The Null Device

In the US the Bible-belt state of Missouri has allocated US$273,000 to stamp out "Goth culture" among its youth. Which is a laudable goal, though probably not for the reasons they had in mind. (via rotten.com)

There are 11 comments on "":

Posted by: Graham http:// Wed Apr 10 14:36:11 2002

"when they came for the goths, i said nothing for i was not a goth."

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Wed Apr 10 14:47:41 2002

when they came for me, I said "hey, you forgot about the goths, and I know where they're hiding".

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Wed Apr 10 14:51:45 2002

besides which, how many goths have you met? and what percentage weren't utter pillocks? Whilst I'm not advocating killing them or anything, wherever goths go, they bring a sneering, petty-minded high-school-clique bitchiness with them, envenoming the atmosphere. If there were no goths, it would be no loss.

Posted by: Graham http:// Wed Apr 10 14:58:57 2002

at least goths don't have mullets.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Wed Apr 10 15:07:04 2002

Not even in Missouri?

Posted by: Buster Hihmenn http://boundarylayer.blogspot.com Wed Apr 10 19:23:49 2002

You might be a redneck goth if... - you're too depressed for incest. - you don't have two front teeth, but you do have fangs. - you dye your sheep black.

http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~kilroy/redneck-goth.html

Posted by: alex Thu Apr 11 04:23:33 2002

Sierra, the highschool chick kicked out for starting an anarchy club, is missing. A thread at Melbourne Indymedia, http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25598&group=webcast , leads to a thread at infoshop, http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=01/11/29/1441985 , which had an interesting little nugget of information -- the term 'redneck' originally referred to the red neckerchief-wearing miners of the Mine Wars, http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvcoal/wars.html -- the US Eureka Stockade? So yeah, a redneck goth is a bit of a contradiction, aren't most goths soft and squishy when it comes to political beliefs?

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Thu Apr 11 05:13:54 2002

Looks like the American Left may have a new martyr...

Posted by: Jimbob http://the-fix.org Thu Apr 11 05:47:32 2002

Is it really that uncommon and concerning for an anarchist teen to go missing? My understanding is that in the US there is a fairly large culture of young anarchists living in squats, hitching freight trains across the country, and generally doing their best to tear down the fabric of capitalism. I'm sure most of _their_ parents don't know where they are.

Posted by: Joi http://www.gotblack.com Fri Apr 12 09:58:09 2002

I think some of the opinions displayed here exemplify the reason Such an initiative by the Blue Springs, MO Y.O.U. can be harmful to innocent people. Keep in mind that most goths, myself included, are hard-working upstanding well-balanced people with no wish to bother anyone. Unfortunately, it seems that in this country if your interests stray from the mainstream enough to be noticable, fingers get pointed, and people make incorrect assumptions about your character without even knowing you.

Shut out everything else for just a moment and imagine yourself dressing in gothic attire and listening to gothic music. Are you now any less a person?

I've voiced my opinions of this whole mess at http://www.gotblack.com/articles/

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Fri Apr 12 14:19:04 2002

I've met a *lot* of goths, and can vouch that 95% of them are petty-minded, bitchy, arrogant, superficial tossers. They're the people who got sneered at and ostracised by the cool kids in high school, and now want to do their own share of the sneering and ostracising; the elitists who are elitist for the most superficial and empty reasons; the people who go on about how original and creative they are, when they look and act just like every other fucking goth since Peter Murphy put a band together. As for creativity, don't get me started; knocking off the Sisters of Mercy/DCD/Edward Gorey/Dave McKean/whoever is not in my book creative or original.

If you're in the other 5%, that's too bad; maybe next time choose a better crowd to hang around with.