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Youth Focus from Vertical Thought... God, Goths and Emos

When the culture is so clueless and corrupt, the call of countercultures is great. But there's a counterculture nearly everyone has overlooked.

by Randy Stiver

Does God care whom you call your friends? Does He care how you dress, how you cut and dye your hair, if you paint your face white with black rings around your eyes, if you get yourself tattooed and pierced all over or if you cut your body?

Is God concerned if you feel like you don't fit in or if you experience the emotional pain of abuse from the immature craziness of a dysfunctional family?

Do you think that God cares one way or the other if you feed your mind with songs of death, depression and suicide or with horror films and Internet games glorifying evil? Does God care if you immerse yourself in the countercultures of darkness?

The question is: Does God care about you at all?

The answer is: Yes, He does care on all counts-and cares more than you can fully know!

The fact is: God is about life and light-not death and darkness.

The fact is: God has a culture, a place where you can fit in, a place of physical and emotional safety among true friends of high character and good cheer. You don't need a dark counterculture to find acceptance and identity.

Defying definition

We don't have to tell you about those involved in gothic or emo music, dress or lifestyle. You probably know some, and besides, in "the ever-mutating virus we know as American pop culture," goth and emo mean different things to different people (Helen A.S. Popkin, "What Exactly Is 'Emo,' Anyway?" www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11720603).

But almost everyone would agree that real goths and emos are disaffected with today's culture.

The Rise of the Goths and the Emos

There have always been subcultures running counter to whatever was the dominant culture. The late 1970s saw the eruption of the virulently angry punk rock scene, with spiked hair and screeching vocals.

In 1979 the punk band Bauhaus recorded "Bela Lugosi's Dead"-a song about the demise of a famous horror-film actor. "Many young fans latched onto this mysterious, eerie sound as inspiration for the budding gothic subculture" (Alicia Porter Smith, "History of the Gothic Subculture," gothicsubculture.com).

To counter the increasing violence of punk rock, a few bands in the late 1980s began to do more dramatic musical performances that became known as emotive hardcore. Fans of this variation were labeled "emo." The term and style died out until the turn of the 21st century. Emo became one of the first cultural movements born (or reborn) on the Internet through social networking sites.

Read the full article at www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn76/youth76.htm

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