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I was online talking in a goth group on Facebook or Reddit (I can’t remember which as this situation practically happens daily) doing the usual opposition to cries of “Gatekeeper!” and “Elitist!” not long into the new year. I don’t know why but something clicked in my head. This article is an attempt to explore that idea. I am sure others have likely had the same idea too. I am going to discuss a few points around this.



The rise of insulting terms

From the beginning we had the term poseur which was inherited from punk. In short, a poseur is a person who looks the part but that is all. In a music subculture like goth this is considered a faux pas but to be fair there are a lot of people on the fringes making up the numbers who are like this. Fringe people attending events help keep them alive so the word doesn’t usually get thrown about much in real life. It does not even see a lot of use on the internet though people do get corrected and sometimes called out for lumping things in goth that are not. I think it is good poseur isn’t used so much now as it isn’t a nice thing to call anyone. We have enough problems in the goth subculture without driving away new people like that.

Elitist is used by people in a derogatory way most of the time.It has been around for years and I recall hearing it used (or at least referring to the local elite) from since I started in out in my local goth scene in 1996. Elitist often refers to anyone who dares to try keep goth… well, goth. By this I am not referring to natural evolution from within but from outsiders trying to force anything and everything into goth because they happen to like it. Or it happens to be black. Or something. I have seen people called this in real life generally if they are seen as a bit snobby but it isn’t common. On the internet however it is thrown about everywhere if people dare to defend the goth subculture.

Personally I am of the school of though of taking the word back and joking about it, in particular through my meme page ELITIST JOE (https://www.facebook.com/gothgothygothgoth/)- the source of many of the wonderful memes I use in my articles now. In my opinion it is the elitists who have kept the goth subculture alive as most people come and go in a couple of years.