Goth, gothic, darkly inclined . . . the argument over labels seems near constant. I’ve even put my two cents in once or twice, but the truth is that I just don’t get it. I don’t get why it matters so much.

I see the point of labeling music–or at least the pre-internet point of labeling music. Back when actual music stores were still a thing, I would expect to find Tool in the “metal” bin, Nine Inch Nails in the “industrial bin,” Sisters of Mercy in the “goth” bin, and Joy Division off in the corner moping. Now that record stores are mostly dead I don’t search music by genre much at all–I just type bands I like into the music map and try out bands close by.  But I’ll use “gothic novel” as a search term or #goth on Instagram, so I understand how labels are useful for finding stuff you want.

But I don’t get why people need to be labeled the same way.  If I see a person who looks cool, my first question is never “are you goth or just darkly inclined?” And I’ve never had one person come up to me, even online, and say “hi, I hate goth music and spooky things but I really like black because I’m soooooooo goth.” I’ve seen those people online a few times, but they were never doing it to me personally so I never felt the need to care what people called themselves.

Maybe it happens a lot more to well known people and people heavily involved in a local scene. So maybe it’s just a problem I’m not lucky enough to have. Since it’s not my problem, I suppose it doesn’t matter where those people draw the lines. But there are two things I could do without seeing again.

First, I could do without all the history lessons about Visigoths and Ostrogoths and gothic architecture. Even if you’re part of the “goth is an outlook” crowd, which I am, these have hardly anything to do with modern goth. If you’re going to get all nerdy about it, please look farther than Wikipedia and focus your nerdiness on the gothic revival, the German ‘sturm and drang’ and romantic horror movements, and the later Romantic movement. I would love to see some work connecting modern goth culture with these movements, because I think there are serious thematic connections there. I think modern goth is reacting to modern incarnations of the same forces Romantics were rebelling against.

Second, it seems clear to me that whatever goths are, we’re not just fans of certain ’80s bands. There has to be more to it. Fans of Nirvana are just Nirvana fans. Fans of the Grateful Dead are just stoner dropouts Grateful Dead fans. Fans of Elvis Presley are just Elvis Presley fans. But Bauhaus fans aren’t just Bauhaus fans, they’re goths, which means there’s something more at work. And I’m pretty sure that ‘something more’ isn’t just a long list of other goth bands. Again, if I love Nirvana and Alanis Morisette and R.E.M. and Pearl Jam I’m still just old a fan of a lot of ’90s bands, not a member of a darkly beautiful subculture. And if the ‘something more’ isn’t just loving more goth bands, it must be either a bunch of other interests or an underlying outlook tying them together.

I mentioned above I’m a ‘goth is an outlook’ fan, but that’s kind of how I am about everything, looking behind the details for what ties them together. But I’m not married to this idea. What makes a goth could easily be a collection of details. Goth really could be a checklist or a set of goth points. If this is the case, liking original goth bands might be vital to the entire goth equation, or it might just be the marker of one kind of goth. I suppose if there is an unspoken checklist, the question would be how many points is Bauhaus worth? Is Marylin Manson worth negative points? Are amazing makeup skills worth enough points to make up for hating Fields of the Nephilim? Is knowing every Cure song by heart enough to make up for wearing rainbow tie dye t-shirts? I almost wish there were a checklist of goth points. Instead of vague declarations about what’s goth enough that hurt everyone’s feelings and leave us all annoyed or confused, we could argue about the point system the way geeks argue about whether Wonder Woman could beat Aquaman in a fight.

Yes. The answer is yes. Wonder Woman would win. But she would show Aquaman mercy in the end because she’s a super classy superhero.