Please don't shoot me if this has been done before. I searched and didn't find anything, but if there is something and I missed it, please let me know, and this can be taken down or whatever.

Anyways; this is exactly what the title says. What does being Goth mean to you?

For me, being Goth means: Accepting/Embracing/liking the darker things in life, finding beauty in unexpected/darker places and being an individual. It is also a bohemian lifestyle. There is the art, architecture, music, and literature as well. It is naturally being drawn to the darker things and going: 'I like this'...not 'I like this because it's Goth'. For example: I liked Ruby Gloom, and Growing Up Creepie, and Stephen King, and Tim Burton, and Edgar Allan Poe, etc. before I was Goth. I just naturally like it.

So there. That is what being Goth is to me. What does being Goth mean to you?

I would agree with you. The biggest thing to me, is just the natural attraction and feeling comfortable with the darker side of life. Some people say that true goths are all about the music, but that's not what I believe. Music, and art/literature...etc., are definitely a part of it, but I don't think that is the main component.

Yes, I have just been thinking about this the past couple days. "Goth" to me is not about dressing up to shock people or trying to fit into a subculture, which is sometimes what I'm afraid some people will think it is and perceive me as. Honestly, I dress the way I do because I feel most comfortable that way. Growing up I was a huge fan of Tim Burton, Halloween, the supernatural, spiders, bats, vampires, dark music, gothic literature, and generally the darker morbid side of life. In more recent years I tried listening to The Cure and Alien Sex Fiend which are "goth" bands I suppose... honestly though they just don't appeal to me! And I don't think that automatically disqualifies me as a goth, I think that goth is something innate and it's not necessarily just a music movement that began in the 80s. Perhaps goths-at-heart have been around for much longer and were just called freaks or weirdos by everyone else.

It's music, fashion and mind set. To me, it's having an interest in things that are considered dark. My personal favorite part about it is the fashion. We lack so many individuals who dress how they want in our society. Let's face it, we dress the way we do because others don't have the courage to. People spend so much time thinking of labels and what others will think of them. It's being different and looking great at the same time.

For me being Goth means appreciating the darker things in life, the stuff that's usually shunned by mainstream society. So being Goth fulfills a need in me to identify myself as being part of the Goth subculture, if that makes sense.
For me being Goth also means appreciating Gothic music, fashion and Gothic architecture. I like some Gothic music but not all though, however I don't think that really matters that much.
Obviously we are all different in our likes and dislikes of the darker things in life, but being Goth gives us the platform to show our appreciation for such things.

It's also nice to be able to appreciate the thoughts of like minded Goths on this site, of which I do of course.

Goth to me, is a vibrant and powerful attraction to the melancholy, the gloomy, and the dark...for those who find comfort in the dark...this is reflected in the music and expressed strongly through it...goth is a music driven subculture , yet it springs forth in other directions as well...it is a fashion subculture as well, but most of all it is finding beauty in the melancholy and the dark....to me at least...

Music and artistic expression, primarily, with fashion being a statement of your love of such things.

In a nutshell, it encompasses all forms of art that celebrate the supernatural occult in an obscurely romantic light.

As a modern counter-cultural movement, it was revitalized by the early punk scene.

That's a very good way of describing Goth, very nicely put.

Goth is just an interest to me in that I just happen to find beauty in things that most people would consider creepy/weird/evil etc. I don't define myself by it and I certainly don't think I'm special either(not anymore at least. I *cringe* when I look back on my "wannabe phase").

Goth, well to me, is the individual. An open minded individual that respects all things dark and morbid, and explores his/her questions in theory because he truly feels curiosity to it and does not stop solely because people have shot his ideas down point blank. I think Goth is a group of people that accepts others and brings people together as a family. I kind of see it in a romantic or poetic way. It is an understanding of what is in our souls rather than what people want to see outside. I guess to me Goth subculture can be described as an adventure..."Oh what creatures that I may see!"..."Who are the allies on my adventure?"..."This is my survival gear! *pulls on stylish badass goth attire*" I have always had a love for any novel, movie, or game that pertains to adventure. But really, fashion, art, individualism, music, attitude, brotherhood(I could be forgetting other things here)...The expression of life and death in beauty. ^_^ That question in my mind was deeper than it needed to be. Trying to make a profound, complicated answer for it, just was not in my arsenal today. I would just rather give my heart on a silver platter and ask you to read me what it says about what I see in Goth. But that isn't how things work, now is it? *laughs*

So elegantly and eloquently put, Toh-san!

To me it is also a smoke filled dancefloor, beepy shite pumping out of huge PAs, beautiful people with neon cyberlox, death hawks, corpse paint, the smell of hundreds of sweaty bodies mixing to the beat with clove cigarettes. Lacey fishnets, shirts and skirts getting caught on buckles and spikes, laughing disentanglement.

^_^

Goth to me is a subculture where creativity and individualism are embraced in music, fashion, art, literature, philisophies among other creative ideas and an interest in the macabre are parts of it, but not only the main component as 'being yourself' is a key point. It does not mean dressing up in order to look 'cool' and follow 'trends', to 'shock' people and to earn more friends. It is a choice for some people who have the creativity energy in them, a interest for music and fashion, a love for dark things in life such as skulls, collecting bones and visiting cemetaries and other reasons that I can't even think of. However Goth cannot be defined into a specific meaning as everyone thinks differently of what Goth means to them and how they perceive it as.

Goth, to me, is the partaking and enjoyment of the darker aspects in life. It should NEVER be a forced thing though, as you should be naturally drawn to things that are of darker or "gothic" design, a type of feeling that gives you the desire to want to explore this side of yourself. Over the years, I myself have found solace while exploring this side and I'm glad I initially took the journey to discover many things about myself that made me a better person.
Goth, to me, is not a state in which one should dwell on gloomy, morbid, or depressed feelings, although those are normal to feel from time to time, and I have certainly been through such phases in the past. Likewise, "darkness" isn't always negative nor should it be linked with evil either, like most people make it out to be. Rather, I find the element of darkness to portray shades of beauty and can impact someone's life in positive ways as well.
Don't think I can add much more that hasn't been said already. Some truly beautiful answers too. You are the souls that keep this sub-culture alive!

Goth, to me, means embracing the darker side of life but also embracing the lighter side of life too (but also being more interested in the dark side), because, after all, you can't have one without the other, but some people have a hard time accepting both and just choose one side or the other. That, and the individuality and creativity that a darksider usually has is something that is very hard to come by nowadays, and I must admit, I do think of myself as such an individual... At least in the sense of being able to look at myself from an out of body point of view and being able to point myself out in a crowd.

Or something like that. I also like the aesthetic and style of the clothing

To me...

Goth is music and personality. The music is an extension of my personality, but it is also affected by a cultural context, given the specific genres of music that are available to me, i.e., goth, deathrock, industrial. If you don't know the seminal bands, something's wrong. If you don't have a niche interest that doesn't include those seminal bands, something is still wrong, in my opinion. One of the largest parts of being a part of the subculture for me is being so interested in the music in question, that I seek it out voraciously, listening to everything I might be even slightly interested in, then finding those styles that appeal to me the most, and beginning the search again, albeit with more focus, a process that never ends. Beyond music, my goth-like personality - which, generally speaking, is dark and obscure - also affects the movies and series I watch, the books I read, and the games I play.

Goth is not the clothes I wear. Clothes can be bought. Rather, goth fashion is an expression for me. Personally, I do not usually dress the part - not that I don't want to - because I'm a slightly husky, manly-looking guy with a beard and little to no androgynous qualities (unless you catch me screaming falsetto like a spider monkey on coffee), and because I don't go to clubs, mostly because they don't exist where I live. However, I think that the people who are serious about the fashion will, like the music, seek it out with relentless fury and will not be satisfied until what they project is unique and personal, going back to personality. I do this to an extent, but it usually just means a "creepy" band t-shirt that no one recognizes.