Good Or Shit: Can You Be A Goth And Listen To Katy Perry?

It’s a question I posed to a friend. A friend who says he’s a goth, but at the time was wearing a blue denim shirt. A firm believer that people are allowed to be whatever they want to be – I was Palestinian from the age of 16 to 24, still an avid supporter, free the P, yo – I didn’t question him on grounds of apparel.

Besides, what would I know? I saw a girl in pink at a metal night once, and when I asked my cousin why she wasn’t in black, he looked at me with disdain and said, “That’s just a stereotype.”

I’ve recently discovered I’m a goth. And it has answered a lot of my identity questions.

Why am I obsessed with the supernatural? From trashy television shows, to literature, to that time when I was 13 and tried to turn my eyes green with a magic spell, and that time I read the Hobbit in school and forced my friends to learn the Runic alphabet so we could write to each other in runes.

Why am I obsessed with ancient history, particularly Biblical history? In university I brought the Old Testament to life in all my creative writing classes, I name my house plants after dead Jewish kings, my mum won’t go to museums with me anymore because she can’t stand the way I read every plaque, and I’m prone to crying out, “For the love of Aphrodite!”

Then there’s death. I love old cemeteries, trying to communicate with ghosts, ancient mourning rituals, and there’s a collection of black and white death-related images on a wall at home which I fondly refer to as my wall of darkness, and about which I regularly get into arguments with my boyfriend because he thinks it’s weird.

There’s a reason I’m obsessed with Kenzie from Lost Girl – it’s because I want to be like/am totally like her.

But I’m not really into Marilyn Manson like she is. And while I do mostly only wear black, I don’t look like Marilyn Manson either. Is that ok?

“I think you’re a bit of a steam-punk,” my housemate says to me while I’m hanging onto the mantelpiece for dear life, him behind me, yanking the ties on my corset until I think I’m gonna need smelling salts.

We’re getting ready to attend London’s biggest fetish club, just another jaunt into the dark side because, you know, the girl’s drawn to the stuff but doesn’t know she’s a goth. Ghostpoet’s The Pleasure In Pleather is playing while I assess my other housemate’s faux leather skirt - its crashing drums and electric guitar creating a dark but manic sort of atmosphere – the perfect soundtrack.

“Steam-punk?”

“Yeah, there are loads of different kinds of goths. Steam-punks are like industrial revolution goths. They like old-fashioned stuff and technology. Just like you, Tatiana.”

I love this housemate. He gets on board with all kinds of weird shit. A week prior to wearing a corset, he, a friend of ours, and myself caught a train to Stonehenge because I insisted on being able to marvel at the ancient stones.

There we were, three thirty-somethings in our usual blacks, spending a day in the countryside pretending we were bounty hunters from the future. Timelords in the employ of the Time Syndicate Guild. On a mission to capture our man and retrieve the artefact from the sacred stones before it was too late.

Not once that day did we have a conversation that wasn’t about time shifts or time shields or how many civilisations we’d existed in, while trying to avoid bumping into the versions of ourselves that existed in that world at that time.

I was Tatiana G, a one-eyed gypsy gunslinger with magic powers who also happened to be the fastest shot in the seven galaxies and whatever you do, don’t ask about the missing eye.

“I’m stuck 2000 years from now. But I’ve managed to find a time shift stone in an ancient time palace in Jupiter’s closest star, back in a minute.” My housemate texted me from the bathroom in the pub.

“You guys are idiots”, everyone told us when we got back. “Weird idiots.”

So I like the supernatural, ancient things, sci fi, Biblical things, death, and corsets. I think I’m a goth, but I misguidedly think that means metal music.

“She’s In Parties is one of my favourite songs ever,” my friend writes to me with a link to Bauhaus, “Siouxsie & The Banshees you might like, Echo & The Bunnymen, Jesus & The Mary Chain. There’s Joy Division, The Cure, they’re more light-hearted indie-goth... You can always try Christian Death and if you want to go more hard-core, try Alien Sex Fiend, or Suicide Commando.”

I’m halfway through the list. And I love it. No wonder I liked The Weeknd’s House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls – it sampled Siouxsie & The Banshees! And I’m a goth!

In Goth: Undead Subculture, Rebecca Schraffenberger writes:

“We’re hardcore romantics, dreamy realists and cynical idealists. We find beauty in the macabre, while seeking fairness and tenderness in our daily lives. We love all things ancient, while being modern and liberal in our social outlook. We’re intelligent and creative without being cut-throat and competitive. We’re angry yet peaceful. We’re sure of ourselves but wary of strangers. We’re funny but bitter … but mostly very shy.”

I ripped it from my new Guru’s website – whatisgoth.com. I’m still researching. This is one subculture I haven’t had a lot of exposure to. But if it’s anything like what I’m discovering so far, I like it.

Not for clothes or music, but essence.

If I want, I can be a gypsy-gunslinger-future-bounty-hunter-from-the-future goth.

I should probably also consider joining a historical recreation club. I’d probably like that.