I woke up today and went on twitter and saw that World Goth Day was trending, and it turns out that today itself IS World Goth Day. It’s since graduated to #worldgothday. It’s a pity it’s so sunny, as it doesn’t really befit the occasion does it? I had never heard of World Goth Day before today but I guess it’s part of a new batch of holidays that stand alongisde more traditional ones such as the official Juggalo Day. What do you mean you missed it?! February 17th Ninja.
Anyway, if you’re like me and don’t really know what World Goth Day is all about, apparently it began in 2006 in the UK when BBC6 decided to do a series playing all forms of popular (popular!?!?) music, so you had Britpop one day, something else the next day and then goth on May 22nd. Three years later someone questioned why this was a one off, and decided to declare it National Goth Day. Three years after that and it’s developed into #worldgothday, which is pretty exciting. If you’re a goth.
According to the World Goth Day website (worldgothday.com), ‘World Goth Day is exactly what it says on the wrapper-a day where the goth scene gets to celebrate it’s own being, and an opportunity to make its presence known to the rest of the world. So far we have Mother’s Day, Fathers’ Day, Christmas, all manner of religious holidays, some of you may even have special annual celebrations for your pets. It’s only fair that Goths get to have a day of their own too.’
Is it? Is this really fair? Surely this is only going to lead to other musical subgenres/lifestyles having their own days and whilst I would be down with ‘nu metal day’ or ‘punk day,’ the idea of something like ‘Britpop day,’ ‘dubstep day,’ ‘country & western day’ or ‘Skrillex day’ makes me want to cut my own ears off. I mean can’t you just all go to your little musical genre’s marquee festival every summer and declare that ‘XXX day’ or in most cases ‘XXXX weeken?.’ Surely that would be more fun and make more sense than dedicating a day to it? Especially when that day is a really sunny Wednesday – what the hell is a goth gonna do on a sunny Wednesday? I guess the same thing they do every day and pull their black curtains shut in their room and listen to The Cure back catalogue whilst painting their nails and crying, but I thought the whole point was they were meant to get together (in groups of no more than 3) and celebrate it? It seems like a weekend in autumn would be a more fitting day for that kind of event than one that finally signals the start of the summer, but then again I don’t really know much about the gothic lifestyle so maybe someone could enlighten me about it?
Having said that though, Goths are big favourites here at Sick Chirpse – probably because they’re the easiest subgenre to make fun of without any real repercussions – and as such we’ll be posting some of our old goth related content throughout the day so you can join in the celebrations by laughing at stuff like goths on ok cupid or goths up trees or cybergoth dance parties. Or maybe check out what happened when we dissed the Black Veil Brides, although that might be more glam than goth, unsure. In any case, we’re going to do our best to celebrate it in typical Sick Chirpse fashion.
If you really want to celebrate #worldgothday properly, you could head over to worldgothday.com as they’ve got a really cool FAQ that explains how to party on World Goth Day – ‘You & your friends can canvas your local radio station (or supersize your efforts and take on the National stations) and get them to play at least one track by a goth band!’ – and also has some cool desktop wallpapers for you to download and a free track by some goth band. It also tells you about events all over the world, including a goth party in Cape Town called Carnival of Blood and a [spunge] show in Tewkesbury. I might be wrong but aren’t [spunge] a really bad old UK ska band?! Maybe that’s what is classified as goth these days. Either that or they’ve completely changed direction.
I wasn’t really sure how to end this post because I didn’t really want to post a video of a goth band because well, nobody would watch it right? So yeah I was browsing YouTube for something appropriate and found this video entitled ‘Goths Make Better Lovers’ which is pretty much fascinating and creepy in equal measure and I guess shows – just like American Juggalo – that it’s great when people in weirdass minorities fall in love and then talk about it so the rest of the world can laugh at some of the lines they come out with.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npe_Og8YFZA’]
