Violence and the Goth subculture

Small town murders shine light on Goth culture

A shocking triple murder in normally sleepy Medicine Hat on the Canadian prairies has put a spotlight on the Goth youth subculture. Following the incident, police arrested a 12-year-old girl and her 23-year-old boyfriend for killing her parents and eight-year-old brother.

Reports in the media have highlighted that the two accused became acquainted on Goth internet sites, the implication being that Goth culture itself may have been a factor in the murders. This association is easy to create, as it builds on the moral panic reflected in the media concerning the Goth subculture after  the mass murder at Columbine High School in 1999.

Though difficult to define, Goth culture is usually associated with youths who wear black clothing, nail polish, and eyeliner, favour black boots, studs, and zippers, prefer moody music, and have a fascination with the darker aspects of life and adolescence. For the majority of Goth youth, the culture is about teen angst, music, fashion, and a sense of belonging, not violent anti-social acts.

In the mind of many adults, Goths are dark, threatening, and macabre. No doubt, many are wondering whether a Goth fascination with death could have contributed in some way to the crime in Medicine Hat.  A triple family murder in a small quiet town, allegedly carried out at least in part by a 12-year-old girl,  might seem more comprehensible if it is placed in the context of a subculture that superficially appears to celebrate death.

However, some experts caution against making quick judgments regarding a culture’s effect on any particular individual. Following the Columbine massacre, Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program and a Professor of Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology adressed a Congressional Hearing on Media Violence.  Dr. Jenkins explained:

"Cultural artifacts are not simple chemical agents like carcinogens that produce predictable results upon those who consume them. They are complex bundles of often contradictory meanings that can yield an enormous range of different responses from the people who consume them."

Indeed for some teenage Goths, a tendency towards self-harm rather than harm of others may be likely. Researchers in Scotland have reported that self-harm and attempted suicide are more associated with Goth culture than any other identifiable youth subculture. The study, conducted through the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow, followed and surveyed 1258 British youths from age 11 to age 19.  Results of the survey showed that 53% of Goth youth had self-harmed and 47% had attempted suicide, respectively. The average prevalence of these behaviours in British youth is estimated to be between 7 and 14% for self-harm and about 6% for attempted suicide.

Goths to blame?

The authors of the study, published in the British Medical Journal in April of 2006, acknowledge “the causal mechanism remains unclear”. In other words, the research did not determine whether youths with suicidal tendencies tend to become Goths or whether Goth culture influences teens to become suicidal. However, some of the data collected led researchers to speculate that belonging to Goth culture may have a protective influence, at least in terms of self-harm.

“Our study found that more young people reported self-harm before, rather than after, becoming a Goth,” Dr. Robert Young, a research associate at the University who led the study, told the New Scientist. “This suggests that young people with a tendency to self-harm are attracted to the Goth subculture.” Additionally, Dr. Young suggested it was possible that “rather than posing a risk, [youths belonging to Goth culture] are gaining valuable social and emotional support from their peers.”

The thoughts of a 24-year-old graduate student and former Goth quoted in Dr. Jenkins’s Congressional presentation are consistent with Dr. Young’s suggestion that belonging to Goth culture may provide support for some teenagers.

"In high school, before there was even the label 'Goth', some of the disenfranchised youth started to hang out together to give ourselves a safe place to be depressed. Really, that is how I remember it. We were all fed up with not fitting in, not being happy, not being athletic, and so forth, and EXTREMELY fed up with being picked on by those who were. So, we started to band together as a support group. Left to ourselves, we listened to depressing music, watched depressing movies, and generally moped about. We also started wearing black, which at the time was mostly to distinguish ourselves from the normals of the school (the 80's were a very pastel decade) than to make a real statement."

At least some commentators on the Medicine Hat murders understand that youth culture and youth violence issues are complex and that it is too easy to make a scapegoat of a subculture that strives to set itself off from the mainstream. As Jose Rodriguez put it in the headline of his April 28, 2006 Calgary Sun column, “Don’t blame Goth.”

	PREVALENCE The percentage (%) of a population that is affected with a particular disease or condition at a given time.