What Goth Has Taught Me About Lolita. Plus: More Meme!

While it might not be apparent from this blog, it being a Lolita blog, but regular old Goth has always been my first love. It started growing up around movies such as Beetlejuice, The Addams Family, and Edward Scissorhands, and then finally manifested sometime around 8th grade when I got my first pair of black stompy boots and started wearing my younger sisters old witch Halloween costume as a blouse (to be fair, it was a black 1970's era silk dress with billowing sleeves, not an off-the-Walmart-rack kids costume). While I have been something of a poor Goth for the past 4 or so years, having pretty much given up a mostly Goth wardrobe for a strictly Lolita wardrobe, it still holds a special place in my heart. Nowadays, the closest I really get to actually looking like a Goth is Gothic Lolita but I still love to, I guess you could say, "Live the Gothic lifestyle", which is pretty apparent by my questionable tastes in decorating, a predilection towards gloomy music, and a general all-around enjoyment of the spooky and macabre.

The point of all of this is that I came into Lolita no stranger to standing out in a crowd but being part of an alternative subculture. By the time I got my first "Hey little Bo Peep!" shout from a stranger I was already an expert at dealing with "Hey Elvira!" calls. I feel that coming from a Gothic background, if you will, had really made me prepared for anything Lolita could throw at me, from cat calls, to internet drama. Some of these things should be common sense, or are things most Lolitas eventually figure out on their own, but these are all things that Goth taught me before I even donned my first petticoat.

• Trends aren't to be taken seriously and are best for adding to the ever-growing pot of cool stuff to wear. We Lolitas love our trends, I am not going to lie and say I don't usually love whatever silly new trend comes along, but I feel that all too often, once trends are over with many Lolitas are pretty much done and completely over them. I like to think that we should be able to just keep dipping into the great big well-o'-Lolita-trends without people feeling like they need to suggest ways in which they can update their outfit. While Goth has it's fair share of trends, I feel like they stick around for a much longer time than Lolita trends, and don't start getting labeled as "old school" 3 years down the road.
• Respect your elders. What gothling doesn't one day long to be an Eldergoth, or look back with admiration to the long ago days of Old School Goth? I feel that within Lolita the opposite often seems like it is the case, younger Lolita's always debate about how old "too old" is for Lolita, and giggle at how ugly things used to look. My feelings on the subject can pretty much be summed up in this Lolita Secret that popped up a few months ago. While you don't have to love what the Lolita fashion looked like in the 90's, and it's up to you to decide when you personally want to stop wearing Lolita, there's no reason to scoff at your own most-favorite-fashion-in-the-whole-wide-world's roots. 
• Some strangers are going to hate you and think you're ugly, stupid, and worthless just because of the way you dress. It's a sad fact, but it's really just something you're going to have to learn to live with. The best thing about this is that it is a pretty quick and dirty way of separating your real friends from people who are hardly worth your time, and especially not your friendship. 
• You don't like it when people judge you, so stop judging other people. This goes hand-in-hand with the above lesson. You don't like it when other people make assumptions about the way you dress, so why start making assumptions about other people based on how they dress?
• To "normal" people, we all look equally silly, so stop squabbling about who looks better than whom. A Vampire Goth and an Ethereal Goth are going to look like pretty much the exact same thing to the average person, so what's the point in pretending like one is better than the other if they're both going to face the same prejudices from outsiders? The same can be said of Sweet Lolitas and Classic Lolitas, or any of the other common Lolita verses. 
• Clichés are fun, but not something to base your life around. With Goth, sometimes it is fun to get excited about vampires, or to gloom around a cemetery, but it's certainly not mandatory, and if it's just not your thing, there's no reason to pretend it is. The same can be said of Lolita, a fair number of Lolitas feel like if one does not love tea, have manners that would put Emily Post to shame, and are fluent in Japanese, then, why, they are simply not a proper Lolita. Luckily though, these notions that the cliché is not only the norm but the only way are often newbie misconceptions that are frequently shattered by spending a few months in said subculture.

Despite some overlap in the aesthetics and interests, the Gothic subculture is pretty far removed from Lolita(Arguments of "Lolita is just frilly clothes!" vs. "There's more to Goth than just wearing black!" for starters) but I still think they can learn a lot from each other!

I had mistakenly credited one blog for coming up with the 30 day Lolita challenge, but it turns out it was actually posted on The Random Lolita, which is actually a blog I'm quite fond of (and this has nothing to do with the fact she's wearing one of my bonnets in her banner : 3), but I've been out of the blogging loop for the past month so the original post completely slipped past me!

I'm really loving this challenge, not just because it gives me an excuse to use some silly .gifs and super-kawaii lolita blog graphics, because it's a nice mix of personal and typical Lolita questions and it gives a little sneak peak of what the person is like without all their frills.

Day 4 – 10 different kinds of food you like.
Honey Moxie Cola Curry Rose flavored anything Guacamole/avocados Falafel  Sushi Salads French fries Cotton candy