A brief history of goths - Dan Adams 

"it's not a phase, mom" **Roman empire sweating**

True gothic fashion. Chainmail armour, iron helmet and a glorious axe on your belt

Steampunk: When Goths discover the colour brown.

So Goths have been edgy from the beginning

"If you're a Goth, where were you when we sacked Rome?"

so you mean, it's not a phase....?

Goth is going to outlive everyone who says it's just a phase. Current streak: >1500 years

Can we all agree that there is just something so starkly elegant in gothic architecture? It’s stunning, the amount of strength such matchstick-like pillars and arches convey, and the intricate stonework and glass just adds to the overall feel. Elegance, grace, and the demand for respect just seeps from the walls!

Man I love this art style, very Samurai Jack

Don’t 👏say 👏you 👏want👏 a 👏goth 👏girlfriend 👏if 👏you👏freak 👏out 👏when 👏she 👏sacks 👏Rome.

When she says she’s goth but won’t execute the prime minister of Italy

Ancient barbarian goths: “Im sad we havent taken over the world yet” The cure: well im just sad

You forgot one very important kind of Goth: The Sims Goths.

Vandals then: "We'll break your stuff, we don't care." Vandals now: "We'll break your stuff, we don't care."

I remember when Gothic chicks spent most of their time tending cattle, piggies, wagons, horses, weaving, and babies.

you're forgetting the only true goth icoon of the 21st century: Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way

this video is so visually pleasing

Real goths were born in the 1200s, posers

It's ironic that Christians namely (/possibly others?) see Gothic as Demonic when in reality, Gothic came _from_ when Christianity had a choke-hold on society/was most powerful

Well, what can I say? It was Walpole

Kudos for the beautiful animation!

hmm, it ignores a bit of the outside forces and influences of Gothic fashion - specifically, the fashion movement based of Victorian era mourning attire, popularized by queen Victoria's famously drastic additions to mourning etiquette after the death of her husband. it's one of the first connections of fashion to the term Gothic, due like the video says to the churches and somewhat to the writing, but specifically connecting the clothing to death and funerals. it's also why every goth ever has to constantly hear the sarcastic questions 'who died?' and 'where is the funeral?'. for all these reasons Gothic subculture is both consciously and subconsciously hardwired to the ideas of death, doom and gloom in the minds of collective society no matter how lively it is in actuality. but hey. at least we can be counted on to put the Fun in Funeral.

Thanks for this. I always thought that saying "goth originated in the early 80s with death metal" was far too narrow to describe the culture. Especially with many Goths having a common interests in classic horror movies and literature, many of which predate the 1970s at the latest.

anyone else notice how the modern goth looked exactly like Siouxsie Sioux from Siouxsie and the banshees?

Now I'm wanting them to do episodes about all music styles

"to artists finding beauty in darkness"

Mom during the roman empire: "change clothes" Kid: "is not a phase, mom" present - still not a phase lol

My goodness... These series are so amazing!! Explained in a way that keeps drawing you deeper and deeper into curiosity. I love it. Thank you!!

So you could describe goths as someone who is an outsider, with art that is simplistic, yet beautiful, and embrace darkness as opposed to hiding it away

"Artists finding beauty in darkness" ! What a great phrase to sum up Goth. Great video, nicely done.

Amazing video, i love how Siouxsie portrays the gothic style at the start of the video

im genuinely blown away by how in depth and well made this video is! i wasnt expecting this when i clicked on it! well done!

The animation in this is flawless

wait so gothic is just dark romance

Cybergoth, Gothibility, Gothic Metal, and Steampunk have very little relation with the Goth Subculture, all of those are kind of their own thing.

This part of history is simply not covered enough. Thank you for the great video!

I am an Elder Goth and I absolutely loved this! Beautifully done and wonderful explanations. I too hope that you do one about the different Goth music subgenres and please use the same artist!

back in the late 70s we also referred to early Goths as Batcavers - which came from the London club Batcave that heavily influenced the subculture. We had schoolyard chants regarding Wavers & Batcavers which was ironic since my high school years were ankle length trenches, misfit haircuts, and 40-hole Docs. Still in love with my fair skinned, raven tressed beauty.

I can see some future subgenres of Gothic expression continuing to connect to the past (such as ancient Norse and ancient Germanic culture), and even branching out incorporate other cultures as well, since the nature of a subculture is to evolve over time as new generations express their own version of being Gothic.

I think this better explains Goths than any Goth Vlogger youtube has to offer. Thanks.

As someone who loves Goth music, fashion, and art, but who also enjoys history and other intellectual pursuits, I loved this. Great educational video concerning the history of the origins of the word, and to a lesser extent, the music itself.

Really great video, barbaric culture really amazes me. History classes rarely go deep into their civilization and mostly show them from the Romans' point of view.

Congrats to who ever did the visuals and animations. They simply look amazing.

The animation reminds me of Genndy Tartakovsky! Well done! "Finding beauty in darkness." Definitely describes the entire idea well.

Great video. My only comment is that while The Cure is more well known, they should swap places with Siouxsie and the Banshees in the animation. The Cure came well after Siouxsie, with Robert Smith of The Cure even playing for The Banshees!

Finally, someone who explained the history and the connection between the two groups (the Goths and Gothic subculture)!

What a great video!! And the art ❤❤❤! I want each design and painting to stay on screen long enough to examine it thoroughly!

This was a very beautiful animation, thank you for showcasing the art history and connection of the many art movements named "Gothic" though time! I'm currently at the end of my Upper Div. Gothic Architecture class and I'm sure this video would've prevented a lot of confusion from students who'd joined the class thinking that the portrayal of Gothic churches in literature was what the architects had in mind! I would like to also say that historians also refer to the Dark Ages as "Dark" because of the lack of written historical information and records from the time, making it hard to get solid images of how life was like, thus it being "dark"! Nothing to do with the cathedrals; their whole goal was to install as many stained glass windows as possible to make everything light and "heavenly"!

I feel like this video was a great summary of what I've cumulatively learned this school year from German class, English class, and my gothic friend's lifestyle. IT ALL COMES TOGETHER NOW.

Small beef with the timeline: Siouxsie & the Banshees pre-date Bauhaus, and formed concurrently with The Cure, and Joy Division. Nick Kent (in NME IIRC), used Goth to first describe Siouxsie (in comparison to The Doors). While she rightly hates being pigeonholed she was the front-runner of the genre, not a later edition or also ran.

Speaking of The Doors' influence, they were actually the first band to be called "gothic rock" in a review in 1967. Some of their songs, like Strange Days, The Crystal Ship, and The End would not sound out of place from a gothic band in the '80s.

Beatifull BEATIFULL video man, this one and the Spartacus video are my favourites in the entire RU-vid, exelent work.

Bauhaus personifies early gothic music to me. Happy to see them mentioned.

Next: A brief history of hipsters

a very important history lesson that many seems to forget to share. thanks!

I always love how the animations here made us understand better.

Siouxsie and the Banshees didn't get enough credit. They were such an influential band and they were also formed in 1976, just like The Cure and Joy division... so not mentioning them and just listing them as "one of the similar bands that was described as gothic rock" in 4:22 is so damn disrespectful in my opinion. Needless to say Siouxsie Sioux was also the main gothic trendsetter as well....

I love it when I click a RU-vid video and actually learn something.

I love how this dissected the word Goth, cuz it’s so broad.

You guys are so damn good at this. I love these videos.

Sisters of Mercy still rule.

Although I am not part of it I adore the goth scene. Their style and the music is really cool and I always kind of liked it.

this was very succinctly well illustrated. Nicely done!

There can't be a better brief history of Goths than this.

As a fan of history, gothic rock and steampunk, I found this pretty interesting. Thanks!

Remember when MTV was good?

This is very informative. Thank you for creating this video.

Yo Ted Ed thanks for making the education free and man where do you find this beautiful scrpts it really explain things in spectacular beauty

probably the first video on RU-vid I've watched within the past year that will genuinely help me in life

No mention of Siouxsie Sioux? it was her maiden voyage that started the goth scene in the 70s! Why do people fail to understand this

Man, that club scene brings back memories, especially the guy punching the air, so true.

finding beauty in darkness. this sentence is so inspiring.

This was very well done, thank you! The team behind this should be very proud.

I gotta say, The animation is absolutely beautiful.

I had no idea that there was so mush history behind goths. I'm not goth, but I do appreciate the many styles

This was so cool. Thanks for posting.

there needs to be an art book of all these great images. idbuy one for sure

Goths don't sweat... They sizzle.

Siouxsie teams up with Alaric and things really hit the fan.

I' ve seen a lot of Ted-Ed videos, but this one is the most interesting to me.

Ah. So it was Walpole. 3:33

I'm surprised this video never mentioned Siouxsie Sioux, singer from Siouxsie and the Banshee's. They are one of the first major goth bands (started in 1976). It's also who I'm guessing the opening goth woman is in this video (which makes it even more strange, not even in the "family tree" shown near the end.) This is Siouxsie Sioux (in the 80's) img02.deviantart.net/256c/i/2012/105/a/9/siouxsie_sioux__the_painted_bird_1_by_darkasterial_vision-d4wb58j.jpg

I like this, it's a short and simple explanation even if it forgot mentioning 'Siouxsie and the Banshees' whose singer first used the word Goth (or Gothic Rock) as a description for their music.

That was amazing, I'm so glad I watched that

Why did Death get sick of hanging out with his Goth friends? Because he knew that there was more to life than Death.

"other germanic tribes" Britons were celtic fam

Thank you for this video! Well explained! 👍🏻

This is pretty much what I thought, great video connecting the dots.

I'm strangely attracted to the goth

Anyone who plays Age of Empires would know how OP the Goths civilisation is... 😅😨

Thanks for this TED!

well put together, good job!

My dad was a trad-goth back in the early 1980's and I was raised into the culture. Proud to call myself goth in opposition to today's titles such as scene or emo. Gothic culture has something very wholesome and warming about it.

Who knew goths had such a deep and fascinating history.

That was way more interesting than I thought it would. Thanks!

Thank you for this informative overview

They key part is the Romantic Era part, and it's mostly glossed over.

Beautiful. Thank you very much.

A very interesting overview of the development of the concept of 'gothic,' but I was hoping to find more of an analasys of the modern social group and it's development. Still a great video.

Thanks to UK. You made a genre of music that I value the most..