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Thoughts On The Goth Grifter

Wednesday, the latest image that the goth grifter is poaching.

I can hear you asking, what is a goth grifter? To put it simply it is somebody using the goth subculture in order to make money, receive free gifts, or to gain popularity in ‘alternative’ subculture circles in general. Through my years of listening to goth and punk music and participating in various ‘scenes’ I have seen my fair share of them so it is fairly easy for me to root them out. All of the information included in this article is public and quite easy to find so I didn’t have to dig far to get any of it.

One year ago Madi Danger thought that all post-punk music was goth, as evidenced above. EDIT: As of 15/01 she has taken down my comment. Too late Madi, too late!!!!!

The most recent really obvious case that has totally jump started me into finally writing about this is the mysterious appearance of the self proclaimed metal and goth music lover Madi Danger. I first saw her on YouTube last year when she made a ‘intro to goth music’ video that misrepresented Echo &The Bunnymen and Joy Division both as goth bands. I corrected her just on the Bunnymen inclusion, because I didn’t feel like being called a gatekeeper. She came back with the whole ‘post-punk is a genre under the goth umbrella’ fallacy. I automatically thought that she must be really young to think that since it is surface level misinformation. Somebody older and wiser would know differently. Well, guess what? Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was twenty-four years old when she wrote the above misinformation.

The question that immediately comes to my mind is why would a fully grown ass woman in her mid-twenties suddenly hitch her trailer to the goth subculture? She obviously knows a whole lot about metal music and is a big fan of that genre. Yet, she all of a sudden likes goth and wants to share her surface level knowledge of it with everybody? It just really feels inauthentic, like she is hitching her identity now to ‘goth’ because it is what is very popular. She has the teased hair, the clothes, and all of the frippery, but it’s just really a shell that is easily cracked. She is using goth as an additive to her already metal identity, to gain more attention and more of a following. You know what? I wouldn’t hold anything against her at all if she was a youngster, but she is now twenty-six years old. This is a grift for subculture clout, and a painfully obvious one at that.

They quite frequently will call themselves a ‘trad goth’, which always makes me roll my eyes.

The next kind of goth grifter that I have run into a lot online are the ones who call themselves ‘trad goth’. They think that calling themselves such will gain them more goth community clout since the goth grifter feels that anything out of the 80’s is cool. They copy what they think the 80’s were like, but since they weren’t even born in that decade it just comes across as really shallow and reeks of desperation. They want what the 80’s produced, such as goth music, without any of the hardships that the people who actually went through that decade lived through. It’s the exact same crap as the wannabe hippies of the late 80’s; people longing for a decade, which in reality, they probably would not have fit into.

They link to an Amazon wish-list, because of course they do.

The goth grifter doesn’t really have any shame and will usually openly advertise their Amazon wish-list as the person above has done. They do this, of course, to receive free products. My huge question about this is why the heck do they think that they deserve free merch from complete strangers? What are they producing that is so damn special that they think that they deserve these goods? It takes some ego to think that their contribution to the goth subculture is that important and that worthy of attention, when in fact the information they share is usually limited and based off of misinformation. So instead of helping the subculture they hinder it, because all of the youngsters who follow these grifters head down the same path of outright lies and half truths. It’s a goth circle jerk.

Your ‘goth queen’? Oh FFS.

I feel kind of bad for calling out this particular person in the last three photos but they embody so perfectly the point I am making. I have been running this blog as a hobby for over two years now and never once did I think that it would be okay for me to throw up an Amazon wish-list so that I could get free crap. In fact I do not make a dime at all from doing any of this. I do this because I love both the goth and punk subcultures and want to share real information, not half truths and lies that I have pulled out of my ass. I was actually a teen in the 80’s who lived through that decade not somebody playing 80’s dress-up for cash and prizes.

Because of the mainstream popularity of the series Wednesday you now have numerous goth grifters who think that dressing in black and copying a dance makes them automatically a goth. It reminds me of when Mansonites in the 90’s did the same exact crap; copying an image that they think gives them an entryway into the goth subculture, when in reality the opposite is true. When people try so hard to match an image is just reeks of desperation. How is any of this different from the endless grifting that the Kardashians do on social media? It’s done for the exact same reason; to be popular despite not having a discernable talent. Oh wow, you can buy some black clothes online and do over the top ‘goth’ make-up. In the words of Teddy Roosevelt; bully for you. You don’t deserve special treatment for it, or over the top praise for doing what thousands have done before you.

What is the best thing you can do? Not give money or gifts to any of these goth grifters. Within a few years they will more than likely drop out of the subculture and pivot to another grift. Remember Sebastian Columbine? No? My point exactly.

Yet More Very Cool Patches!

I’m a patch whore, I have no shame!

This is kind of a lazy post but I have been up to a lot this past week and don’t really have the time to write a long post. My husband and I have been planning a cruise to Scandinavia and that has taken out a large chunk of my thoughts and free time.

As you can see more patches have arrived for the Glenn Danzig themed jacket. I will use the others in some other projects in the future. Again, I got all of them off of Etsy from various sellers. My favourite above is the Jackie O. Misfits patch.

Undead….undead….undead.

That huge Samhain Initium death dealer patch is going to be the centrepiece of the Glenn Danzig jacket and I got it from this store. If you like any Glenn related band you will probably really enjoy looking through their patches and pins.

Will this patch madness ever end? No!

Most of the above patches I got from Grimoria on Etsy. What I really like about their patches in particular is that I can shape them to fit into spaces; they don’t come already cut out like the skeleton hands and bats above in the photo.

That is it for today. Remember to buy patches that you actually like, not what you think other people would like. Stay true to yourself.

That Time I Gave Ronald Reagan’s Secretary Of State, George Shultz, The Finger

The true evil empire of the 1980’s.

I have always been left winged and I openly hated Reagan all through high school in the late 80’s. Conformity was a total way of life back then, so I of course got a lot of crap in high school for disliking him. The cult of Reagan was a real thing. With all of that being said I jumped at the chance of visiting DC in late 1987 with a group called Close Up. It was an organization which taught teens about politics, and I met other teens from all over the country there. Most, if not all, of the teens were Reagan supporters so thinking I was unpopular is correct. I actually won an award on the last night for being the most politically engaged out of the entire group and I got booed. I also got booed at my high school graduation so this was the start of a trend. You know you are doing something right when all of the conformist Reagan cultists hate you.

With all of that being said, the week I was in DC was also coincidently the week that the US and the USSR signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces(INF) Treaty. One of the days we were allowed to walk wherever we wanted to before a big lunch. Two friends and I were walking near the Capital Building when we noticed a motorcade of black limos coming towards us. First the Soviets came by and they actually slowed down, rolled down their windows, and happily waved to us as they drove past. There were little USSR flags on the front of the limo, so yes it was them. Then came the Americans, who didn’t open their windows or wave to people at all. Being the savvy teen that I was I knew that Shultz had to be in one of them and sure enough as his limo slowly went past I could see his very recognizable profile. Immediately I gave him the finger while shouting repeatedly for him to go fuck himself. My friends told me to stop because they were scared of being arrested but I kept going until he was out of sight. I told my friends that they could not arrest a sixteen year old for using her constitutional right to criticize the US government. I was correct.

Looking back on my teen years this is the event I am the most proud of. As a sixteen year old I had a bigger set of balls than a lot of the adults did during that time. I talked the talk and walked the walk, the same as I do today. During that time I was into The Dead Kennedys, U2 and other politically minded bands. All of that music taught me that it was more important to stand up against horrible situations and people, rather than just sitting back and doing nothing. I hope this inspires you to do the same.

Questioned For Wearing A Band Shirt Just Because You’re A Chick? It Sucks.

I am a middle aged woman wearing a Samhain shirt. Fear me!

Recently the wannabe version of the Dead Kennedys questioned a woman who was wearing one of their shirts as somebody who probably didn’t listen to their music. The woman did in fact listen to the band and they lost a fan. Jello Biafra even stepped forward and said that what they posted was crap and that he would never assume something like that. This whole thing really pissed me off because for years women who enjoy listening to punk or metal bands have had to deal with this sort of thing. Now even bands are saying this crap?

There has been a trend that started within the last decade of regular chain stores selling punk and metal band shirts. This in turn means that regular people buy them to wear without knowing that they are actual bands. A good example of this is the Misfits fiend skull. It’s seen as just a symbol by some people. Is that a little sad? Sure, but do you have the right to go up to that person and grill them about what their favourite Misfits songs are? No. If they want to look like a fashion victim that is their choice and none of your damn business. If you want to be mad at anybody be mad at the bands for selling out. I’m looking at you Jerry Only!

When I started heavily getting into punk and wearing shirts from bands such as Samhain, Misfits, 7 Seconds,etc… I would occasionally get guys coming up to me and grilling me on albums and songs. Sometimes they would even ask me if I just wanted to fuck the band. No joke! As a woman I had to prove time and time again that I was really into the music. Once I listed off the songs and albums I liked that would usually shut them up and they would slink back to the sewer from which they came.

The funny thing about all of this is that I have known more about punk bands than anybody I have ever dated. Seriously. That older woman who is wearing a Samhain shirt while walking down the street may know more about the band than you do and she might be such a fan that she has been listening to them for over thirty years; longer that you have been alive.

I feel that the guys who perpetuate this are insecure when it comes to their knowledge about the bands that they like. They are scared that somebody might actually know more about their favorite bands than they do, and it would especially be harrowing for them if that same middle aged woman wearing that Samhain shirt knew facts that they didn’t know. Middle aged women aren’t supposed to be listening to punk! Instead we are supposed to be wearing mom jeans and ferrying a bunch of kids around in a minivan all day.

The best thing to do when you see a chick wearing a punk or metal band shirt is just to smile when you see them and keep walking. If they initiate a conversation because they sense that you could also like the same band then that is awesome! You’re not being an asshole in that type of situation and you could possibly make a friend. Isn’t that better than making baseless assumptions about somebody just because they are a woman wearing a punk or metal band shirt? If you think otherwise then you are indeed being an asshole.