Something emo kids really don't like is being confused with being gothic. Sometimes people confuse me with being gothic as well. I don't blame them because they don't know, and I like to explain them the difference. When you're emo than a lot of people will think you're gothic because they don't know the differences. In this chapter I'll explain and talk about the differences between emo and gothic and why these are 2 totally differend subcultures. Because goths and emos do like to wear black both, it doesn't make them the same. To explain the differences we must look back to history, lifestyle and clothing style.

-Origins

The term gothic goes far back in history. Gothic was originally connected to a germanic tribe (Goths) from the Roman era. later it's also used by a dark Architectural style and literary style. But the subculture it self started to form in the 80s. Gothic started as a subgenre from postpunk (a subgenre of punk) and newwave. This music style is called gothic rock. Gothic is a subculture that's connected and focust on gothic rock. Nowadays the term gothic in the music is to descripe a couple of music genres which are connected to the gothic subculure it self. The melody's, lyrics and style of gothic music is very dark and dramatical.

Emo found it's origins in the 80s. It al started with hardcore-punk which is also a subgenre of punk. Some hardcore punk bands started to write more emotional and personal lyrics. This later is called emotional-hardcore and formed it's own music genre. The emotional-hardcore fans started to call themselves emos and created their own subculture conected with emotional-hardcore. The lyrics of emotional-hardcore are very emotional, sensitive, depressed and personal. (click here for more emo history)

-Life expression

The gothic subculture is recognizable by a very dark characteristic. They feel love to the dark sides of life and they express this by wearing dark clothes and they are focussing on dark music, art, literature and film. The gothic lifestyle is focust on pure darkness.

Emo on the other side is focust on feelings. Emo kids are very emotional people and their whole lifestyle is about their emotions. They listen to emo music and are in contact with other emos to express their feelings and to help others to feel better. Emos aren't focust on darkness. They love black too, this stands for the dark emotions. But emos aren't only focust on black. They also love bright colors because of their bright emotions.

-Clothing style

The gothic clothing style has many different styles like: Cybergoth, Lolita, Antiquity and many more. But most gothics do their best to look really creepy and dark (Some goths do like to wear bright colors). I think their look is full of expression and theiy are doing their best to explow their darkness. Their whole look and appearence look like an artwork. Gothics mostly spent a lot of time to do their make-up.

Emos don't have many styles and they all look very simulair. Emos look very introverted and they are spending their time to look very shy. They also don't look creepy but they look creepy-cute. The style of an emo isn't meant to look like an artwork but they dress more like how they feel like. Emos mostly don't wear only black but they also wear besides black a bright collor. Emos don't wear a lot of make-up and wear mostly only eyeliner.

I think this were the most important differences between emo and gothic. I hope this article helped you to understand the difference and why these are 2 totally different subcultures.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Infonu, Fandom