Many of the designs look familiar because they keep copying the same silhouettes over and over again.
Killstar really suck for doing this to their workers and are behaving the same as any regular corporate entity. They stopped having any kind of alternative clothing credibility when they let the private equity firm Bertram Capital into the fold. As of right now they are just a corporate entity trying to make a buck off of alternative subcultures. That is it. When you buy clothes from them you are just filling the pockets of the venture capitalists that are running the company into the ground.
Personally, I will not shed a tear for Killstar and they deserve all of the hate they are going to get for doing this to their employees in this economic climate.
Full disclosure on this, I actually knew Vision online over twenty years ago during the deathrock revival. I stopped paying attention to him and the band when they started to look like rejects from a Motley Crue video. It was just a really bizarre shift and I lost track of the band.
I still go over to r/goth, even though I am banned from there, because the drama in that group gives me a lot of ideas for articles. Hi guys!!! Well, somebody over there made a long post questioning as to why Vision from Tragic Black was now a right winger. As proof they showed a few screenshots from Vision’s follow list and a list of all of his follows in a paste bin. I felt like the proof had to be a little more solid so I went over to Instagram and took screenshots of every one of his obvious right wing follows. I will post every screenshot and a brief commentary underneath each one. I know it sucks finding this shit out but if you are a fan of Tragic Black you deserve to be told the truth as to what kind of person Vision really is; a far right wing supporter.
Awwww…….look, he likes Charlie Kirk who is a very well known right wing grifter. How cute!
He even likes the rejected GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. What a nice lad!
Michale Graves is an admitted Proud Boy and Vision thinks that he is peachy-keen enough to follow. Right wing chuds supporting one another? Who knew?
Our boy is following Russel Brand AND Donald Trump. I guess the young lad really loves conspiracy theories. That’s so tragic! See what I did there?
Eric Trump? He is so enamored of the Cheeto that he also follows one of his grifter sons……and he also follows Matt Gaetz, a congressman who had been accused of sex trafficking minors.
He loves his fascist women blonde and extremely dumb; Marjorie Taylor Greene. So if you are a dumb blonde fascist bitch you may get a follow from him! How exciting!
I guess he also likes his fascist women with dark hair because here is Lauren Boebert! Or maybe he likes her because he wants her to jerk him off in a theatre? We will probably never know. Steven Crowder is a right wing grifter podcast idiot. I wonder if listening to his show helps Vision take a shit. Regular bowel movements are important!
Say hi to Josh Hawley, a GOP member of congress who thinks that women who are raped, either by a relative or somebody else, should be forced to have the child. So our little Vision is against a woman’s right to choose. What a peach!
He loves Lauren Boebert so very much that he has followed a second account of hers? Lovely!! Oh, and he follows the very problematic industrial band Nachtmahr, Not a shocker since Vision seems to be okay with racism and woman being exploited.
He follows yet another Donald Trump account and Kanye West. Just when you thought this crap couldn’t get any more stupid he throws us a bone! Thanks dude!
Ted Cruz is sooooo lucky to have a follower like Vision! Like OMG, right?
Awwwww…..I was wondering where his follow of Tucker Carlson was at. Vision doesn’t disappoint does he?
Both Tim Pool AND Ben Shapiro? Wow, Vision sure has his listening to far right wing grifters covered doesn’t he?
He follows Joe Rogan, because of course he does!
He also loves Andy Deane, a ‘goth’ musician who has been accused of rape among other really disgusting things. Bad birds of a feather hanging together. No shock.
We are now at the end of our saga, in which Vision forgot to remove his support of somebody that wasn’t a right wing grifter; President Obama. Vision fell down the far right rabbit hole and I can’t ever see him coming back from this. The end.
About three years ago I made this post about how the fetishization of goth women needs to stop and instead of things getting better in online spaces things have actually gotten worse. If you don’t know who Angela Benedict is she has been into goth music since the 90’s and she makes videos about her experiences within the subculture. She also gives solid advice. A few days ago she put up a video explaining how goth women do not want to be seen as a BTGGF fetish, and the backlash she got from some very insecure entitled men was really disgusting.
For those of you who do not know what the initials BTGGF stand for it’s slang for ‘big tiddy goth girlfriend’. It started as a meme some years back but now it has spread so far and wide that there is a growing cohort of mainly men who think that all goth women are into kink and will be freaks between the sheets. They think that we will let them try anything sexual and that we love being submissive.
To these absolute losers we are nothing but an object to collect; a notch on a bedpost. We are not seen as human, instead they see us as demonic sex kittens. With all of that being said let us look as some of the responses that her video has received.
The spineless idiot first tells Angela that if she doesn’t want to be sexualized that she should stop dressing like a ‘304’. What is a ‘304’? It is slang for a prostitute. So, because she has broken his fetish into little pieces he turns around and victim blames her. Of course he does because mentally he has the maturity of a bratty teenager. A bratty teenager who thinks he is entitled to have his way with goth women. This attitude is dangerous as hell and quite frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes on to commit crimes against goth women. This is why it is so important to push back against this crap.
When Angela points out that he sounds very angry he then states that he can ‘ogle’ goth woman all he wants because we put ourselves out there to be ‘ogled’. What a total piece of shit. Would he ever say that in person to a goth woman? Hell no, and if anybody said that kind of shit to me in person I have a cane and I know how to use it. Just because a woman is wearing revealing clothing doesn’t mean that a man has the right to her body. Also, Angela is totally covered up in this video . The rise of ‘goth porn’ has some men thinking that goth women want sexual attention just because they dress in some lace and velvet. This is perpetuated by sex workers dressing in black and calling themselves goth when they are not. I have nothing against sex work BUT that shit is actually harming real goth women both on and off the internet.
Angela proceeds to call the dude Incel-Irving, which is a perfect name for the guy. I think one of the reasons why this dude is so angry is because he has been rejected by multiple goth women online. Remember, this guy doesn’t have the balls to go up to a goth woman in public and say this kind of shit. He is probably very unattractive and blames goth women for his inability to take a shower or change his crusty whitey tighties. Dude, we know exactly what you are: an incel who will never know the touch of a woman. I wasn’t lying when I told him that.
Angela then tells Incel-Irving that he is making her money every single time he engages with us. Which is the irony of all of this. The man-child thinks he is getting under her skin, when in reality he is showing everybody what an incel loser he is. I wasn’t lying when I said he gives off small penis energy, because he obviously is very insecure about his looks and his inability to score a goth woman. Poor little fella, literally.
The comments above are a little out of order because Incel Irving deleted some of his posts. I don’t think he expected other women to come in and tell him off Surprise!!! He tried putting Angela down by saying that she probably doesn’t make a lot of money being a bartender, while she isn’t a bartender. Proof the idiot hasn’t a clue as to what he is talking about. Angela is right, the guy is probably going to end up losing his legs from diabetes because he drinks bottles of Mountain Dew while sitting in his mother’s basement. He also deleted comments that said that both I and the other woman defending Angela are both men white knighting for her, and that we weren’t going to get to fuck her. Seriously, the idiot mentioned this multiple times. Since he thought we were men he was angry that we were defending her instead of him. Poor thing!
We then proceed to make fun of the guy for his huge mistake and that is that. As of this morning on October the 9th he has not replied and is probably on another site somewhere bitching to other incels about goth women. Off we go to the next loser.
This complete douche canoe thinks it is flattering to be made into a sex object because that is what a ‘romantic goth’ is all about. According to him being a ‘romantic goth’ means you are into romance and that leads to sex. I am not even joking. Not only does this idiot think that sexual harassing goths is okay, he also doesn’t know what the goth subculture is about. Go figure. It’s like this dude got his information from the back of a box of Count Chocula. Angela’s video pissed him off so much that he rage types in caps telling her that she needs to get some self respect and that she isn’t a goth. These little boys always come in with the insults, throwing them about hoping one will stick: such as ‘how dare you not want to fuck me, that means you aren’t a real goth because real goth women would love to get attention from me.’
Angela is correct the people that sexualize goth women are almost always men, because they think that they deserve a goth woman’s attention. What he doesn’t realize is that he has nothing to attract a goth woman. He is an insecure little boy who thinks he knows everything about the goth subculture. He then tries to insult Angela by saying that she probably listens to My Chemical Romance. Proof that he is failing about like a toddler throwing Cheerios everywhere from his highchair. They all end up doing this, it’s textbook.
After insulting him by saying that he will never know the touch of a woman he then proceeds to tell me that I will never know the touch of a ‘real man’. Wahahaha! We all ask him what a ‘real man’ is but he ignores us, and then proceeds to call Angela gorgeous and asks her if she believes in love. I’m not joking, this idiot thinks that all of his insults will make Angela attracted to him? I forgot, he thinks that goth women are submissive and will put up with any sexually tinged insult that comes at them. Fuck off with that nonsense!
I feel that the rise of this sort of behavior towards goth woman is heading into dangerous territory. With that being the case I think it is very important for goth women to support one another when this kind of crap happens online and in person. Every single time I see this kind of thing happen to a goth woman online I jump in because how can I not? I would be a coward if I didn’t help out and that is not the kind of person I am. Listening to The Dead Kennedys for a few decades has primed me to do this. If there is one thing that the punk subculture has taught me over the years is that having somebody’s back in a situation like this is very important. Angela clearly understands this and talks about it in the video. As goth women we needs to stick together.
So, if you are goth and you see this kind of shit taking place online jump in and help. It is not enough to be passive aggressive and shit talk behind backs. If you witness this happening in person also jump in because if you don’t the creep is going to keep thinking that they can easily get away with this crap. They need to be shown proof that their actions are unwanted, Use your streetsmarts and act accordingly. Stay safe out there.
If there is something that I know how to do well is shaving an undercut. I have been doing it on and off since 1988 so I have had a bit of practice. I’ve had a complete undercut, a deathawk and right now it is shaved on only one side.
If you have never had an undercut I would highly suggest going to a hairdresser the first time, because they are more than likely to get the lines straight which makes it more easy for you to do it yourself. The above tools are what I use to do my hair. I use a rechargeable clipper so that I don’t have to worry about extension cords or anything like that. It is smaller than most clippers which makes it way more easy to get into tight spaces.
In the above photo I am holding my long hair flat down so that shaving along that line is more easy for me to do. I do as much as I can in the bathroom mirror before I have to use the handheld mirror in conjunction with it. To keep the hair flat on the side in the back I tightly put my hair in a ponytail so that I can hold the mirror in my left hand and shave with my right hand. If you are right handed the left side will be more difficult and if you are left handed the right side will be more difficult. Make sure the clipper doesn’t get clogged with hair by blowing the hair out of it as needed. I have thick hair so I have to do this pretty frequently.
It is very common to accidentally shave some of the longer hairs, but the good news is that it will grow back. I never freak out when this happens because it is the price I pay for wanting this haircut. I shave it about every three weeks on a ‘1’ setting. I have never shaved it with a razor because cuts on the head tend to bleed a lot.
I hope this helps you on your undercut journey and that you get the courage to do it yourself and save some money.
Yesterday I went into town and looked through a couple of thrift stores, and again they were very picked over so I found nothing. However, I went to New Look and found two very cool items. The above photo is of a ruffled black blouse/dress that buttons down the front so that it could be used as a dress or in layering. I had a shorter blouse almost exactly like it 30 years ago so to say I am pleased would be an understatement.
I also found the above green microfiber trench coat. The photo is making it look discolored but it is indeed all green. I love the fact that it is very unstructured and has a great flow to it. It really fits into my spooky dystopian/post-apocalyptic aesthetic: my core colours are black, grey, camo green and dark purple.
There were several different black microfiber jackets and various black tops that had either lace or ruffles, and they had some cute Halloween themed socks. So if you are living in the UK get thee to your nearest New Look store.
In a previous post I talked about how Killstar is going down in flames. With that being said this really feels like a desperate attempt by them to crawl out of their fetid swamp filled with the tears of Avril Lavigne. I bet a really out of touch board member thought ‘Hey, I know how we can pull ourselves out of our swamp, let’s target those teens that love that Wednesday series!! They’ll pay top dollar for anything we churn out!’. *crickets*
Unfortunately for the company things are not going to plan. Not a single item on their UK site is sold out or even close to sold out. Seriously, I checked every item before writing this. Want to guess as to why? Come with me on a journey filled with polyester and angst! EDIT: As of September the 6th all of the clothing is still in stock and nothing is sold out on the UK site. EDIT 2: As of the evening of September the 6th all off the clothing is still in stock and nothing is sold out on the US site.
First up is this skater dress with bell sleeves, the exact same silhouette that they have used time and time again. They want to charge £44.99 for this? It had better be made of some sort of cotton blend for that price.
Nope! It is made of polyester, without any cotton in site! Not just any polyester, a fabric so thin that if you look closely you can actually see her skin tone through it. I think the real Wednesday Addams would throw this into a fire and giggle while it burned.
Next up is their Pugsley Addams sweater. For the cheap price of £54.99 you too can look like an angst filled teenager. It has an embroidered patch on the front, but it must be made of a cotton blend for that price, right? RIGHT?
WRONG!!! It is made of 100% polyester, not a scrap of cotton in sight. Since that is the case you are going to sweat like hell wearing this. What fun! So, you are basically paying all of that money for that patch stuck to it. Peachy-keen!
What a bargain! £32.99 for a basic t-shirt with an angsty graphic image! Are they telling me that I shouldn’t like hugs? I love hugs and I am in my early 50’s so I am guessing that this campaign wasn’t meant for me…even though I have money to spend, unlike an angst filled teenager. Killstar doesn’t understand the concept of demographics and who actually has spending money right now. People are broke, so even most adults would probably stay away from this.
This is 100% cotton, which to be fair most t-shrts are. However, most t-shirts don’t cost this much money.
Next up is an oversized cardigan for the low, low price of £59.99. It’s special because it has an embroidered patch on the front. Is it glued or sewn on? For that hefty price it had better be sewn, and the fabric had better be a cotton blend.
Surprise, it is 100% polyester! Not only do you get to itch, you also get to sweat! How very kind of them to think of us like that!
Oh look, yet another angsty £32.99 t-shirt. At least it is made of cotton so that you won’t be dripping with sweat as you lounge around all angsty. Remember, if you are goth you aren’t supposed to laugh or like hugs.
For the low low price of £39.99 you can buy this nifty ‘corset’ top with a zipper in the back and no lacing, so that you can look like you are wearing an ill fitting top just like this model! I used to be exactly her size and my boobs would probably battle to see which could get a shadow of a lift from this top. At least it is made of comfortable material so that you don’t sweat, right? RIGHT?
Nope, it is made of polyester materials and viscose so that you can freely sweat however much you want. Polyester repels water while viscose absorbs it, which means you would be a sweaty mess if you start doing things such as dancing or walking. How delightful!
Now we have the Addams Sweatshirt for £49.99. Sweatshirts are normally made from cotton so that you don’t sweat like hell and are comfortable. Surely this is made of cotton….surely!
The gods have blessed us, it is indeed made of cotton! Will miracles ever cease? That much money for a basic sweatshirt is insane. Insane I tell ya!
There is no simpler way to tell people how much you like to throw away money than to buy this for only £49.99. It better have a vial of Robert Smith’s tears to be costing that much money.
Made of both polyurethane and polyester? Faux leather usually starts peeling after a certain amount of time; in time to need a new bag from their next collection? How cool of them to think of trend jumpers like that. Trend jumpers have feelings too!
Dear God, why have you forsaken us in our hour of need? £49.99 is a whole lot of money to buy a basic polyester dress and it is going to take a miracle for people to afford this.
Awwww…..it’s the same polyester and viscose blended material that the corset top was. Maybe they can start an urban myth marketing trend; if you are soaked in sweat while wearing this dress in a cemetery the shade of Wednesday Addams will appear. You and I know she is a fictional character but others might not. I have all sorts of marketing ideas Killstar, get in touch if interested.
Now it is the Be Strange Long Sleeve Top for £34.99. Again, a silhouette that they have used time and time again. How original of them! The angst is strong with this one, but what is it made of? How much do they want you to sweat in this?
It is 95% viscose so they want you to suffer and sweat a whole lot. How kind!
Look, a top that may actually be worth the £27 they are charging for it! My goodness, I feel light headed right now!
95% polyester? Of course it is, and it looks quite thin. I have to give them some credit for the words actually being embroidered on it. However, the high neck looks very awkward when paired with the bare belly. If the model can’t even pull this look off what hope is there for the rest of us?
The Sub-Urban Gothic Long Sleeve Top is next, and by golly is that a lot of words for just a £32.99 basic striped top. Wait, I get it! It has a badge on it so that makes it special? Special in what way?
So special that it is made of 92% viscose! At first I thought it might be cotton, but I think that is just the patch since they tell you to wash it on cold with no tumble drying.
I’m Saaaorry Leggings for the low price of £34.99? I am trying to be an optimist but I have a feeling that I might just feel all sorry for myself after looking at what they are made of.
95% viscose? Are they including yeast infection meds with this because I can’t imagine anybody’s vagina being happy after wearing these all day.
Awww…….Killstar doing what they do best; sticking a white collar on a black dress. Could that be yet more edgy embroidery?
Not a breathable fabric in sight, it is made of almost all viscose! It is indeed embroidered. Go them! *slowly claps*
Yet another one of their usual pointed collar dresses, this time with a bunch of buttons that will more than likely fall off after a few wears. All of this for the low price of £59.99! What a bargain!
It is made of 100% viscose, go figure! To be more edgy they should have made the printed skulls larger, just saying.
Oh dear, £59.99 for yet another chance of a yeast infection? Sign me up!
Viscose and polyester together in one pair of flares? It feels like a dream come true, doesn’t it?
They want £39.99 for a simple cotton long sleeve top just because they slapped Wednesday on the front? Nah.
Again, why does Killstar not like hugs? For £39.99 it feels like Killstar didn’t get enough love as a child.
95% polyester. Killstar is making sure you are indeed a no hug zone, because who wants to hug somebody who is drenched in sweat?
Yeast infection ahoy! Half black, half striped and all sweat for only £39.99! That branding makes almost no sense because once somebody puts on a pair of boots it is covered. Hence why the model isn’t wearing any in that first photo.
Made of viscose and polyester, you shouldn’t be surprised at this point. Why do they hate cotton in leggings so much?
£49.99 for just one blouse? Killstar, are you on crack? It is time to lay down that pipe and enter the real world.
100% viscose for the win! Maybe you can wear this to a funeral in the winter? I can’t imagine moving around a bunch in this and actually being comfortable.
There goes that collar again. I am beginning to think that somebody on their design team has a fetish for them. There is no way in hell that this dress is worth £59.99.
Lots of viscose and polyester and a little elastane. Killstar, you cannot tell me this shit stretches a lot. How the hell is this even wearable as a dress because anybody larger than the model is going to have their ass hanging out.
This is a hoodie that genuinely shocked me as to how much it is. They want £62.99 for this shit. It’s just a long pullover hoodie with that same angsty no hug zone image on the front.
It is 100% cotton, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it is way, way overpriced for what it is; crap.
Here we go again, £32.99 for a basic cotton t-shirt with an angsty image thrown up on it. Shocking!
This are kind of cute and the cheapest thing on here for a grand total of £8.99. However, do they have any cotton in them? Remember cotton is important in socks because it lets your feet breathe.
80% cotton? Colour me shocked, shocked I tell ya! At least you won’t get trench foot wearing them? My sarcasm is reaching its limit.
A cropped sweater with print on the back for £44.99? Who the hells belles has that kind of cash to throw down for something like this?
It is 100% cotton…and yet one feels that they should be getting a better bang for their hard earned buck. At least a sweater that is full length. Sheesh.
…and they have saved their best for last. £32.99 for a pair of leggings that look like they would attract a yeast infection final boss in a video game. Sounds fun, right? What I truly don’t get about these is putting the purple pattern below the knee instead of the entire leg.
100% polyurethane. I could well imagine somebody passing out from wearing these in the summer. I used to wear similar leggings when I would go clubbing over 20 years ago and it would be a major pain in the arse peeling them off when I would get home because the lining would be drenched in sweat. The struggle is real!
Well, that’s it! Thank you for coming along with me on this journey filled with overpriced fun and surprises. May the force be with you…in a Sith way of course.
Over the last few weeks I have seen online more and more talk about classism and how it heavily affects those with little to no money. Almost all fashion these days can easily be considered ‘fast fashion’ since most clothing is now made in developing countries. The only way you are going to completely avoid it is if you buy used clothing or something handmade, and that isn’t as easy as some would make you believe.
Last week I went into town and visited the three charity shops there. I found nothing because they were all majorly picked over. Resellers actively go to these shops, and one of them has even opened their own local shop selling these clothes for way more cash. I’m not even joking. This type of thing is happening everywhere, so where the heck are ‘dark alternative’ type people supposed to find affordable clothing or accessories? On Poshmark and other related used product websites? Again many of the used products on those type of sites are very overpriced and not affordable for a whole chunk of people.
As you know I do a whole lot of DIY type projects and I frequently upcycle clothes that I find on clearance at my local New Look store. In the past I also bought a whole lot of clearance items off of Killstar for projects. Within the last year I have completely stopped buying anything from them because the quality of their items has jumped off of a cliff. In fact the quality of most ‘dark alternative’ type clothing is in the gutter right now; charging lots of money for items that you can find on Shein or Temu for a fraction of the price. Unfortunately this happens so frequently on Etsy that you have to do constant reverse image searches so that you don’t get ripped off.
Since all of this is the case why the hell should ‘dark alternative’ type people be shamed for buying what they can afford? It is often said that you can dress any way you want to if you are goth, but this is often paired with a wagging finger telling you where you should or should not shop. In a perfect world it would be great if fast fashion didn’t exist, but the world isn’t perfect and people have to buy clothing and accessories from somewhere. Yes, it is easy to do certain DIY type projects but you need supplies to do so and it can get very expensive gathering them together. The only people who shop on Shein and Temu who deserve any sort of derision are those who constantly make huge orders of things that they will more than likely almost never use. That is their business and they can do what they like, but it really comes across as being extremely wasteful.
My advice? Only buy things that you know you will either wear or turn into DIY type projects. Recently I browsed Temu for the first time and I actually found some very cool patches and badges. To my surprise I was also able to find and buy different Halloween themed ribbons and fabrics for fairly cheap. Where I live Halloween isn’t celebrated as heavily as in the US so I can’t find the same items in a store near me.
If any goth or ‘dark alternative’, uber goober gives you crap for shopping on Shein and Temu tell them to mind their own business; if you are happy that is all that really counts.
Do you know why whole lot of older goths dislike metal music and aren’t open minded about listening to it? Because metalheads used to threaten and beat the shit out of punks, goths and anybody who looked different back in the 80’s.
I graduated high school in 1989 so I witnessed this shit first hand. I wore skull buckle boots and a bunch of black eyeliner back then so I was targeted. However, it was only the male metalheads who would give me shit. I actually hung out sometimes with those of the female variety so I didn’t get the level of shit that some others got. There was a pecking order at my school. Jocks fucked with the metalheads and the metalheads fucked with anybody else who dressed strange. They were basically punching down.
Things were so bad in the late 80’s that I knew of somebody, who dressed very ‘goth’, whose leg was broken after they were pushed by a metalhead off of a high walkway. Thankfully the dude didn’t die, but the fact that an asshole thought it was okay to treat another person like that speaks volumes about just how bad things were.
I personally didn’t hate metal music during that time, but all of this bullying behaviour made me not want to listen to it. I only started getting into Danzig, Metallica and Slayer after high school partially because of this. The people who used to tease and threaten people who looked like me now want to be like me and that is a total mindfuck. It still trips me out just how many metalheads are also into goth music these days, because if they had liked both back in the 80’s they would have been called ‘faggots’ by those who only listened to metal.
Things are different these days in some aspects, but in some ways things have stayed the same; lately there has been a steep increase of some metalheads bringing their racist bullshit into other alternative subcultures. Not all metalheads are racist but for whatever reason the racist variety really love to jump on the goth train. I swear almost every single racist that I have run into online in goth communities has also been heavily into metal. It is such a real life trope that it has become very predictable at this point.
By the way, all of this happened in the San Francisco Bay Area which was a more liberal area of the United States. If it happened there it sure as hell happened in other areas of the country. I am sharing all of this because I think it is important for people to learn the true history of what happened back then; some male metalheads would physically take their insecurities out on anybody who looked different.