Now, since Sean and I started our goth/industrial night 5 years ago, it’s been virtually impossible to figure out who to distribute fliers to. Just last week a girl walked by on campus with a nose piercing, dyed black hair, and fishnets… I thought, “Bingo!” Well, it turns out that she doesn’t listen to “that music” at all…rather, she’s into Emo and other flavors of the minute.

In fact, the bulk of the people that come to our night and are really interested in the music are not the types you’d know to advertise to. That presents a special challenge for us these days.

Mike, thanks for the link to Jane Wynn’s work; I’d never seen her stuff before! Little details like that do help. Ties with squid on them, etc. I agree that music is a great, quick litmus test. Too quick maybe; sometimes I wonder if I base my opinion on this too much. But it also depends on how inquisitive people are. Like if you mention your favorite bands and they don’t know any of them but want to find out all about them, that’s totally endearing. I know the feeling that you describe in your last paragraph. You’ve summed it up perfectly. But the observant people are usually the most interesting ones.

While I agree that the overall “look” is no longer reliable, the deviltry’s in the details. For example, anyone wearing jewelry featuring taxidermy supplies (http://idolatrieartist.typepad.com/jane_wynns_studio_a_visua/wynn_studio/) is probably going to be someone with whom I can have more than a passing conversation.

I always found that the most reliable quickie indicator was taste in music, specifically breadth: “What music do you listen to?” “Oh, you know… rock…” “Okay, well… Thanks for playing.” Trouble is that the music taste isn’t as easily identified visually or at least quickly. (“Is she wearing that Velvet Underground t-shirt because she likes them? Or because the shirt is ‘vintage’?”)

Interestingly, how someone presents themselves on the Internet has proven to be pretty reliable. It’s easy to aggregate their entire net footprint with a quick Google search; the phonies are easy to spot. Of course, they’re scattered to the corners of the earth, so it’s a completely different experience from finding a kindred spirit on an escalator, and not nearly as exciting.

All that said, I’m also on the business end of the visual-indicator question. At this point, apart from the odd t-shirt, I present mostly as a fat, balding computer geek; all of my goth trappings of yore would look silly on me now. So I routinely get blown off by people that I’m positive I’d be compatible with. It doesn’t bother me that much, I’m just left with thinking to myself “kid, you think you know me… there are scenes I’ve been in, parts of my soul… you’d run crying home to mama…” But whatever. The observant ones figure it out.

–Mike Jennings

Most of my recent new friends came from smoking, and talking about random crap, down on campus. People ask for a cigarette, or you ask for one, or a light (or a pack of sugar, or some cream, or whathaveyou), and they hear your conversation, and they either run screaming, or join in, just fine.

And sometimes you’re pleasantly surprised by who joins in, and sometimes you’re disappointed by who runs. But you make new friends :)

I guess I just feel like I’d be more shy about talking to people now because I have less of an idea who’s who. But like Jerem said, it’s all about being more observant.