The new Goths?

[VforVienetta]

It occurs to me that every generation has its movement for disaffected youth; punks, hippies, goths, etc etc and so on and so on for every generation.
There are 'true' punks/goths/hippies still today, who truly identify with their movement's tenets etc, but most grew out of it as they got older. Plenty of ex-punks with chintz sofas and 9-5 jobs, looking forward to their pension. De-punked, if you will.
Of course, the trans trend is affecting laws and rights, so is a hell of a lot more concerning than some moody looking teens in black hanging around the town centre.
Do you think trans is this generation's 'thing'?

I've read that before - now trans is growing you see fewer "emo" kids around.

Thereis definitely something in that theory.
The fact that girls seem to be under so much more pressure to be feminine and look "right" is adding to it in my view.
Girls now nearly all have long hair, my younger cousins have full, expensive make up bags, false lashes and nails, brows done by professionals even if that means threading for £4.
In my day we all wore combat trousers and make up was a glitter roll on lip gloss and mascara at the most.
Also I was anorexic, as a lot of girls seemed to be if you believe the media at the time, none of my friends or anyone I knew was. some of my friends did cut themselves.
Kids don't seem to do that so much nowadays. If the media is to be believed.

I've thought this for a while, goth was so 90's emo was 2000's and trans is now

It's just a way to 'shock' the parents but with much bigger consequences than goth or emo due to the 'woke' thinking of those who should know better

Pre internet, teen tribes were music based, from teddyboys through mods, punks, skinheads, racers etc. Music no longer offers any sort of counter culture and media generally is so fragmented and on demand that tribes are decentralised to the point where they gather online around other things e.g Instagram trends such as MUAs.
When eg in a school you had a bunch of skinheads, there'd be variation in devotion to the cause, and the fair weather ones who liked the look or music would water down the ones who were more hardcore. IMO, by spreading a tribe thinly but globally via the internet as with trans trenders you lose the watering down effect of the local tribe as it's just all the hardcore whipping each other in to a frenzy about procuring hormones etc, devoid of much of the nuance and caution of face to face contact.

*ravers

I think that there is something to that. I also think though that a good number of the kids being caught up in the trans trend have mental health issues rather than being. Some kids who had mental health issues of course went for countercultural groups but I never felt like the groups were mainly about that, if that makes sense.

I agree Goose.
The social media world and self-promoting culture has a huge impact on behaviour, and I think in a way it's a perfect storm.
The teenaged disruption of hormonal & physical developments, sexual awakening, social strain, emotional stress, exams, media input, peer pressure, have-it-all expectations - I mean, fucking hell, no wonder they're looking for an answer.
The thing is tho, children and young people in general tend to be very black and white, and will leap at an answer for their angst.
I could have been sucked into this shit if it had existed when I was a developing brain. I rejected femininity, hated being sexualised, and would have loved a tribe to call my own. Instead, I had painfully awkward teens, and eventually accepted the hand I was dealt. Big fucking surprise, I am now a mother and am no longer revolted by my own body.
Time is a luxury todays teens aren't being given. This affirmation culture is deeply damaging.

mental health issues

I think that still applied to emos. In my group at school there were kids with significant anxiety and depression, bipolar in one case, and a lot of us also were either diagnosed with ASD/ADHD or with hindsight displayed a lot of the traits if undiagnosed. We got to think we were better than the mainstream kids who often made us feel like outsiders before emo came along, we got to feel like we belonged. And we had shared interests as we all wanted to fit in with each other, again that feeling of belonging.

I’ve seen this parallel for a while. Girls are largely long haired, over-made-up, all wearing the same jeans, trainers, belly top and bomber jacket. It’s so homogenous and I could see how hard/painful rejecting that could be.

It's this generation's cry for help, for sure.

But now there are those who want to make sure the tears last a lifetime. We live in strange times.

Yes I can see the correlations and yes the goth gatherings in my town have gone.

It's a much darker trend though.

Interesting, & I think yes, a lot of these young people would have ended up punk/goth/emo in previous decades.

Certainly my experience is that older goths tend to see themselves in them. I'm a persistent goth who's still poncing around in black in my late 40s. Lots of my friends are also middle aged goths, punks etc.

I get absolutely howled down any time I post anything on SM that is remotely GC. Goths are a bit of an echo chamber when it comes to uncritically applauding the blue haired kids.

I think it's because we were quite protective of the emos, & at some level people see the brave & stunning teenagers as next generation - which they probably are. There's a tendency to see the combination of flamboyant/creative/misfit etc & identify with our own youth as misunderstood 'weirdoes'.

So yep, I think there's an extent to which this is the new goth. I'm not entirely a lone voice in speaking out, but I've had a lot of anger directed my way from fellow goths - whereas friends who don't have that background tend to reflect the same stance as most of the public - they'd like to be nice, they don't want to upset vulnerable people, but they don't want blokes in female spaces & they're very willing to say so.

Kudos to punk poet Joolz Denby - she's proudly GC & takes no prisoners on Twitter. But she's a bit of a rare bird in those circles.

Love Joolz, she's amazing.

I think “what’s your pronouns?” is the new “what’s your star sign?”

All of the above may be true - but is, additionally, being manipulated by the ever growing numbers of middle aged heterosexual cross dressers transitioning full time; especially those with power and influence. So many different levels and strands to this 'thing'.

I actually saw a goth, yesterday, in town. The first time in a long, long time. Young woman/teenage girl.

Interesting discussion. I was fairly gothy/crusty in the 1990s and aligned myself with "alternative" subcultures.

As a middle aged lawyer, ostensibly fairly conventional, I have reflected on what it was that made me grow dreadlocks, wear para boots, get multiple piercings etc. in my teens.

I do think it was a way to escape some of the pressure of adolescence. I was never one of the pretty girls, I felt uncomfortable in my skin, in fact I would go so far as to say I hated how I looked. I was never going to have all the boys fancy me. So I made myself "uglier' as a statement. It also gave me a sense of belonging to a group, something I had not felt before.

So I think there are some parallels there.

But I think the other parallel is between the self harming/eating disordered adolescents. I accept that getting numerous piercings as I did is a form of self harm, but not on the scale of starving oneself or binders or surgery.

It would be interesting to know the statistics about anorexia nowadays as well. That's a way of controlling your body, and being trans is the ultimate expression.

The thread I posted elsewhere (the article on binding) had a comment suggesting a high crossover between anorexia and trans - no link given, so don't know the source for that claim. But it's not difficult to imagine that if you hate your body in one way, you might also hate it in another.

So not trans as the new anorexia but a significant number of the old anorexics also being trans.

I agree completely - I am another one of those who was uncomfortable as a teen, not in the in crowd but found “my people” in the indie scene with baggy flares and over sized band t shirts covering a female body that just didn’t feel like mine. I also self harmed, self medicated with drugs and alcohol.

I do think it’s a tragedy that the gender critical are the new enemy because we “don’t understand”, when the truth is many of us are gender critical because we understand all too well.

I do think it’s a tragedy that the gender critical are the new enemy because we “don’t understand”, when the truth is many of us are gender critical because we understand all too well.

👏👏👏

Spot on Bears

I tend to think of them as today's emo kids. Particularly because of the mental health as identity stuff, as well as a number of other characteristics and behaviours.

And seeing parents parading their under-12s to the news media, and over-sharing on social media, takes me back just a few years to when the number mystical and wise "Indigo children" were about the same as the number of parents today who have "trans kids" -kids in primary school or even kindergarten- who are inspirational "heroes" to their own parents, always teaching them something, and having "always known " they were "really a boy" or girl.

I think you are right. Each generation has the need to shock the last to demonstrate that they are not the same as their parents.

The thing is every possible shocking thing has now been done before by previous generations.

The escalating numbers of trans youth (and especially non-binary genders) are clearly a youth culture. You only have to look at the style of it and the types of young people who identify as such.

Declaring yourself as trans / non-binary is like the ultimate tattoo!

I was thinking this in relation to non-binary kids. A lot of them all seem to have similar clothes/style and haircuts/colours, that it does come across like a bit of a trend and subgroup of youth in the same way goths or emo kids were. The only difference is it somehow interlinking with their gender and needing new pronouns etc for being part of this subculture.

i think goths/emo were paving the way for this. Gender non-conformity in males was a strong theme, long before pronouns were a thing.

Some old guy said its a "conspiracy to make everyone bisexual". I laughed at him back then, but now look like his senses were right.