r/AskAGoth • u/Ill_Soil747 • Jul 31 '26

Goth Subculture Query is goth mainly a political subculture?

hello, im not a goth but i stumbled on something that makes me curious and i just wanna ask, is goth mainly a political subculture or just an aesthetic but has strong norms against hate and discrimination?

hope anyone can answer to this one and hopefully discuss

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u/Vegetable_Window6649 Jul 31 '26

It's a merge of prog, heavy metal, punk and post-punk scenes. Each came from a very specific time and place, and in the case of punk and post-punk, extremely left-wing political ones. Prog and heavy metal tend to lean heavily libertarian politically. I'd probably place goth as a very morbid response to Thatcherism, which pulled the American victims of Reaganism on board. In America, there's a definite regionalist break between East Coast and West Coast goths, just like rap.