Goth’s influence is vast, but so are the reasons to make fun of it. Helpfully, Pitchfork has created a short video primer on the movement, such that we might better recognize those influences and better make fun of it.
The video covers a surprising amount of ground in less than four minutes, from the early days of Siouxsie And The Banshees through goth’s cultural apex in the ’90s via The Crow, Nine Inch Nails, and The Sandman. Its simple book-report style is told, fittingly enough, in book-report format: three kids, seemingly paired randomly, delivering informational slides to an increasingly bored room of snot-nosed kids. (And you know what Chekhov said about a snotty nose introduced in the first act…) Writer Miles Raymer and illustrator Joren Cull wring a lot of character out of the conceit, and they even gaze directly into the “abomination known as mall-goth.” Check out the whole thing for a better understanding of the darkness within us all.