I think we may be at transatlantic difference time again - or just differences in perception anyway. Having just returned from the Goth festival in Whitby I can say I saw no evidence of devil worship, suicide cults or any other 'negative' aspects of Goth sub-culture apart from one or two 'offensive' tee-shirt slogans. There was no trouble, fighting, vandalism or evidence of heavy drug abuse. Even the teenagers I met were happy!

Remember that 'Goth' has now come to mean as many things as Folk does to us. There are traditional goths, romantic goths, cyber goths, punk goths, etc etc - the list seems endless. Not all were dressed in black. Very few looked even remotely vampirish. Oddly enough the whole vampire bit is a bit frowned on at Whitby - very cliched dontcha know! There were Victorian mill owners, Napoleonic soldiers, whip wielding dominatrix's, sexy slaves, leather clad bikers, petite Edwardian ladies and a whole multitude of styles colours, clothes and attitudes.

The main thing was all had a great time. They were all super friendly and welcomed everyone with equal good grace. I saw a brilliant sign which said 'The only difference between someone who has tatoos and piercings and someone who doesn't is that the one with them never takes offence at someone without!'

I had no reservations at all about taking my daughters (twins) when they were 14 (Well - they took me actualy!) They are now 16, pretty well balanced and funnily enough no longer into the goth look - although they still like the music. The worse effect it had on them was that they were bullied to the extent that they had to change school and ended up receiving treatment for depression as a result of the violence towards them. I don't blame the other children too much. They have only been taught by narrow minded bigoted parents who believed that the Goth sub-culture consisted of satan worshiping, gun toting, psycopathic evil murderers! Neither of my daughters, or any of their friends, or anyone I saw this weekend remotely fits into that stereotype.

There you go - anyone want the soapbox back???

Cheers

Dave the Gothignome