If you have been online for any amount of time in the goth community you will witness younglings who insist that Joy Division is a goth band. When you tell them that they were in a fact a post-punk band they squirm and squeal like a piglet and will call you an elitist or a gatekeeper for telling them the truth.
Why are Joy Division being pushed as a goth band by those who have no idea what they are on about? Because Joy Division quite often had sad lyrics. The younglings insist, and believe, that sadness = goth. If there was any truth to that then wouldn’t tons of country bands be considered goth? Or even Blues musicians? Both genres of music quite often have sad lyrics. It makes absolutely no sense. Seriously.
Joy Division is a very influential band who paved the way for a whole lot of post-punk and goth bands, but they themselves are not a goth band. But how can that be I can hear younglings asking. They quite often will site how producer Martin Hannett in 1979 called them a band with gothic overtones, without realizing that the terms goth and gothic actually mean two different things. The term gothic describes a dark style of architecture and literature, while the term goth is a descriptor for a form of music and subculture. Hannett was basically saying that their music had a darkness to it. Also, the goth subculture didn’t really start going till the early 80’s so he definitely wasn’t referencing that.
What can we learn from this lesson? That misinformation spreads like wildfire online. The internet is both a curse and a blessing for the goth subculture as a whole right now. On the one hand you have people wanting to learn about goth music which is a very cool thing. On the other hand you have people who have no idea what goth music is pushing unrelated genres such as Soundcloud rap as goth, which of course confuses the younglings.
Why do I care so much about this? Because I am sick and tired of seeing them being pushed into a genre that they were never a part of. All of this also raises an important question; why the hell are younglings so hellbent on calling everything goth these days? If they like something they will call it goth because they think that everything they like has to be goth or they aren’t a ‘true goth’. I’m not even joking about that. Instead of being themselves they want to fit inside a self imposed goth box that contains half truths and lies. In the 80’s and 90’s they were never considered goth, and no amount of tantrums by poseurs and wannabes is going to change that.