We are not born Gothic.

[PoupeeCelestia]

Because the first thing you actually need to be anything, it´s the capacity of thinking/reasoning....[the next paragraph might sound out of place, but please keep reading].

I remember when I was 9. I used to have this little book with drawings (ok, what can you really ilustrate a that age?). I carried it with me anywhere. And some of the drawings were something that I felt ashamed about when somebody looked at them. To make it short, one day my school mates grabbed it an laught at it, while ripping off the pages in front of me. Since then, I´ve always tryed to search for "dark" things in which I could "shelter" myself from the ridicules, or damage, or anything that could made me feel sad/hurted.

That was the experience that made me change a bit. But anyways, try to do a fast rewind to remember your first contact with anything goth-related (or that somehow, lend you to where you are now). I´ll love to read it.

[unedifying]

The first thing I remember in my life is Marilyn Manson's first album; Portrait of an American Family. You don't remember a certain amount of your life, and my brain decided to start remembering things when I first heard that album.

Since then, when my father or schoolmakes would insult me, or my parents would not pay a lot of attention to me, I would seek out the 'darker' things as comfort. I was always interested in and helped by that, especially because I grew up on movies like Hellraiser, A Clockwork Orange and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[Don't Look Behind You]

My first memories are of my mother's student days where they heard russian rock music and danced in dark rooms. I had aways payed great attention to the lyrics of the songs and would then think about them, well, a bit more than is healthy for a 5-6 year old. Eventualy, this brought me to feel more comfortable when thinking about dark and mysterious aspects of life...or not life.
So my over-sensitive imagination made an outcast-thinker out of me and it has remained so until today, only that the depression-factor has come in as I became a teenager.

I still remember exactly, though, how I came to the color black. When we moved from Russia to Boston, I first didn't want to go...and so I demonstratively started "mourning". And then I stoped feeling well when wearing other colors.
And only a few years ago I was introduced to the gothic culture by an ex-boyfriend. I was very surprised to see that I fit there perfectly, but could never really call myself gothic.

Erm, yeah. That's my gothic-biography.

[PoupeeCelestia]

My cousin once showed to me this Marilyn Manson concert...I can´t think in her intentions when she did it. But I don´t really feel very attracted to him (even throught I love to see his make-up).

I think that being the teacher´s daughter is more difficult than the normal...but Don´t look behind, do you think that the depression is in part caused for the same attraction"dark" things?...

[Delkaetre]

I was born like this!
Born to a pair of bikers who listened to the likes of Pink Floyd, what else would come of me but a change for goth? Discovery of punk and metal broadened my horizons, but I'd always been into vampires, dragons, things of dark fantasy. Finding some real music like Bauhaus really just finalised things.

[BlackWidow]

I definately was NOT born like this. My parents were hippies, my dad's nickname was "Chong." I was raised on oldies hippy music and classic rock. I also went to church everyday Sunday morning and night and Wednesday nights. I was baptized at age....9 or something. I was very religious. Then I got into a relationship with a guy who is now a worthless druggie. He introduces me to metal and drugs. We broke up, my heart got broken, I started cutting (before it was "cool.") I started hanging with other druggie people who were punk and goth. I started listening to more and more metal and did more and more drugs. I went from religious preppy to a stoner goth real fast. Now, I cant imagine being the way I used to be, I hate it. Goth is just....comfortable, it's me.

[PoupeeCelestia]

I thought about that possibility. But remember that one thing is the place or the origins you have that could not really had a to do a lot with the way you think right now. I don´t imagine you in the cradle saying: "I consider myself so individually goth...so Mom, please give me my black pacifier..."

I mean, theres as much chance as the rockers/goths/darks/satanists/anything son´s to become religious, as the christians son´s to become goth/or anything related to dark.

[Joe Inferno]

I remember once my grandmother died, and then a few days later, my friend Thomas introduced me to a Linkin Park album... and I can still remember getting it for christams with a CD player, next I went to the market and bought a cheap KoRn hoodie, and since then my childhood was always quiet and I used to like thinking alone by myself about when I would die and what would happen, and listening to the lyrics of linkin park, and it's only know when I listen again I really understand them.

[PoupeeCelestia]

OH!...sorry BlackWidow. The previous post was something I wanting to say specialy for Delkaetre.
But I know how confortable you feel in the goth subculture .

[Crying_Crimson_Tears]

I can remember my favorite colors being pink and purple. I wanted to be a princess and a ballerina when I grew up. I loved playing with my Barbie dolls and everything. I always wore cute little dresses and had long pretty blonde hair and always talked about getting a pony. I was the typical little girl. I was raised on classic rock and I loved N'SYNC and Britney Spears. And then in 3rd grade I started thinking about the "meaning of life" and started on darker thoughts. In 1st grade a girl older than me had introduced to the topic of sex and I was almost obsessed. Then I tried fitting in and I got so sick of the backstabbing and the thoughts in my head. I dyed my hair black (at first to mtach my eyebrows because they turned black) and then one of my friend's suggested I "go Goth." I started in on all the black and I lost virginity and I became sort of a loner. And etc. etc. Now I am who I am.

[Slap Your Love]

Originally Posted by Joe Inferno

I remember once my grandmother died, and then a few days later, my friend Thomas introduced me to a Linkin Park album... and I can still remember getting it for christams with a CD player, next I went to the market and bought a cheap KoRn hoodie, and since then my childhood was always quiet and I used to like thinking alone by myself about when I would die and what would happen, and listening to the lyrics of linkin park, and it's only know when I listen again I really understand them.

Linkin Park and Korn are not even in the Gothic ballpark. >.>

I was born gothic. It's in my blood. I grew up listening to Gothic music. I started to find any gothic literature I could at a young age. Goth is me. It's the biggest part of my life. I WAS born a Goth.

[cradle]

I was born a Goth, but definatly NOT raised that way.
My family sheltered me from the darker things of life, but knowing me, the rebel, I listened to darker music, and did darker things.

My sister was a huge influence on my life, she was the only goth in the family before me. I mean she was always like that, as was I...
This was all when I was about 3 or 4.

[PoupeeCelestia]

Originally Posted by Slap Your Love

Linkin Park and Korn are not even in the Gothic ballpark. >.>

I was born gothic. It's in my blood. I grew up listening to Gothic music. I started to find any gothic literature I could at a young age. Goth is me. It's the biggest part of my life. I WAS born a Goth.

Uhm...I know you have been here first than me...but...(without offense spirits)...was your umblical cord black?, or even better black with some systers/x-mal/christiandeath/dead can dance stickers o pins?...
And you don´t need to mention that Linkin Park is not "goth" at all (eigther you when you were a baby). But I bet that what the band´s lyrics transmit to JoeInferno much more than your "im SO goth" actitude to this topic.
....

[Slap Your Love]

Lol. My umblical cord was not black that I know of. But the Andrew Eldritch stickers and Pins were definately there as well as Death can dance. Thank you for your constructive criticism I don't know how I would have went on today without it. -.-

[PoupeeCelestia]

Oh...well...I don´t like to make anything feel bad (except my mom´s dogs). So, accept my apologies. And my friendliness =)

[Slap Your Love]

Wow, It's not too often someone appoligizes. Most would continue to rant. Thank you. You have won my respect.

[Absinthe Tears]

I am the child of a trauma doc so I spent a good deal of time in the hospital where my mom worked. Because she was unable to get a sitter for me the pathologist in the morgue used to watch me if it was a slow night for him. I remember seeing my fist dead body when I was a round five or so. My first autopsie came when I was almost seven. WHen I was around 16 or 16 I spent time in the morgue as a photographer, documenting autopsies and any personal effects that came in with the body. I embraced my darkness and never looked back.

[Don't Look Behind You]

Originally Posted by PoupeeCelestia

...but Don´t look behind, do you think that the depression is in part caused for the same attraction"dark" things?...

No, I would say not....According to my observations, my depression seems to float up when I try being more like the other people around and try to finaly fit in...and then find out that I don't even want to fit in.
So the "dark things" actually protect me from the deprrssion to a certain extent. When I turn to my short stories or my drawings or just my recent thoughts, I appear to have a motivation in life and when I part from such activities to try and be more like the rest then I am lost all of the sudden and feel like an existentialy confused 12 year old again.

So gothic seems to be a one-way road.

[She_Is_My_Sin]

When I was a little kid I always felt as if I was the odd one. I didn't have any friends, I liked to dress up everywhere, I was very childish & like PoupeeCelestia I used to draw personal pictures. Whenever I tried 'styles' I still felt odd. But when I started 'becoming gothic' I felt as if all the things that made me stand out, would finally make sense in a new frame of mind.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Let's see. A little biography of mine.
As you know, I believe goths are born, not made. So, let's see if I fit in my own phrase.
A cool thing about me is that I didn't cry when I was born. My mother tells me the instant I was born, I just started glancing at everything. So, my first feeling in this world was that of curiosity.
I learned to read between ages 2 and 3, and was presented to the english language at age 4.
I remember at Halloween, every year I dressed as a vampyre (except for one time that I dressed as a ninja). I never liked vampyres, but it introduced me to the Victorian style.
Growing up, I had never liked any music after the 19th century. I loved only classical music. My favorite composer has been Piotr Tchaikovsky since I can remember I first started listening to music.
When the movie Nightmare Before Christmas was released, I went to see it. I kept having dreams about it; more like nightmares, because I dreamt of how the folk in Halloweentown scared little kids. I bought the movie, but, as good as it is, I have never liked it even half as much as I loved Edward Scissorhands, which has been my favorite movie growing up until the release of 2004 The Phantom of the Opera.
My parents, after watching a recital from a musical prodigy in my family, decided to put me in piano classes. Entering piano, I had to quit karate, in which I had been since I was three, but I wasn't any good at anyways, so there was no problem on my part.
Next to my piano in the conservatorium (is that the word in english?) there were a pair of guys learning guitar by the same professor.
I wanted to learn guitar. The proffesor told me he would teach me some day, but I was still too small and my fingers too thin to play guitar.
I didn't learn guitar until I was 11, but I never was good at it. I quit piano, but I still keep the elegant pianist hands.
Violin is a new thing for me, but I'm better at it than the other two instruments. I have read books since I have memory, but it was until I read Harry Potter that I inherited the ability of reading fast enough to go through a book without getting tired of it. Before my friend Harry, I was only interested in short stories; mainly Edgar Allan Poe which I met at age 9, and myths and legends of different religions.
Now, if we speak of fashion, I had always tried to dress formally, until I was 14, when I began to dress as most other teenagers; that's been my only rendition to peer pressure.
As much as I tried to stay in fashion, people still told me I dressed too obscure. I've never, not even now, tried to dress like a spooky kid, or anything "creepy", but I have always used exclusively dark or opaque colors.
In music: At age 15, I tried my luck on the skateboard. I gave up in less than a week, when I broke a door sized window. I made a little reparations to the board, and sold it for more than it was worth it, and bought the electric guitar I still have. During this "skater" phase, I was lucky to not fall into the "punk" music, but instead, my good friend Bryan introduced me to some rock bands. My modern music tastes had been limited to Evanescence and Linkin' Park at this time. He introduced me to Korn, Mushroomhead, Rammstein, and Slipknot (I liked about half of their last CD, but was dissappointed with the other ones. Too much screaming and pointless lyrics)
In all this time I had been changing constantly of religion, most of my time being a Buddhist, until I found that this world isn't suffering, but it's all pleasure.
I don't know how, but at this time I found some interesting characters that would, for 3 years now, provide the colors of my life's canvas:
Aleister Crowley, Oscar Wilde, H.P. Lovecraft, Anton La Vey, Dan Simmons.
Dan Simmons opened my mind, presented me to John Keats, Shakespeare, Proust, Dante; paved the road for my interest in quantum physics, and taught me about Zen.
I believed in Thelema for some time.
Then, in an article comparing Crowley to LaVey, I met the religion of Satanism. So, yeah, I was a satanist before being a goth.
Learning a little about satanism, I read that LaVey had procclaimed shock star Marilyn Manson as a reverend of his church. I investigated a little about this fellow, and found him brilliant, despite his selling his personality to become an antithesis of society's values. Nevertheless, I like his songs.
Listening to a song that reminded me of Marilyn Manson, but I knew it clearly wasn't him, I later found out I had been introduced to Alien Sex Fiend.
Writing Aliex Sex Fiend on the internet also broght up The Sex Pistols, and an interesting incident with Siouxsie.
At age 16, I had a Bohemian phase, in which I wore all black and I began to write free style poetry.
My poetry wasn't about death or darkness; it was about people, but my friends still found it "dark".
My clothes and writings, and music called for their labelling me as goth.
I always said that I was not goth, I was Bohemian, and later that I was a Victorian.
Until I decided that if they're going to call me a goth, I might just as well be one.
I didn't care if I was goth or not in how I thought, but I was interested in seeing if I looked goth. To be a goth, you must look at least a little goth.
Somewhere on the way, I found this site.
I still write. A short story of mine is no the Literature section somewhere.
My poems are not "gothic". I find gothic literature annoying. You could say Lovecraft, Byron, and even Wilde write somewhat "gothily", but it's still not gothic literature.

I know this is long, but I think I have said pretty much everything that lead up to who am I.

[badteccy]

Even as a child I was always attracted to "darker" things, even my mom saw it. Hell, I was reading Poe in first grade...and so it began...kind of. Naw, I really got incredibly into goth in 7th grade.

[unedifying]

You're right, Jilli. People are one way when they're born and stick with that for the rest of their lives. (Unless they conform to peer pressure or something similar.)

When I began listening to Marilyn Manson, I think I must have already started being very interested in the 'darker' things, because he never, ever scared me.


But since I don't remember 0 yrs-3 yrs, I can't say for exact. (And since my parents are dead, I can't ask how I behaved when I was born, except judge the pictures my father took of me.)

At thirteen minutes old, I was sleeping. Which leads me to the conclusion, that I was born, looked around and thought 'fuck this' and went to sleep. XD

[cradle]

Lol undefying....I have no idea what I did when I was born, I probably was thinking "what the hell is this shit all over me?" Well, knowing me, I probably would have thought that if my brain was developed.I always had an intrest in violin but I never got around to playing it.

[PoupeeCelestia]

"Elegant pianist hands", now Jilli I am NOT going to get that out of my mind in at least 3 weeks. Quantum physics?...be aware, that thing is going to end up with our life existence. The "Buddist" stage, or whatever sounds just like that Herman Hesse´s book "Siddharta" (why don´t you give a look to it? =) ).

And well, just a comment: we the humans (because we ARE actually humans) don´t start to have memory until 3 or 4 years...

So, unedifying how old were you when your parents died?

[Hawthorne]

Ok here is my story, I WAS BORN GOTH my parents were both goth. My dad grew up his teenaged years in Germany in the late 60's, he was more of a punk goth. He had to give it up when he got a job as a computer programer at Sun microprocessing, he then gave up that job after 11 years and we moved, he went back to school to become a forester. My Mother grew up in your classic 60's family, she then went to art school were she found her calling as a goth. Still to this day, although she let her piercings close, she wears here black velvet dresses and eyeliner. She is an interior painter.


So when i was born, i was dressed as a baby goth, my earliest memories is running around one yule (we are pagan) with a black cloak that was a gift to me. I was happy, being a home schooler allowed me to express myself in any way i wanted. I do not know what happened the summer of 1994, as if by magic i converted in to the kind kid who wears baggy sweat paints, and the tucked in t-shirt (eewwwwwwwww). yes i still had a knack for dressing yup at random moments, and my Halloween costumes were all ways the talk of the naborhood, but the goth seemed to had run out of me.

This was right around the time we moved, and my dad went back to school. I had been Homeschooled my whole life, and i decided to try going to high school. My freshmen year at a performing arts school, with the help of my mom's old black pinstripe suit jacket with the silver rhinestones, converted me back to how i was meant to be.

Ever since that is how i have been. Even now i look down at my fingers on the key board and i can see the black and red striped nail polish of a goth.