By David Futrelle
So it was a normal day on the Men Going Their Own Way, just a bunch of lady-obsessed, lady-hating dudes hanging out and talking about how they don’t even see women as attractive anymore, how do you like them apples, ladies?
Then one fella dropped in from some sort of MGTOW astral plane to offer his, er, perspective:
Damn, dude. If you didn’t just eat, like, a pound of peyote, you should probably talk to someone about this — and I don’t mean other MGTOWs. Because if you’re not just bullshitting here, I’m pretty sure something is misfiring in your brain there.
Either that or you’ve just attained enlightenment, and enlightenment actually sucks.
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@Brimstone
I’m literally a goth who used to take road kill off the road, watch them decay and then clean off the bones to use for art projects about the destruction humans have on the planet and you are depressing me. If I’m telling you to lighten up you have an issue. I once didn’t smile for three years. I’m about to throw a lamp at you to tell you to lighten up.
@Brimstone
Heard it before. Take up Gnosticism or Mahayana Buddhism or something. You’ll still be boring, but you’ll probably be happier.
Hey I can’t sleep so I was reading old stuff. Insomina is a bitch and I sometimes enjoy the old stuff, then I noticed. Are you the same Brimstone from 2011
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2011/11/17/if-youre-havin-robogirl-problems-i-feel-bad-for-you-son/
I understand what he means. I took a great course in Primate Behavior in college that included time spent every week at the zoo, watching a specific primate family and some time watching a couple of families of other species, for comparison. It was great.
He’s right about how much of human behavior at the interpersonal level is clearly primate behavior, modified by our verbal-dominated cultures. For instance, we don’t sit around grooming fleas off each other any more. We just sit around bullshitting instead.
Of course, since he is a misanthropist who thinks he’s a misogynist, he sees it all as pathetic. I see it as endlessly fascinating. Of course the endless attempts at attention getting on the part of juvenile males gets irritating in humans, just as it does in macaques. I once saw three females going after a male twice their size because he had been pestering them, and they had had enough. It was sort of empowering to watch. ?
@ Brimstone.
I hear you. People are just skeletons packed with meat and powered by tiny electrical charges. Every one of us is imminently replaceable. A lot of life is drudgery and repetitive animal function.
However, it doesn’t really matter to the individual meat robots experiencing that existence. Most individual feel like their existence is important and meaningful. Most will fight to maintain and improve it, even in horrible circumstances because it matters to them. Most will extend this concern to their family or community group because this impact the individual’s well being as well.
So, go on, Magical Meat Robot! Experience your existence.
So does Brimstone deny women his essence?
@Brimstone
That’s so ridiculously nihilistic that I’m wondering if Poe’s law is at play.
If your life has no meaning, give it one. My parents are archeologists, and the most important thing they taught me was that even if we decay, the things we create doesn’t, and there are works of art that has survived their creators by millenniums yet still are considered beautiful, and there is meaning to your life if you can spend it creating something good for people to remember you by.
Not Poe’s law. I have been an extreme nihilist and antinatalist poet since I was 11. I truly believe all this. Once I told a date about desiring the total destruction of humanity.
“So does Brimstone deny women his essence?”
I understood that reference.
Women have, for reasons I utterly fail to understand on any level, wanted to have sex with me. One of them watched me get high, see my own death, completely freak out about it, and had sex with me.
I haven’t particularly enjoyed any of my encounters (it was worse for the women, given my disinterest and lack of skill) tho, and have taken what Chapo refers to as ‘the volcel pledge’ for the foreseeable future until I can afford a sex therapist.
And yes, I am the same Brimstone who posted about Brave @ the Bold 8 years ago. Time flies.
“I’m literally a goth who used to take road kill off the road, watch them decay and then clean off the bones to use for art projects about the destruction humans have on the planet and you are depressing me.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my ex did the same thing. Except without the hippie message, she was more goth/witch.
“Most individual feel like their existence is important and meaningful. Most will fight to maintain and improve it, even in horrible circumstances because it matters to them. Most will extend this concern to their family or community group because this impact the individual’s well being as well
Meaning is a lie we tell ourselves. Read Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death. It’s all a fake way of coping with the meaninglessness of life. Or read any existentialist philosophy
I don’t have a community group and believe having kids is immoral.
… dude, when your life philosophy makes a cartoon villain like Thanos* seem like a moderate, maybe you need to develop some chill. Take up underwater basket weaving** or something.
Like, maybe my life is meaningless, but at least playing music with friends is FUN. Maybe nothing I do will stand the test of time, but will it enable someone I encounter to do something that will? Probably not, but it’d be cool if it did.
*Thanos only wanted to wipe out 50% of all life. So, moderate in comparison. However, excuse me while I scream in CAPSLOCK at an imaginary character:
Note: I’m using functionally extinct a little loosely here. In general, we don’t declare species functionally extinct until they either cease to have an effect on the ecosystem they exist in, or we stop observing them in the wild, or we have good reason to believe the existing population will not be able to sustain itself. For cetaceans, who have already low populations AND tend to have an extremely dispersed range, loosing 50% of the population of a species could easily lead to rapid functional extinction.
**It’s not weaving baskets while SCUBA diving, which is the misconception I had for YEARS as a kid. The real deal is a lot more practical, produces some pretty results, and is still kind of cool.
@Brimestone
Dude you been here since I was 12.
@Brimstone
Also It’s not hippie. I’m not a hippie, the correct term is Eco-goth. Never call an Eco-goth a hippie to their face. It’s disrespectful to both sides really. No hate, just letting you know.
Now now, we shouldn’t mock. Announcing to your date that you’re an antinatalist is actually a fairly clever way of promising to use a condom without actually bringing the matter up.
“Total destruction of humanity” is overdoing it, though. That could be read the other way, in a “I won’t use a condom because I want to spread syphillis to everyone I can.”
Isn’t Grimes an eco goth now?
“Like, maybe my life is meaningless, but at least playing music with friends is FUN.”
I did that for 3 years. We had an insane stage show. Opened for an international punk band. Got laid. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. Tried it all.
Life is still meaningless and pointless and it didn’t help me at all, no matter how many songs about the power of rock and roll I listen to.
I don’t like the Thanos comparison because he’s a eugenicist, I want to end death. He is a useful jumping off point but we are very different, I may use him in a video about my philosophy. I’m closer to comic Thanos, who loves the personification of Death, like I did with Sandman.
@Brimestone
Kind of. Not the same thing but you have the right state of mind. If that helps to picture her then use that. She’s more pastel goth.
All this modern kinda of goths confuse me, when I was a kid I wore an ankh because Death from Sandman did and that was enough.
Is Poison Ivy eco-goth? Is Swamp Thing’s girlfriend Abby Arcane?
Would they be attracted to my lust for death if I couch it in ecological terms?
@Brimestone
Poison ivy is just suppose to be a villain botanist. and now a days you do have to put in more work to be the subcategory of goth you find yourself in. And no probably not. Most 10 to 25 year olds are into the “god I wish I was dead” jokes. Goth or not most generation z and millennials have a lust for death. You’d have to put in a lot more work to get attention now or stand out which is why there are so many sub categories of goth. Now if you want to use fictional character, Sam Manson from Danny Phatom is a eco goth feminist, She had a big influence on me growing up. The hex girls from scooby doo are eco goths. Larry from Sally face is a Death metal grunge goth. Raven from teen titians is witch goth. Rogue from X-Men Evolution is poetic type of goth, Mae from Avatar the last Airbender is the I hunger for death and feelings type of goth mostly because of her abusive up bringing but hey that’s the example I have. That’s probably the kind of goth you’d be attracted to, Louise from loud house is a baby Wednesday Adams goth, Morticia Adams is a bdsm in goth with a dash if witch. Also shego from Kim possible is a much better version of villain goth then poison ivy if you want to use that.
@Brimestone
Also sir (sorry I don’t know what you like, please tell me and I will address you accordingly) If you don’t mind my asking how old are you. You’ve been here since 2011 I think it was? I was 12 and in grade school at that time.
I am not highly interested in goth subculture classifiers.
How do you distinguish between them?
@Scildfreji Unnyðnes
Well I suppose just like everything else it depends on what a person is interested in. For example I am a Christian, I was always interested in the vampire, demon, dark creatures and horror that come apart of being a goth but I was never really into the wicca or witchcraft part of it. That takes me out of the category for those who like to practice such things who are also goth.
Pastel goths wear more faded colors like blues and purples and pink instead of the traditional black. Some goths are activist like the eco and feminist goth. What makes an eco goth different from a hippie is not really the wearing black and such. Its more of the fact that hippies are peaceful and focus on love and so forth. A eco goth is not above resorting to violence to protect nature and are general more destructive then a hippie. As someone starts to experiment with goth they slowly start to discover the different aspects and then choose where they fall in.
Normally the first one people start to figure out is whether they are a modest goth or more of a sexy goth I suppose. I feel most comfortable in outfits that show skin. Mini skirts with skulls around the belt, black fishnet leggings, corsets with scoop next shirts, short dresses with skulls, tall high platform shoes or spiked heals, that’s all part of my wardrobe. Then just with like anything there are goths who aren’t comfortable with that for any reason. So they dress more covered up. Some choose a kind of earthy witch aesthetic, other the classic Victorian goth, and so forth.
Aheh, I mistyped originally, I wrote “I am not highly interested” whereas I meant “I am now highly interested.” That’s what i get for my tiny tablet keyboard I guess!
Fuzzy classifiers. Which is fun! Lets people self-define more easily. Like, there were some very destructive and violent hippies, for example; the view of all hippies being pacifistic spiritualists is one view but there were others.
The classifiers seem mostly appearance-based – what colours of clothing, how risque are they, etc. Which matches what I know of it. Pastel goth is fun, I think, it’s a fun inversion of the tradition. Seems like the beliefs of the goth-in-question are almost separate to the classifier; like, you could do pastel eco-goth or wiccan denim-goth, etc. What an interesting system! Humans are such funny creatures.
“my lust for death”
Oh, Brimstone. Stop with the edginess. You’re scaring us!
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes
Allow me to send you to the best (by which I mean most charming) resource for learning about all things goth: http://www.gothic-charm-school.com/ I suspect you will appreciate the Lady of the Manners’ tone.
Her usefulness can be demonstrated by the fact she allowed me to find the perfect resource for you in this case, namely: https://www.deviantart.com/trellia/gallery/25271332/Goth-stereo-Types
@weirdtreehugger
It was very strange to me that he was asking if young goths would be attracted to him. No dude.
Oh sorry, I phrased that wrong! I meant ‘young as in mid 20s – mid 30s’. I have never thought of myself as goth, but given my interests and aesthetics I suppose I should play that up. I guess calling myself ‘Brinstond’ should be a clue. Should I return to wearing an ankh? My exes tend to fall under that category too.
The ‘big tiddy goth GF’ meme caught me by surprise tho.
“Rogue from X-Men Evolution is poetic type of goth”
I spent my teenage years writing poetry about death, including my first one at 11, and quoting Dickenson and Poe and listening to Nick Cave. Much like Rogue, I will also suck the life out of you. I didn’t realize ‘poetic goth’ was a separate category, I would think we were the ‘real goths’ and the rest are pretenders. We are descended from Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, the original goths.
V from DMC5 reads Blake in battle, he appears to be that too. Vampire the Masquerade has a whole clan, the Toredor, who are obsessed with art. Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive is also about that type of vampire.
I encourage all the goths in this thread to preorder Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 when it becomes available. And to listen to The Mountain Goats’ album Goths.
Nick Cave calls goth ‘sad bastard music’.
Someone asked my age. I am 33.