Here’s hoping everyone celebrated World Goth Day 2018 on Tuesday – that’s the problem with tying it to a date, it moves through the week and is murder on those of us working! I’m especially resentful of everyone enjoying Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Germany, one of the world’s largest and most successful goth/deathrock/alt festivals.

There were also regular complaints about it being held in the Spring, at least in the Northern Hemisphere where England certainly is basking in unexpected heat. You can blame the BBC (for that and much more!) who long ago held a goth-special on Radio 6 and prompted the whole thing. We’ll be carrying on the celebrations into the weekend here in my home of Newcastle, and I hope many other venues will be doing likewise.

As always it was a blur of energy and action online, with the hashtag peaking early and staying consistently busy.
One major issue with goth is the isolation – you might be the only darkly-inclined one in your community, especially in larger countries, so it’s a helpful, hopeful reminder that a much wider family of cheerful weirdos are just like you and out there doing their thing! So kudos to every selfie, like and retweet that made it out.

I was also impressed with some articles coming out, especially those suggesting playlists – sorry guys, dressing goth but avoiding the tunes really isn’t legitimate. So kudos also to Louder magazine, with a playlist that namechecked some of the golden age artists but worked hard to look up the underrated gems and b-side classics that might get overlooked by a casual hack turning in a routine article. I fucking love Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, and that is a banger of a tune from them – much respect.

I was also impressed with the selection from the Jezebel team, who really trawled their memories and music collections for an esoteric selection of goth – and goth-adjacent – tunes for this article. Tori Amos is absolutely in the Dark Circle of goth-friendly musicians. Rumour has it she was on the verge of a duet with Eldritch but things fell through. I fear we missed out on a classic. Look at that couple! Von is almost smiling…

The conventional media had their usual hit-and-miss approach that hinted at a lot of cribbing from Wikipedia and various goth FAQ sites.
I should definitely lead with the fine work done by Alice Cook of Metro UK (even if it is part of the dreaded Daily Mail empire) who took the time to speak to various learned personages of the goth scene; the co-founder of World Goth Day DJ Cruel Britannia, Leeds-based goth svengali Joel Heyes, and a certain Blogging Goth. I feel I’ve lost many points from my already in-debit goth account by smiling in that photo! I fully expect Robert Smith to descend from on high and break my neck beautifully for crimes against goth.

Mind you, at least I didn’t lead an article purporting to be about the history of goth with an image of Cradle of Filth lead singer Dani Filth and a stack of dressed-up weekenders at Whitby. As I commented on Twitter…

Despite what Richmond says, most goths wouldn’t describe Cradle of Filth as goth! pic.twitter.com/awO4ntKay8

— The Blogging Goth (@TheBloggingGoth) May 22, 2018

That was a very swift glance through social media on World Goth Day 2018. 2019 will be the tenth anniversary year, so get planning now on just how you’re gonna celebrate! We’ll see you there…