Just read an article which used the term “Gloom of Goths”.

I have a reasonable claim to being the inventor of that collective noun, about as reasonable as the claim I have to killing Kurt Cobain, but that’s another story.

I sent a friendly fax to the local music rag in Perth Western Australia to set a few facts straight about some articles that had been published about the local Goth scene, and pointed out in a little “and by the way” that the collective noun for Goths is a “Gloom”. I made it up while I was writing the letter, and if I made it up, hell I’m sure a hundred other people have before me, but that’s a point I try to suppress in the every day telling of the story.

Someone at the paper did a sucky writeup of what I said, nothing mean, nothing dishonest, but the attitude pissed me off no end, if you imagine a eulogy being read by Krusty The Clown peaking on E, then you have a fair grip on the essential offense. 

Now in part of my friendly, but in retrospect slightly ranty fax, I talked about the future of music and “the coming computer network that will link us all together”.

So I send a reply fax to the article with a hand drawn pic of myself “giving the bird” with the words “Piss Off And See You On The Internet” in large friendly letters.

And that was 1988