Tyler's Turn Blog

I had a kid walk in the store this afternoon with dyed black hair, black eyeliner, and all black clothes (including an amazing black trench coat with a laced bodice). He's a regular, and a good kid. He bought his usual, and I complimented him on the new trench coat, which really is fabulous, as I checked him out.

After he left, an old man walked up to the register and said, "What is that?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

He indicated the door where the kid had just left. "Well, is it a religion or something?"

I said it was just a style of dress. I told him it was called "Goth" short for "Gothic," and tried to explain that it was a way of identifying one's peer group in high school. I likened it to dressing "country," or any other way that kids try to look like their friends.

He wasn't getting it, so I said, "You remember the movie Rebel without a Cause? Remember how the kids dressed in that movie? If they wore jeans, you knew they were rebels, and if they wore khaki pants, you knew they were straights. That period was the beginning of this whole 'dressing like your group' thing. It's the same today, it's just that there are more groups in high school now, and their costumes have gotten more dramatic."

I think he finally understood, and hopefully he won't be afraid of those "satanist" kids walking up and down Bullard street any more.