Healthgoth
Health Goth is an aesthetic revolved around monochrome & futuristic sportswear. Healthgoth has roots in "street goth" but focuses on performance sportswear, bionic body parts, trans-humanism, Net art, combat gear and a dedication to whole body and mental health.
History
- Origins
The term "Health Goth" originated from Portland artists, Mike Grabarek and Jeremy Scott (also known as Magic Fades), and artist Chris Cantino in 2013. They have stated, "A lot of the influence comes from Cottweiler, Whatever 21, and A D Y N." They also claim they were attributing a name to describe a feeling that already existed. "When we started we’d just see an ad or some clothes we liked, and we’d see something dark or [...] in them that wasn’t intended to be there. So really the subversive side was just portraying the ads in a new light, because we wished these aspects were intentional. Things sort of went from there." In addition to citing athletic wear, future fashion labels and the emotional spectrum, they also reference sources from other online movements and aesthetics; "It’s not just the colour scheme, a lot of the stuff we post are just futuristic or healthy takes on goth style... We find equal inspiration in our Tumblr feed, where you see a lot of 3D rendered images, which have no people or clothing shown. Images of mesh, or a blade with a tribal pattern and a fern or something. It might not be evident upon looking at our page but a lot of our imagery is very Net Art inspired."
- Blog Appearances
Health Goth was first blogged on AMDISCS who interpreted it as the following; "Health Goth relies on an anti-nostalgic dystopian present, refracting the other by means of an exaggerated profile and tribal-aesthetics … Health Goth projects a completely un-reflexive subjugation of the individual in the urban ecosystem … It may be hyper-masculine on the surface, betraying a distinctively sus interior of body-mechanized cyborgian humanity within."
- Healthgoth.com
Johnny Love of DeathFace stated that he had seen the 'Health Goth' hashtag being used with photos of people wearing things like black Nike leggings and motorcycle masks. After contemplating his own lifestyle and how it related to the aesthetic, he adopted it as his own. During an interview with Thump, He inserted satire into the article named "10 Commandments of Health Goth." According to Johnny, the satire offended many of the original self proclaimed Health Goths. Johnny has stated, "... they all said I was making a mockery of Health Goth. So being an old Internet troll myself, I decided to go all the way With It. My friend actually bought the HealthGoth.com domain... and gave it me because we were like, "This is great -- these kids are going to get so mad."". Grabarek, Scott, and Cantino publicly spoke of their frustrations with Love: "The whole thing AbOUT working out came from this Jonny Deathface guy. He wrote the "Ten Commandments of Health Goth" and bought the domain name and started selling all these really tacky shirts. We accept we don’t have ownership of Health Goth, but we don’t want people thinking we’re just selling shitty shirts."
- Other Artists
Health Goth has inspired artists and fashion labels such as HOODBYAIR, NVRMND and Whatever21.