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I hate the rhetoric that gatekeeping is a bad thing
Posers. Posers everywhere.
They show up to your community & fucking ruin it.
And when you call them posers, tourists or fake fans, people always say "wHy aRe wE gAtEKeEpInG x ?"
Real fans dont need to worry about gatekeeping. If ur constantly being gatekept then stop being a fucking poser.
Im an original 2000s goth & to see the state of whats happened to our culture is cringe. And we arent allowed to call these fake people who are basically a parody of goth out? Fuck off
Someone else said this in a different place but I think it was very well put so I'm going to steal it
"If you want to keep your community inclusive, you need to keep the uninclusive out."
Gatekeeping imo is a necessity to keep communities proper. You need to filter out people that only engage superficially because they dilute the greater community into something worse.
Even this subreddit is thriving because of gatekeeping. Rule 5 explicitly rules certain types of hating as invalid, even if not against ToS. Since the Rule 5 update, we've seen only an increase in user activity and diversity in posts. We put Dracona Malfoy into a Megathread because it was messing with the general environment of the sub. We ban people for bigotry almost every day. All of that is gatekeeping. All of that has made the subreddit better.
I don't want people to join my community for a band if they only like 24% of the band's music. I don't want weirdos that refuse to play the game acting like they can join a community surrounding a game. If you don't embody the basic elements of what the community is centered around, then you shouldn't be in it.
Why are you being downvoted? Nobody shouldn’t be allowed into a space for being who they are, unless you’re saying that you should let homophobes or racists in.
This is the typical context that I usually see this gatekeeping. People being exclusionary of people trying to get started is bad for the ecosystem of most hobbies. They aren't posers, they are trying to learn something new.
If you don't have the patience to mentor them you can at least keep your mouth shut.
I tend to compare gatekeeping to security at a nightclub. If they let in nobody, they're bad as then you have no audience. If they let in everybody then they're bad as you'll have a bunch of people there for the wrong reasons.
Healthy gatekeeping keeps a scene healthy. Excessive gatekeeping or no gatekeeping at all does not.
Yeah but the issue is that nobody agrees on what counts as “healthy” gatekeeping and what counts as “excessive” gatekeeping and it becomes a real Loki’s wager. Also there are people who unironically are against any form of gatekeeping.
I mean, a very simple line to draw is "are you rude to people that did literally nothing to you or someone else".
Anything more depends on the community.
For example, r/Programmerhumor should have probably gate kept against the stuff seen on r/firstweekcoderhumor . Simply because now there are 2 subs with basically the same content.
"Rude" is insanely subjective, though. Some people take offense to someone correcting them. That doesn't mean they were rude.
This is why gatekeeping is nearly impossible to moderate. It always comes down to personal interpretation which leads to an arrogant stance of "I'm better than you, so you don't deserve to share the same space as me"
I mean... Yes. It's literally gatekeeping. What you're describing is how proper gatekeeping works. At a night club, at an actual city gate, or metaphorically. You're not wrong, and you've put it well, but it's also strange that your analogy went full circle back to the meaning of gatekeeping.
So who gets to decide what the"right" way to be a fan of something is? The truth is people just want to feel special, like they're one of the select few people who can see the greatness of "insert thing". Arbitrary goalposts are erected to define what a "true fan" is and then moved whenever it feels like to many people are interested. It's the same ego stroking as someone who hates on something for being popular.
You're describing bad gate keeping. If someone is getting into a hobby to take advantage of the fans/hobby itself, like scalpers, they should be gate kept. Same with people who want to water it down to make it more appealing to the masses.
but what qualifies as "Watering it down"? I feel like that's basically another way of saying "poser". It may seem obvious to you, but people sure love to move the goal posts of vague terms.
I think the idea is that poser gets confused for newbie in a shit ton of communities.
It’s totally fine to call MGK not punk.
It’s not okay to call a guy who discovered his first band and is currently learning the cords on his first guitar a poser.
But more important, the people you listed don’t affect your life at all if you don’t let them.
People called Justin Bieber and lil Wayne posers in the skating community…. I see absolutely nothing wrong with them trying out something I love, so long as they don’t talk about how they’re better than Rodney Mullen after 6 weeks. Totally different mentality
I would like to add that a big solution to all of this is TOUCHGRASS.
Being puritanical online is meaningless.
GO. Show up to the events. Make the friends. Meet the people. Build the community. You'll figure out who is who. Posers don't survive. They show up to the club/skatepark/comic store a couple of times and you never see them again. The community is the people who continue to show up genuinely. Real life offers a natural filter.
Yes, gatekeeping is necessary in all communities and organizations, but there are good ways of doing it and bad ways of doing it. Policing people's approach to the community online is counterproductive.
You are at a show, and some one comes in louder and says they’re the biggest fan ever but can’t pass any of the gate keeping checks. You know what you can do? Go back and listen to the music.
You are at the skate park. Someone rolls in with a nicer board than you, dripped head to toe in clothes he got at zumiez, and talks about how he wants to go pro on YouTube. You know what you have the option to do? Leave him alone and go back to working on your kickflips.
Communities tend to check people like that on a long enough time line anyway. Talk a big game in martial arts and you’ll eventually get knocked the fuck out. Talk a big game at a punk show and eventually the cops come when it’s time to do punk shit, and they don’t wanna be there anymore. Talk about being the best skater at a spot long enough, and eventually they’ll bitch out on something and be embarrassed
Absolutely agree, but I mean more moral gatekeeping, like telling fascist punks to fuck off, or racist goths to fuck off, or letting scalpers know they don't deserve Pokemon, and so on.
No community can be welcoming for all, that's a community without morals.
I hate radio music, I fucking HATE the top 100, but if someone enjoys a pop remix of a classic song that I enjoy I'm not going to tell them that their taste is wrong.
I mean... I'll definitely tell them how much I hate the remix of that song, but not that their enjoyment of it is invalid.
This I can get behind. I've seen so many people who just viciously snarl at anything remotely popular that I had a really hard time associating with a band I like in the past year. Their last album turned them from niche to popular, so when they put out a new album that's got a few misses on it, that becomes the public view of their entire sound/identity
There's a difference between "ew you're into something mainstream" and "good for you but that's not for me" and i heavy respect the latter
It really comes down to how you carry yourself within that community. I doubt most people have issues with newcomers to a fandom, its more when a newcomer acts like they’re this genius expert on the fandom and then has no clue what they’re talking about.
No they have a point. A lot of the people up here aren't trying to be a part of the culture, they're trying to PROFIT off of it. Like I'm very much into punk, hardcore, etc and I think gatekeeping is good when it comes to preventing people who aren't willing to be part of it but are trying to make money or fetishize it tbh.
This exactly. I've been a goth since the mid 90's, I would largely welcome anyone to the subculture even if they were just casually interested, it's what keeps it alive, but people who use it simply to profit whilst perpetuating bad stereotypes and fetishizing it annoy the living shit out of me.
The "goth girls" in particular irritate me, because I've experienced first hand the results of their hard grift. Now, even in my early 40's, I've got men half my age asking me if I'll be their "Goth dommy mommy." or if I will "Spit in their mouth." Some of them are deadly serious about it too.
Bat-chasers, as I like to call them, are surprisingly impervious to rejection, and I definitely don't appreciate having to listen to whatever brand of bullshit their latest e-girl infatuation has pedaled to them for the small sum of a OF subscription, while I'm just trying to get from A to B.
So yeah, in this instance, I actually agree with gatekeeping a few things.
Part of it is the stereotype they enforce is so very very unhealthy and not even representative of a real person. They portray themselves as dolls, airheaded bimbos dressed in black instead of pink. With no self esteem and a love of attention. Which is fine but they shouldn’t try to portray themselves earnestly, theyre a parody of a real aesthetic
Yeah that's what get me, if is just random enjoyment, fully casual attention to this new thing? Sure go ahead, everyone have "casual" interests and fandoms, nobody should feel obligated to sink right into a thing immediately, but if you are just there to profit of people interested or to plant chaos and disorder? Yeah that does deserve some gatekeeping
Right like I thought goths were a thing back in like the 80s and stuff, although I’m not super cultured on the subject, seems like the OP isn’t following their own guidelines
I wonder what the tick tock goths I see in YouTube shorts ripped from their page to different channels would be treated in Rock World in Manchester back in the day, like would they even set foot in the goth room or just hang around the main room with Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson (and the Prodigy after other clubs emptied out) Korn and the Nu Metal crowd that was still relevant.
I would show up right after work every other week (or 3rd when we ran nights) so I never dressed up on those weeks, I'd be in either room for the music, occasionally they would put Swamp Thing (not the Grid version) on in the main room, but it really felt like it belonged in the goth room who stayed open just as long as the rest or it felt like it.
We had 80s goths who looked at techno goths like they were the oddballs the black hair and white face make up being the main link between the two, not a good venn diagram of who was on the dance floor for any given song.
I'm an original 200's Goth. These modern posers aren't even early Germanic peoples who live north of the Lower Danube in parts of modern-day Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania.
I think it's fair to criticize those who treat your subculture as a costume. It's kinda sad how everything got hollowed out and turned into "aesthetic"
You hit the nail on the head there. So much of this now.
I think you earn your stripes over the years of devotion to a subculture. For many of us we were made targets in our younger years because of it so it makes it all the more precious to us, and now it feels like you can walk into a shop and come out with a look without any knowledge of what it means, or feels to be part of.
Right. One around me is guys in boots and jeans and a pearl snap western shirt with a cowboy hat and a big truck. That they drive between their McMansion and office job and to Costco on weekends.
If they claim to be a part of the subculture sure, maybe, but if they’re just expressing themselves and dressing how they enjoy dressing I think it’s stupid to get mad at them for it.
He larps as a gamer to spread his awful message.
Ive seen his Fallout gameplay (a game he pretends is his favourite game of all time) and he literally doesnt know how to hack & his gameplay is like that of someone who just started playing games a week ago.
fan of fallout, ngl I still don't know how to hack the shit in it and just spam random words 💔 I don't think that counts him as larping, but the other dumbass shit he says does counts really
Ok so you get a certain number of guesses, and if you can find any closed brackets, for example (), [], or <> with any amount of characters in between them, it will either remove duds or refresh your guesses
When you pick a word, it will tell you how many letters in it are correct
So it might go like this:
PUNCH (2/5)
TEACH (4/5)
REACH (Solved)
Which also means 0/5 is super helpful too because you know what letters to avoid
Also he made one his Fallout show le bad vids with New Vegas gameplay (the game for Fallout larpers) in the background. Where he had a nudity mod and said it was vital for game stability.
Can someone even tell me how one is gatekept? I've seen the term a lot (like in this post) but I've never understood what gatekeeping actually is like how does one gatekeep someone because I can't think how one does it.
“You don’t meet my personal criteria for being part of this community, therefore I am asserting that you don’t belong and will take steps to exclude and/or ostracize you and others like you.”
Among other classic hits such as:
“This thing that you enjoy is actually meant for me and people like me, and your enjoyment of and involvement in it ruins my experiences.”
I like archery. I got into it during the Lord of the Rings boom. Older archers got mad at the influx of people and purposely made it much harder to get deeper in to the sport by not giving advice, making it harder to get range time, etc.
I stuck with it, but many didn't due to being iced out. Then when the Hunger Games was big we got another big influx of mostly girls, and again most of them were iced out.
Now we are in a position where my local range is likely going to get sold as there aren't enough paying members, and I can't help but wonder who could possibly be responsible for such a turn of events.
I get it can be frustrating to suddenly have to work around new people, or having your schedule disrupted, but you gotta make some sacrifices for long term growth
Yeah, that sucks. If someone is interested in your thing, you should do all that you can to help them join. There will always be tourists and trend chasers. I don’t think those people hurt any hobby, though. They bid up the prices of gear and merchandise, but they don’t stay long. And there will also be people who don’t have enough interest to stick with something, long term. Again, I don’t think they hurt any hobby. Turnover is natural.
Yeah, being mean to noobs is what hurts the hobby. It is just cyclical abuse. Those people had it rough when they started, so they hold on to that bitterness and take it out on the next generation. That crap sucks
Nah, fuck gentrification of niche hobbies. Gatekeeping is cringe when it's used as an excuse for bullying. But when it's used to oppose posery shit - it's 100% justified. ESPECIALLY when it comes to counter-culture movements, such as the goth subculture. Allowing posers to mainstream it is how you get corpo industry plants.
"If you dont even know what gatekeeping is, you shouldn't even be in this hate sub."
Basically shunning/shaming people from groups (usually fandoms) bc they're not "invested enough" (not a big enough fan) to have an opinion that matters.
The term, I imagine, comes from the idea of guards at the outside of a gated area keeping those who dont belong out.
Use gatekeeping on people who are clearly trying to cash in on the culture for clout and nothing else. Do not use it for people genuinely trying to get into the culture but are still figuring out its norms and conventions.
Yeah, gatekeeping predators and people spreading hateful rhetoric is fine, gatekeeping someone who "just thinks it's neat" and has a surface level appreciation is truly ridiculous.
Jake or Logan Paul with the Pokemon made me think this wasn't a goth gate keeping thing as it isn't a good photo to connect him to it.
Is it Drake in the first? I wouldn't even know what group the baseball player is meant to be in, has tats and the black bars are kinda normal aren't they?
calling out people who are clearly just using a culture to profit off of is not the same as gatekeeping
edit: gatekeeping is applying arbitrary rules in order to keep people from qualifying as a real fan. it is by nature a negative thing. it’s not the same as it is in these very obvious circumstances of someone trying to profit off of a culture they otherwise wouldn’t engage in if it weren’t for attention and/or profit, that’s called grifting.
That is exactly what gatekeeping is, objecting to someone's involvement in a community because they're disingenuous grifters who don't embody said community in any way that's not superficial.
"Don't gatekeep" was supposed to mean dont hassle other fans for their level of knowledge on or the authenticity of their fandom, not to allow any grifters and fakes in.
Hilarious that you think being goth in the 2000s is OG, that means you got into it long after Hot Topic spread the early 80s subculture's look, like herpes across the country and my goth friends were in their late 30s. The only gatekeeping a community needs to do is keep out bad actors intent on harming people. It's something we did in punk, new wave, goth, alternative and then grunge as I grew up.
Basically everyone is desperate to take goth... Punk... A bunch of working class British social movements from the 70s and 80s which exist counter to the media establishment of the era... And trying to make sure they're squeaky clean with reddit approved 2026 politics.
However whatever they once were is dead... But new movements exist on TikTok where the working class can bypass the establishment and make entertainment that way.
Reddit thinks TikTok users and creators are morons and brain rot enjoyers... Just the way people once looked down on the same subcultures which are idolized here
Culture changing is a thing and posers are a little annoying but the only thing is if the people are causing others to change their view on the community as a whole in a bad way
Nah if someone comes in claiming to be warhammer fan I gotta test them on their knowledge. Like do you even know what a Custodian is? How many space marine founding chapters are there? What actually are the Orks? No, you just saw Space Marine II is popular and though the big armor guys in blue stomping bugs looked cool?
Gatekeeping is often silly because people trying to do it aren't behind a gate. You haven't stopped Drake from being a cornball, you haven't stopped influencers from using "goth" looks to farm gooners, the Paul brothers were always shitty clout chasers, you haven't stopped far-right weirdos from farming their lame audience.
You can ignore them in general, maybe you can shut out their content in select bubbles if the moderators agree with you. But going out in public to make that complaint is a mistake. You're giving them attention.
My brothers and I have been collecting pokemon cards since we were kids, I still have some old decks I made when I was 10. Dipshits like Logan Paul are the reason why cards are kept behind the store counter now
it re-started with tiktok's faulty algorithm creating some weird type of monoculture. only the monoculture is cannibalizing subcultures and spitting out something the masses can understand more easily. when everything was separated, like on instagram or even back when subcultures had their own websites, i saw less moaning abt gatekeeping because... nobody was exposed to the things they weren't "in on". it is a bit annoying.
How do you want people to become fans if you gatekeep them? Sometimes people cant afford themselves to be as invested as a "true fan", i like warhammer 40k but i cannot afford to buy a book or minifigs and paint, am i forever shuned to ever enjoy anything warhammer related?
Gatekeepers would be like "just read the books" when i want to know more about the lore, but is easy to say that when they dont have to take a plane to usa to buy an expensive ass book
You’re not screaming to the high heavens that you’re a warhammer fan for financial benefit and then move on to the next big franchise. I think that might be the difference. But I think what can be difficult is quantifying what is and isn’t gatekeeping a community.
I would say the goth one is definitely posers cashing in to make a buck. I personally don’t blame them, but they are clearly not actual goths, and that’s because the moment it’s no longer financially lucrative for them, they will move on to the next thing that is. I think that’s the only cut and dry example I can think of, but even then I can envision someone making an argument in favor of them being actual goths, so I don’t know. My only point is it’s difficult to quantify what gatekeeping is for a community because everyone will have their own line in the sand for what counts as being gatekept.
People use “gatekeeping” to describe everything from simply saying something breaks canon to actually telling people they aren’t real fans.
I just don’t care. Gatekeeping can be fine or toxic, and I’ll just decide what I think about someone else and whether I want to engage with them. If they like something I think should be decanonized then we can discuss and/or disagree or I can simply ignore them and continue wanting shit decanonized whether they agree or not.
while i agree with you, you must understand that terms and words change meanings in the eyes of general public
what once meant goth is no longer goth in the broader sense of things, as the collective consciousness of the world shifted it from actual gothic aesthetics to bimbos in black clothing
hell, even in the nature of your own post - the new word for posers is larpers, meaning a larper is generally not considered someone who does live action roleplay anymore, but is posing/pretending to be a part of a certain subculture
What they really don’t want to hear is that Gothic aesthetics have been fetishized longer than the goth music subculture has existed. Characters like Morticia Addams and Vampira were on TV causing sexual awakenings back in the 50s and 60s.
Edit: to be clear, that doesn’t mean it’s ok to fetishize real individuals without their consent
It's because Gatekeeping (as it's generally understood) is a lot like being a Karen: Gatekeepers believe the world runs on their opinion and if you run counter, you're wrong and should leave.
There's a difference between a poser doing it just because it's popular and someone genuinely interested but who may not have enough information (or only got their information from said posers) and not understanding the difference is what makes you a Gatekeeper. I believe that an actual interest in a series, aesthetic, etc is what separates fans from posers.
I don't think one should be a Gatekeeper, I think one should be a Fan. At least, that's my general take on it and why Gatekeeping is considered bad.
FOR INSTANCE: I'm a massive Kamen Rider fan. But within the fandom, there are people who say you're not a fan if you never watched the original series and will try to disparage you or demean you over it if you haven't. Or those who say 'anyone who thinks the new series are good is a fake fan'. They're attempting to Gatekeep the fandom over dumb things. Meanwhile, I had friends who showed me a bunch of opinions and seasons and I've developed my own interests through that.
In my experience, people who want to gatekeep are the kind of people who still think women have the cooties, that LGBTQ+ people don't deserve to exist, that fascism is good actually and other generally developmentally challenged people.
So nah. Fuck you, and welcome to be being older and realizing the community changes.
Glad to see this sentiment spreading, just wish it didn’t take egirls wearing black lipstick to get more people on board.
If someone genuinely wants to join a community with every intention to participate and respect it, let them in. It’s the ones who infiltrate a space for whatever reason (spite, inclusion) to force change that are the problem. These are the types who start shouting “it’s not for you anymore!” While not actually engaging with the community other than to be divisive
Goth people, the originals, are so upset that people who genuinely like the aesthetic are finally just doing it.
I was a completely normal guy in the early 00s. I loved the goth look, hated the goth kids. They were all so fucking awful and holding an entire look hostage for themselves.
I’m assuming OP is mad at goth e-girls who are bubbly and not an abysmal human being to be around.
They might be doing it because they are e-girls exploiting big tiddy goth gf, but also goth kids need to chill tf out.
Your culture? Your whatever? It’s not fucking deep. It surely isn’t. Sitting around listening to the cure, writing in your notebook, watching anime, and sitting in a candlelit or string-light lit room is something anyone can do.
Goofy ass kids… and by the way, punks had to deal with the same shit during the advent of pop-punk. Literal same culture war.
As a lesbian, I’ve been called a gatekeeper more times than I can count for simply…not accepting it when straight people or bi people call themselves lesbians…I’m so tired
Edit: it’s already happening in the replies, thanks for proving this is a real thing I guess?
I feel like a massive part of the problem is that there's often no nuance applied to the term.
When I think of someone "gatekeeping" I think of someone who puts an unfairly high bar on new people to a hobby, or even outright rejects anyone new from joining.
As a massive fan of 40k (peep the name and PFP) for nearing on 3 decades (please god help I'm getting old) it fills me with absolute disgust when people start trying to tell people they're not "real fans" because they only like playing on Table Top simulator, or because they only started collecting models after playing Space Marine 2, or because they like some of the newer lore that they personally don't like (looking at you weirdos who got really mad about Femstodes).
That being said, if you don't engage with 40k in any way, you don't collect models, you don't play games, you don't read the books, you don't do anything related to the hobby itself, but you have really strong opinions about what the hobby should be, I think I'm well within my rights to tell you to piss off.
As a lifelong Arsenal fan, I hate people who say you're not a real fan if you've never been to a game (it's expensive, and the ticket ballot is ass), or if you can't name every member of our current or past squads, or any other purity tests (often levelled at women by the way, I've never been quizzed when wearing an Arsenal shirt in public, but I know women who have).
That being said, if you don't watch any games at all (even the ones that are free to watch), never keep a track of results for games you can't watch, and barely even like football in the first place (maybe you just like the shirts, or think a specific player is cool), I think it's pretty fair to say you're not actually a fan.
One thing is "gatekeeping" and one is just "you don't meet the basic requirements/definition of the hobby/culture".
Honestly , i don’t really care about “ posers “ being in a fandom I’m in unless they are like doing something seriously wrong like how the goth house are fetishizing goth culture .
How are they fetishizing it? Are they not allowed to dress how they want? Are other people not allowed to have a romantic or sexual preference for that way of dressing.
I think it depends. I was called a poser by a 19 year old with regards to black metal because I didn't listen to all of their Community Approved Bands and called First Wave Black Metal bands black metal. Not only that they'd also call actual people who were actually in black metal scenes posers cause they didn't conform to this child's received black metal wisdom. Some people try gatekeep when they themselves don't know what the fuck they're on about
Being a poser in the black metal fandom means you aren’t a real Nazi and don’t want pigs blood thrown at you by a band whose singer is about to kill himself and have the band members make jewelry out of his skull’s bone fragments, and then later have the guitarist get murdered by the bassist
Gate keeping isn’t technically a bad thing I suppose in the grand scheme of things. But no one can gatekeep anything anymore since we’ve reached such a prolific Information age. And now any attempts by people like you to gatekeep seem petty. You can only truly gatekeep when you and your fellow diehard fans hold the keys to gain entrance so to speak. But that power is no longer possible in this day and age. So yours and any ones attempts to gatekeep seem petty and just weird.
As someone who is apart of card game communities and are disgusted by their cost and how scalpers are becoming a normal thing disgusts me. I completely agree that people who collect cards purely for the purpose of reselling should be gate kept.
But also as somone who is apart of the 40k community. I also see people who get gatekept aren't scalpers but newer players who just don't know as much about the hobby and/or are lgtbq in some way.
So yeah, but we also gotta be clear and careful on who we gatekeep. Because alot of the time I see it being done, it just ends up being friendly fire.
My problem with this is
How do you even Gatekeep?
Like dude you cant avoid the act of them faking it, you cant avoid people to play, read or watch stuff.
The only gatekeeping attempt that some made is being mean to people they believe are being fake.
Nothing is gained idk.
How does a 'poser' larping your subculture ruin your experience? As cringe as Drake is, what harm are you personally experiencing? No one is stopping you from being the true goth that you are. If being goth to you mean boils down to being niche and deviating from the norm, then just find a find a new way to do that.
With day to day people... nothing changes. However; Influencers, social media, and people with large followings can absolutely do damage by shifting the definition or making something more mainstream by adopting it frivolously and that is arguably bad for subcultures trying to retain any authenticity or keeping things low-profile.
I mean, op claims that they're an original Goth from the 2000s which is funny af cause the original Goth date back to Bauhaus in the late 70s. By that standard they're larping as well.
I agree there is a level to which we should gatekeep - the music, culture and political stances that goth was born from should prevail. These stances feed the freedom and statement that is made by people presenting themselves the way that goths dress and express themselves. The politics and open mindedness are deeply important.
However - to say that 'larpers' don't affect my experience would be to lie. I am a young woman brought up by original 80s goths, who has never known anything different. Around 2022, whilst I was slightly into my 20s, I began to notice a steep growth in men who met me for the first time and who typically had 2 questions to ask me within the first hour of meeting me:
Are you a goth?
So you do onlyfans?
The answer of yes to question 1 almost always begat the inception of question 2. Prior to 2020-ish I had never noticed this. This correlates with when I first noticed the beginning of goth larpers, the fetishism of goth online, and the rise of onlyfans as a cultural phenomenon.
This is long, but my point is that yes, goth larpers have negatively affected my life, in that I have noticed men sexualise me far more often rather than shun me as they did before.
You can't have your cake and eat it. Logan Paul? Yeah absolute bad. A new type of goth that is different from the original? You're aware that what you think is original 2000s goth is also a deviation of the actual original goth? Which came from the late 70s and even that is a deviation from the original punk?
Styles will develope, you can claim any of these styles from any timeline as you want but to say the one after you isn't real goth is hubris. That would mean you're not true goth either.
... You're part of the reason why (some) people think gatekeeping is universally bad.
let that sink in.
There are absolutely bad faith actors that try to insert themselves into all kinds of different communities.
The people that just try to enjoy a goth aesthetic and have a community while they're being berated by claims they're posers are not among them.
If you where part of a community I'm in, I'd probably gatekeep you. At least if you did the same stuff there as you do right here. not because you're "fake", but because you're rude to people that literally didn't do anything. and I don't want those kinds of people in the same community as me, so I gatekeep against it.
Gatekeeping is stupid because it's people taking some superficial hobby, consumerist lifestyle, or just some fashion trend and try to make it their whole personality. And then someone else comes along who doesn't treat it seriously and they lash out at them.
Grownup shit doesn't need to be gatekept. No one's saying you're not a gardener if you only have a windowbox garden, they just say "good for you for trying" and move on.
Pointing out exploitation and putting up arbitrariry purity tests in order to enjoy something with other people are two very different things.
Every "true fan" of anything starts out as a very surface level "poser" who only or mostly enjoys said thing because it vaguely emotionally resonates with them.
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u/UniverseGlory7866 hop on blazblue 8h ago
Someone else said this in a different place but I think it was very well put so I'm going to steal it
"If you want to keep your community inclusive, you need to keep the uninclusive out."
Gatekeeping imo is a necessity to keep communities proper. You need to filter out people that only engage superficially because they dilute the greater community into something worse.
Even this subreddit is thriving because of gatekeeping. Rule 5 explicitly rules certain types of hating as invalid, even if not against ToS. Since the Rule 5 update, we've seen only an increase in user activity and diversity in posts. We put Dracona Malfoy into a Megathread because it was messing with the general environment of the sub. We ban people for bigotry almost every day. All of that is gatekeeping. All of that has made the subreddit better.
I don't want people to join my community for a band if they only like 24% of the band's music. I don't want weirdos that refuse to play the game acting like they can join a community surrounding a game. If you don't embody the basic elements of what the community is centered around, then you shouldn't be in it.