Yearly Archives: 2003

Too Old To Be Goth, Revisited

Posted on June, 2003 by Lady of the Manners

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to your monthly peek into the Lady of the Manners’ brain. This month, the Lady of the Manners is going to re-visit a topic from Years Gone Past. The Lady of the Manners has been receiving ”¦ well, not quite a flurry, but a light dusting of mail from new Faithful Readers who write earnest and charming letters about how they never considered themselves Goth, but they wear all black (or dark jewel tones), they like to read horror and fantasy fiction, they like bats, they collect gargoyles ”¦

Thankfully, this batch doesn’t ask the Lady of the Manners to validate their gothness, or complain that whatever online test they took doesn’t think they’re Goth. No, what is troubling these poor readers is very simple: they think they’re too old to start calling themselves Goth. Continue reading →

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Raising A Goth

Posted on May, 2003 by Lady of the Manners

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to another fun-filled Gothic Charm School column. (The Lady of the Manners certainly hopes it’s fun-filled for you Faithful Readers, because she has fun writing them.)

Recently, the Lady of the Manners has been getting a lot of mail from parents; encouraging mail. Mail that asks questions like “How can I as a parent support him in the Goth life, without seeming like I’m pretending to be “cool”, or fake? Should I just let him experiment with it?” The Lady of the Manners is thrilled that parents are reading her columns and sending her mail, which naturally leads to the Lady of the Manners writing a column just for them. But before she starts holding forth about “So you’re the parent of a fledgling Goth?”, there’s one eensy other thing she has to address ”¦ Continue reading →

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“Not a Goth,” Revisited

Posted on April, 2003 by Lady of the Manners

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to another fun-filled lesson here at Gothic Charm School. The Lady of theManners has been getting quite the flurry of correspondence lately, what with Gothic.net inviting everyone inside the shop (as it were) and the Lady of the Manners’ archive site being selected as a Yahoo! Pick of the Week; the Lady of the Manners is quite spoiled for choice in terms of subjects to Hold Forth about, bless your spooky little hearts.

Remember, just a few months ago, when the Lady of the Manners addressed the concerns of a young lady who insisted she wasn’t a Goth (anymore), but kept being referred to as one? This month, the Lady of the Manners looks at two different sides of the Not A Goth dilemma: So You Want to be a Goth but Aren’t One, and My Friends are Goths, but I’m Not. Continue reading →

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On Being Mean

Posted on March, 2003 by Lady of the Manners

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to yet another month of the Lady of the Manners shaking her lace-gloved fist and ranting (in a ladylike manner, of course). Now lets see ”¦ last month, the Lady of the Manners mentioned a topic she’d been thinking about. It’s a topic that she even covered in brief a few months ago, saying something like “The Internet is not Real Life, but you still should be nice to the people you meet there”. Well, yes. Apparently the ”˜be nice’ part of the message didn’t reach some people or make as much as of an impact as the Lady of the Manners had hoped for, so she’s going to indulge herself with an ENTIRE COLUMN about why being rude, unkind, or inflammatory towards people you meet online Should Not Be Done. Continue reading →

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“Not a Goth”

Posted on February, 2003 by Lady of the Manners

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to another dizzying month of Gothic Charm School. This month’s topic is a puzzle, one that the Lady of the Manners has had to think a long while about, because she kept having so many different answers to the question. One of you dear Faithful Readers wrote in with an earnest quandary, but one without an easy, off-the-lace-cuff answer. The poor dear even asked to not have her email address and name used, because she’s worried about facing ridicule from people. What has her all in a flutter? Funny you should ask that ”¦ Continue reading →

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