What is Goth?

I have had, over the years, various people ask me to define Goth and why I chose the path. I admit I love the superficial side of it all, the dress ups and make up and silly dancing. But there is much more. I got into an argument in a pub with a Christian (what was he doing in a pub??) once who insisted Goth was an obsession with death. Obviously I disagreed. Yes the main part of the trappings are skeletons and coffins and bats and spiders and all the vampire stuff and the cadaverous make up, but it’s a style that borrows these forms and is no more an obsession with death than wearing floral is an obsession with the reproductive organs of plants. It’s a matter of aesthetics. I happen to think red back spider are beautiful, their shape and intense colour is gorgeous and I also like the implications of them being venomous. Beautiful but deadly. It has a comedic poetry. And I think that is the essence of Goth. To be able to see the beauty in what is conventionally considered ugly, perhaps why the culture attracts outcasts – anyone can be beautiful in goth society: the fat, the skinny, big noses, small eyes – all those things the magazines tell us we shouldn’t have or be.
I grew up in a single parent family, my sister and my mother and me. We didn’t have much money and Mum shopped at op shops and even though she tried her best we always looked a bit odd (no I’m not paraphrasing a Dolly Parton song). This caused me much grief as a child but eventually I became aware that what the other kids had and thought was so cool was actually just crap. I developed an ability to discern quality from quantity. I took to making myself look odder, turned it around, threw it back at them – instead of wearing second hand clothes that looked a bit odd, I went for as odd as I could get. The Goth evolved.
Why do I like old horror films? Why do I like old cars? They have an elegance, a gracefulness that is lacking in their modern counterparts. The loss of form in function upsets and offends me. I insisted on getting a (second hand)claw foot bath, even though it is old and crappy and the enamel is chipping and a new fibreglass one would have cost less but would be just so BORING! A bath may just be a place to wash yourself but it is also a permanent part of your surroundings. I surround myself with as many beautiful things as I can, probably another reaction to growing up without, and now that I have the means I will buy what I like and am happy to pay more for a particular colour or shape. I want my home to be a place of beauty, a refuge I can retreat to and forget the ugliness and blandness of the world. I have never been able to understand or appreciate the aesthetics of modern furniture. Why would I want a craftwood and fake woodgrain table from Ikea when for less money I can get a solid timber one from a second hand shop? Is that a Goth thing? Not really, modern Goths may go for PVC and chrome - there are many styles within the genre.
Horror films, especially old school, have an elegance. There is an assumption that the audience has a few brain cells and can work out a plot, but also retrospectively a humour that is lacking in modern films. Frankenstein is not a story about a monster and a mad scientist, it’s about fear of the unknown and mortality and what makes a man. The tortured soul is such a common theme in the classic horror: the unwilling wolfman, the frustrated vampire. I think as Goths tend to be outcasts they can relate to the emotional turmoil and it is comforting in a strange way. The blockbuster films give most people little they can relate to - people with perfect teeth and flawless skin - but film noir makes us feel a bit less "weird". Therein lies the rub - we are weird, but perhaps don’t really want to be. We want to rebel but our rebellion is in fact quite orthodox - we simply conform to an alternative society.
I will never stop wearing black, dying my hair, driving a vintage car, listening to weird music, watching weird films, reading classic literature and being generally dramatic in style and lifestlye. What is the underlying, bottom line reason for it? I like it.