That's ridiculous, black shoelaces look better than white ones (I think). But I didn't know that shoelace-color had anything to do with being gothic :/

It starts with the shoelaces, and then befor you know it you're getting your entire wordrobe at hot-topic.

89- Stop right there. I hope you're kidding about that because if not you really need to be lobotomised immediately. 65 and anyone else ( a great deal of the people in here I would suspect ) emo may have started in the 80's, but goth started in the late 70's and was born out of post punk . It has NOTHING to do with Marylin manson, metal of any variety, HIM, Nightwish, Evanescewhatthefuckever. It has no influence from these types of music at all, and with the exception of metal, is older than all of those I have mentioned briefly there . It has nothing to do with any religion of any sort. It has nothing to do with depression, cutting, mutilation, bdsm ect ect. It's just another type of music. Certainly it has a distinct style/s of clothing that many like to put with it, I do myself, some people can do it well, a great deal cannot. But wearing goth clothing doesn't make you more goth, and *not* wearing it doesn't make you less goth. Because... it's just music and clothes are not remotely important, they just cover your nakedness. PROTIP Go to google, type in Scatheweb. It's a nice little site, black and purple (oooh how goff) There on the main page, you will see a button called History of goth. Click on it. Read it. Then, look at the menu on the left of that page. Click on all the years, the summary, movement, all the wee bits of information you see there. Even Wikipedia of all places, has a reasonably accurate page . Type in Gothic Rock. Lots of bands will be highlighted in blue, many if not all of them will also have appeared on Scatheweb . Pick some, go on youtube, watch . Most of you will be really quite surprised to find that goth is nothing like what you were expecting, those of you who think you know what it is, and are getting it wrong (yes it's quite easy to do ) will either love what you find, or hate it immediately and hopefully bugger off and listen to some thrash metal or whatever it is you thought was goth before looking at the correct information.

that's nebraska for you.

Parents these days.....

oh my god *flips red and black goth hair* your so hardcore goth! (I love southpark)

they worship Cthulu, duhh! did I spell that right? grammer Nazis leave me alone, I be lazy today >.>..

wow what an overreaction, black laces are standard with some types of trainers and boots. Freak them out proper and start wearing a pentogram or an ankh. If they are like 70-80% of people they will have no idea what those symbols actually mean and will think you are into some sort of neo-pagan death worship or some other wierd goth stereotype. Just to address the stereotypes- The nicest people I have ever met have been goths and (believe it or not) bikers, I'm talking ageing bikers with ZZ top beards lol. In all my time as a goth I have known one who was a satanist, most were different strands of Pagan or Christian and all were lovely pleasent people. A lot of movies and tv shows paint goths as depressed and dark with a preoccupation for the macabre. I didn't find this the be the case and still don't. Goths aren't that different really, we just like darker clothes and heavier music :)

106 i agree completely. Being a Gothic chick myself =]. ALL of the Gothic guys and gals i know are some of the sweetest things ive ever met, and i hate how people paint us so negatively. and for the person who said we worship Cthulu ... your wrong, all my nerd friends worship him.

well I'm 100% christian and I shop at hot topic and love death metal and I'm not gothic

cloths don't mean anything I got half my wardrobe at hot topic and I'm foot ball player at my school

All of you people are freaking RETARDED! you have no clue what being goth is! Todays ''goths'' are just EMO!