What's The Deal With Health Goth?

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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No, but seriously, what's the fucking deal with Health Goth *Seinfeld voice*? If you've been following the blogs recently, a sort of pseudo-fashion-slash-lifestyle trend dubbed "Health Goth" has made waves, carving out its own little sliver of a corner of the Internet. So, as to be expected, the number of trend pieces has skyrocketed. But apparently most of the coverage has been off the mark. Vice got in touch with the moderators of the official Health Goth Facebook page to set some of the record straight, or at least get it back on track. The guys behind the FB page recently met with Adidas, so maybe it is a full-blown trend worthy of caring about? See, it's much more than just black and white sportswear and involves stuff like "Net Art" that I can't even begin to unpack on my own. Honestly, I might be more confused after reading this than I was before. Either way, the three had some things to say about the movement.

On the misrepresentation of what Health Goth actually is:

"At its most basic, Health Goth is a collection of styles and mindsets that already exist—like street goth, various internet stuff, and clothing fetish videos—that we’ve brought together on Facebook. It’s also obviously influenced by sports advertisements and the rendered environments they create ... It’s mostly just that they're trying to define something that is essentially amorphous. Plus there’s an emphasis on going to the gym, which is something we never really even did."

On why sports brands play a big part in the lifestyle:

"When we started we’d just see an ad or some clothes we liked, and we’d see something dark or sexual 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 ... We just had a meeting with Adidas at the Portland headquarters. A lot of times these companies can’t really connect to their ads—they don’t realize what they're doing. So I guess that’s where we come in."

On being outside the mainstream and suddenly thrust into it:

"... What are you going to do? ... We can keep curating these images, but it’s really about how people engage and reinterpret it. If this gets pigeonholed into being just about working out it’s going to die super fast. No one’s going to give a fuck about seeing someone in all black hitting the gym on their Facebook feeds."

On Health Goth musical taste:

"Dystopian electronic music has an obvious appeal—labels like Pan and Liminal Sounds. And we’re into industrial sounds, which links back to OG goth ... But we’ve steered clear of associating a particular sound with Health Goth, because when you tie audio and visual stuff together it becomes more limited and homogenized. Just look at Witch House, which got to a point where there might as well have been a witch house app that could put together hip-hop hi-hats and deep bass and thrown a fucking triangle on there. We don’t want that."

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