The month of August is hallowed to the goth community. From the celebration of Yorkshire Day on the 1st, acknowledging Goths’ Own County, through debut single releases from bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees to Bauhaus, whose anthemic Bela Lugosi’s Dead has become a goth music touchstone for generations. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division was released as a 12” on 15 August, Lovesong by The Cure on 21 August, and we lost icons like Tony Wilson of Factory Records, Sophie Lancaster and Olli Wisdom of the Batcave and Specimen.
But all of these key dates were eclipsed by the avalanche into my inbox of articles breathlessly reporting on a goth content creator who won an online dating show, after being picked ahead of 20 competitors by one of the world’s best-selling rappers.
Let’s cover the basics to get everyone up to speed. Lin Lamar is a 23-year old American content creator styling herself ‘Pinkchyu’, who has built a daunting online empire in only a few years that includes her streaming gaming on Twitch, through to selling adult content via OnlyFans. At some point in her burgeoning career she positioned herself as a goth, exploiting a formerly niche angle that builds off the internet fame of the “goth girlfriend” meme which has been lingering for about a decade.
The perception of goth femmes as taboo, sexually permissive and promiscuous has long been observed, and so it makes commercial sense for a creator seeking to carve out a place for themselves in the saturated user-generated adult content market; OnlyFans generated more than $7bn in 2024, and the top earners (likely including Pinkchyu although she does not disclose her subscriber count) can earn $50,000 a year or more.
Turning to the other world-famous individual in this story, Drake is a 39-year old Canadian rapper, businessman and former actor. His pop, hip-hop and R&B releases have routinely topped charts, achieved million-seller status and attracted multiple awards. His extravagant lifestyle and well-publicised feuds with other rappers have positioned him as one of the most famous and recognizable musicians of the 21st century.
These two public figures were then brought together on a speed-dating show, streamed on Kick – an Australian-based livestreaming website which has positioned itself as a competitor to Twitch thanks to its more generous split of revenue with its streamers, and its more relaxed moderation and content control. It is backed by crypto-currency based gambling entrepreneur Edward Craven, and partially owned by a streamer known as TrainwrecksTV – who was once suspended from Twitch (where he had 2.2m followers) for a misogynist rant towards, ironically enough, female content creators!
The show was produced by NELK, a Canadian YouTube channel that boasts nearly 8.5m subscribers despite being briefly demonetised by YouTube in 2020 for promoting gatherings violating COVID-19 isolation guidance. NELK have also aligned themselves with various right-wing celebrities including supporting the campaigns of President Donald J. Trump, and conducting a pre-scripted interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with questions given to the YouTubers to ask, by the Israeli leader’s staff. The channel has an associated clothing brand, FULL SEND, which is estimated to make annual sales of $100m and their international fame has only continued to grow.
So, all of these wildly successful, controversy-courting entities converged to produce the show at the focus of this article, and worldwide outrage from the goth community. Drake is advised , like some modern Caligula in a wealth-drenched playground, that he can pick from a cohort of twenty women to “wife, pipe or bestie”. Each woman comes out to meet the rapper initially, and there seems be an initial spark between Pinkchyu and him – and she strikes a marked difference to the other contestants who are not subculturally attired like her, although a common denominator amongst the contestants is being an adult content creator. For those who don’t wish to watch the video, I’ll summarise the salient points below.
In their one-to-one meeting, Pinkchyu extends her niche appeal by offering Drake the chance to pull a Magic: The Gathering (MTG) card from her cleavage. For the unaware, MTG is the definitive collectible card game since its release in 1993, and despite its public perception as fringe interest for social outcasts, is a billion-dollar franchise for its international conglomerate owner Hasbro, with 50m players worldwide. There’s a definite trend running through the linked organisations in this production.
Next, Pinkchyu ramps up the provocation by enquiring if Drake is interested in ‘roleplay’, and following his enthusiastic response, she instructs him to “bark for [me]” which Drake indulges in a cringeworthy moment that provoked widespread commentary online. Pinkchyu giggles coquettishly, leans forward to accentuate her cleavage again and purrs “Good boy” – standard fare for the Dommy Mommy kink that, online, has rapidly become conflated with the sexualisation of the goth subculture.
It’s clearly successful as Pinkchyu makes it through to the final three, and is chosen by Drake to “wife” – to her delight and the barely-concealed contempt of her competitors. The magnanimous multi-millionaire then offers to buy anything for his “wife” and Pinkchyu requests a house for her Mother, which Drake is happy to arrange. Any media strategist would be delighted with all the beats hit in this video, from humour to titillation to cringe to wholesome ending – and I have more than a sneaking suspicion this production was tightly scripted end-to-end.
And so we’ve experienced together the thirty-minute YouTube video (9.2m views and rising in three weeks) that launched the headline “Drake barks for ‘goth baddie’” onto the internet, and brought to boiling point the long-simmering debate over the sexualisation of goth. I’ll immediately defer to the expert commentary by Angela Benedict who has been taking on this uncomfortable challenge for some time, with her trademark mix of historical research, modern interpretation, dry humour and DIY skills!
Kudos also to veteran goth YouTuber Black Friday who has engaged with the wider content generated by Pinkchyu and her contemporaries in “Goth House” – all creators with six-figure followers making provocative videos across social media. The second-hand cringe I felt watching over her cyber-shoulder was palpable, and in particular the comment in the above video at 5:05 when Pinkchyu states that one of their beliefs is “fuck the system.” Considering the inordinate wealth accrued by these creators from collaborating with the powerful individuals and corporate entities listed above, for their videos, I find these claims of ‘rebellion’ a little hard to credit.
My interaction with this story began with a post to Facebook. My long-suffering sigh emerged not only from a personal view on this story – that’s to come – but anticipating the inevitable discussion. I count myself lucky that most of the comments under my posts on social media are relatively sane, but I don’t think anyone expects a 300-comment discussion thread to stay palatable for long.
The top rated comments of course called into question Pinkchyu’s legitimacy as a goth. There was universal agreement that she didn’t met the necessary criteria for self-identifying, despite goth infamously having no agreed entrance exam, constitution, recognised authority or even more than three people who ever agree on anything. Goths might not know what goth is, but they sure as hell know what it isn’t. Mostly.
I’d also like to applaud the dissenting commentators, who hold true to the ambition that goth should discard its occasionally notorious gatekeeping tendencies. They represent the best possible version of ourselves, although I would raise an eyebrow at being described as an influencer myself. A massive chunk of my content is anniversaries that remind you of the unrelenting passage of time!
But commentators like Lottie, Kev and Marie are people I know and respect IRL, and I think acknowledging their pushback is necessary. The observation that Pinkchyu isn’t a spokesperson or representative for goth is accurate, and definitely chimes with my observations above that goth has no central structure. We’re heaping scathing commentary on a person – a woman – online, for apparently holding a position she never sought, for not meeting standards we’ve not been able to articulate, and essentially we became the bullying in-crowd we’ve always held up as our mortal enemies.
Rather than slinging vitriolic comments over social media, the scene as a whole probably needs to agree to some standards and then help newcomers meet us halfway. A gesture of effort on the part of new goths to some form of exclusivity, awareness of heritage and willingness to support a scene could go a long way in keeping goth a subculture rather than be subsumed into popular monoculture. But I’m straying dangerously into proscriptive ‘influencer’ territory with this kind of talk, so I’ll move on.
Several of the comments invoked some of the bitter allegations in the feud with another rapper, Kendrick Lamar, that saw songs published alleging Drake of significant crimes against minors, but I am going to declare that out of focus for this article. Other commentators specifically criticised Pinkchyu’s subcultural choice as a transparently cynical move to boost her OnlyFans profile, with the added complication that creating adult content is also perceived disparagingly.
The debate over the legitimacy of sex work is a very live and sensitive topic, and requires careful navigation to consider the various interactions present – are we just as dismissive towards burlesque dancers or fetish nights which historically have great crossover with the goth subculture? Is there a separate ‘goth point’ tally you can fill out to balance the scales of judgement – could you DJ enough goth nights or play in enough postpunk bands to redeem yourselves for also selling adult content, in the eyes of the non-existent Council of Goth? Another thorny topic, for another time…
The comments tend to tail off into the more unhinged, badly typed or venomous without a point. Trawl further at your peril. Instead here I’ll turn to my own perspective.
I think we’re all diminished for interacting with this story. Boil away the tiresome debates about subcultural legitimacy and the cringeworthy, Carry On Goth style titillation, this is all about tremendous amounts of online engagement and daunting amounts of money changing hands. A grim ouroboros of content consumption occurs where creators dump exaggerated stereotypes onto insatiable gooner-coded audiences, triggering outraged reactions from stalwart commentators like Angela or Black Friday or Demetri Falco or myself. This keeps goth a hot topic (pun intended) that feeds the algorithm that keeps audiences engaged for more provocative content from Pinkchyu that leads to more outraged reactions… it all continues ad nauseum
No part of this, from the artificially sustained conversations to the prodigious amounts of money involved, feels particularly goth or even subcultural at all. It feels like all the worst aspects of our terminally-online world, saturated by the commodification of every conceivable concept including the supposedly counter-culture alternative music tribes. Hell, even the ‘heartwarming’ offer at the end of the purchase of a house for Pinkchyu’s mother – it’s unnoticeable against Drake’s vast financial income and yet out of reach for an entire generation of people. We’re meant to fawn over an accomplishment that highlights the huge wealth imbalance in contemporary society?
Now – from a personal perspective, don’t I fall into the target audience? A man, who must presumably like goth women? Sure I do, so much so I married one – and her goth credentials are impeccable by the way, as she denies any association with goth whatsoever. But no, the giggling coquettishness and hypersexualisation of Goth House content left my skin crawling, not at all helped because these women are two decades my junior. But, the crucial point I hope you’ve picked up is that this content is not for goths.
Pinkchyu and colleagues are selling an imagined, unrealistic version of goth – just as many adult content creators are selling you an imagined, unrealistic relationship. Sorry if this shatters any illusions for you. Some of you may have read my review of the 2024 tome on goth culture, “How To Be a Goth” by Tish Weinstock. I’ll quote myself from that article, because this is my blog and I can do what I want.
But, and this is a crucial point, I believe Tish Weinstock’s book isn’t for goths. It’s for another very niche group – a consumer group with actually disposable income, looking to rebrand on the back of a cynical commodification of the goth subculture.
Sound familiar? That was only a couple of years ago. To extend this description even further – and to risk the wrath of those exemplars who want goth to be more welcoming and less gatekeeping – I’d say that “How To Be A Goth” and “Goth House” aren’t for goths, and aren’t made by goths. By my own definitions (your subscription optional), these products and their creators have failed to command the support of the majority of goths, and therefore have lost the one agreed bar of credibility we seem to have agreed. If anything, it has united the scene in largely universal contempt.
So we can and should brush this whole sad story off, as a mortifying moment duly delivered by the cringe pipeline that is the internet. The pendulum will eventually swing away and goth will return to its usual unpopular shady spot – capitalism, accelerated by instant online gratification, will eventually need something new. Who knows, perhaps Pinkchyu will make a successful pivot to music, her songs will be big hits in the club, and we’ll all be laughing about this in a few month’s time.
I share the concern of other commentators though, that this fetishization of goth femmes is something to give us concern in the moment, and I encourage all of us to look out for one another and pull together in positive solidarity for each other’s wellbeing. To bring us full circle, I remember reading perplexedly that commentators on r/goth were complaining about being barked at, in what was clearly a derogatory and offensive manner.
How far we’ve come.
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