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jean

Sing this Corrosion

by jean at 04:06 PM on October 29, 2005

Every once in a while I tell someone that hanging out with Goths taught me a lot about life. They always laugh. But I am serious. Subcultures teach people many things.

The only subcultures I knew before high school were gangs. There wasn't too much gang activity in my elementary school, but in seventh and eighth grade (our last two grades) there was a little activity. The next year, in ninth grade, I had a class where I sat in the back with three people who, as 14-year-olds, were already Goths.

Two had a head start. One of them had a father who worked with musicians, including Danny Elfman. That is very Goth. The other had an older sister who was already a Goth. She had been listening to the Cure since fifth grade. She had a lot of street cred.

Those three introduced me to some people who were hanging out together because they liked music. They were nice people. It didn't matter what you liked, although most of what they liked was good. It's the kind of stuff they never played in the '80s, but play on the radio now when they want to play '80s music. They liked bands like the Cure, Depeche Mode, and New Order. But if you were cursed with a soft spot for New Kids on the Block, it was okay. Maybe Donny Wahlberg was too much man for you to resist. As long as you could still admit that Peter Murphy was God or maybe a minor diety, you were still in.

From these friends I learned that the important thing in life is to love honestly. If your love for something was honest, it didn't matter what that thing was. If you didn't pretend to like things just so you could get something in return--approval or popularity--you were okay. Somehow we knew that it was loving that was important.

Basically I learned that at least some people in the world have their heads on straight. I didn't have to learn this from Goths. I could've learned it from some other group of people if things had been different. And not all Goths are like this. But that's how it happened.

Here's a second story.

I also learned interesting things from the Beautiful People. When I was driving to Chicago I stayed with a friend in San Francisco overnight. We knew each other from high school. He wasn't a Goth or a beautiful person, but I knew him from class and I knew some of his friends in elementary school. We talked about work and making friends in new places. We talked about turning 30, trying to figure out what we wanted to do in life, and high school. I mentioned that I'd seen our valedictorian's Web site and he had some pictures of some real terrors from high school there. I said that I wondered if he realized that he could really be around better people, or whether they were still buttering him up even though they didn't need to copy his homework anymore.

My friend started laughing. He said, I can see you not still bitter. I said that I knew exactly those people for who they were, because they used to demand my homework too, and at the same time talked behind my back about the degenerate people I would hang out with. They had something bad to say about everyone. How much of it you heard depended on how much they felt threatened by you. But even if you never heard anything, they still hated you as much as they hated everyone else. Then I said, "You know what, if it's anything I learned in high school, it's that you've got to put on the show of being one of the beautiful people. It's not for the decent people, because they will treat you well no matter what. But every once in a while, you'll run into one of these beautiful people, and unless you look like you might be one of them, they'll try to stab you in the back."

He laughed even harder and said, "That's the most cynical thing I've ever heard." He said that some day he was going to make a book about what people from our high school thought about going there. "Everyone's going to say something nice. And then I'm going to put your quote in." I think that was a compliment.

comments (10)

That's how it is when you are honest.

People don't want the truth, they want to be happy.

So put on that happy face and smile smile smile.

by Long Time Lurker at October 29, 2005 5:41 PM


Beautiful people have infiltrated every culture and sub culture. Wherever you are and whatever your dress sense beautiful people have beautiful people working amongst you. There are beautiful people Goths, beautiful people Chavs, beautiful people Emos, beautiful people Moshas... aren't there?

In my high school there was a dedicated table of mosha/goths/people wearing black/sporting piercings/generally skulking in the background. I didn't mingle with them unless I was trapped in a scenario that saw the tutor slamming us into a diverse group to get the best out of a project I probably didn't give a shit about. There was one boy, stur-ange type, name o' Lee Rodmel, I would sing the Doors when I was around him, y'know, 'people are straaange, when your a straaanger' and he did a pretty good fake laugh and hid the expression of, 'Get the fuck away from me and leave me the fuck alone' well. Three girls too, but one of the girls was like 'the one', the looker of the pack, the leader if they needed one, the know it all, the beautiful person. I'd say she sported all the attributes of a beautiful person, but only amongst the people she'd chosen to dress up as and join. If she decided one day to change her look and join the openly beautiful people society at table one, she'd have found herself lacking and perhaps doing the homework of the non-pretenders.

She doesn't wear Goth clothes now, at least, she might do on weekends for all I give a shit, last time I saw she was in the high street looking fairly, uh, GAP. But I'd swear she was the beautiful person of her pack. Yes, yes I would. Beautiful people, no matter what shit they pull or whoever's back they grind the knife into, generally come out okay. They're so wrapped up in themselves... they don't notice that the people nodding and smiling at them as they speak, don't give a flying fuck what they're on about. And if they do notice, they tend not to care, because the person pretending to be interested really isn't worth talking to in the first place. According to their worth-o-meter, anyway. Hmm, this may have been on Dr Phil, or I'm simply guessing wildly (As Dr Phil does). If we were all beautiful people... the world would be a tangle of whispers and brutal honesty in the face of, uh, I mean, to the backs of the world.

At school, if you weren't beautiful amongst one group, shit, you could knock your social circle out of shape and enter a ring where you were one. S'always an option. Or, be yourself, don't 'join a group', and try to give ear to everyone, if in your opinion they're talking some shit, don't nod and grin, tell them that in your opinion they're talking shit. Keeps things moving at a nice pace, I find.

by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at October 29, 2005 6:23 PM


Borrrrrrrrr-ing!

by Anonymous at October 29, 2005 8:46 PM


Not boring at all. I think people begrudge the Beautiful People their beautifulness. But Goths and other trendy people of the monent, all I can say is thank God for cameras, so we can freeze them in all their ridiculous glory, for posterity to ridicule.

That was really you, back in the day!!

by anna at October 30, 2005 9:14 AM


Anonymous, in my opinion you're talking shit.

by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at October 30, 2005 8:55 PM


"Who's been telling you about perfection, and how did they get in her, now THAT'S the question." -Grace Slick

by anna at October 31, 2005 7:31 AM


Here, not her. Though is kind of funny with the typo.

by anna at October 31, 2005 7:31 AM


That's very true, Crimson. My bunch didn't have any beautiful people inside it, but it is possible they'll appear anywhere. They're like mushrooms.

LTL: exactly! Anna, that's a good typo.

by jean at October 31, 2005 1:21 PM


Course it's true, the only reason the guy you were speaking to hangs in his little crowd of yes folk, is because if he went elsewhere, he wouldn't be the beautiful person. At least, that's what I read in your post. :)

by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at October 31, 2005 3:13 PM


Ahhh... I see. That's possible. I hadn't thought of that! He did act distant when I saw him on the street last year. We had known each other pretty well in high school. I was surprised. Maybe I didn't give him enough yeses back in the day.

by jean at November 1, 2005 4:11 PM