mallgoth

See also: mall-goth and mall goth

English

WOTD – 31 October 2023

Etymology

From mall (“enclosed shopping centre”) +‎ goth (“person who is part of the goth subculture”), suggesting that they purchase their clothes from mainstream retail outlets.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔːlɡɒθ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔlˌɡɑθ/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑlˌɡɑθ/
• Hyphenation: mall‧goth

Noun

mallgoth (countable and uncountable, plural mallgoths)

1. (countable) Originally (derogatory), an inauthentic or trendy goth; now, a person who dresses in goth-inspired clothes, is interested in industrial metal and nu metal music, etc.

   Coordinate terms: cybergoth, netgoth

   • 2007, Raven Digitalis [pseudonym?], “Goth”, in Goth Craft: The Magickal Side of Dark Culture, Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, →ISBN, page 35:

     MallGoths are young in age, spending the majority of their time after school at the mall. […] MallGoths dress differently to seem "in the know," when, in actuality, they have no clue what Goth culture really is. To them, Goth is a fashion statement and nothing more.

   • 2009 November, Cory Doctorow, “Part II”, in Patrick Nielsen Hayden, editor, Makers (A Tor Book), New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN, page 174:

     “Lester, what the fuck?” he said, grinning and laughing as he clapped Lester on the shoulder, taking a young mall-goth’s five bucks out of a hand whose fingernails were painted with chipped black polish. “What the hell is going on here?”

   • 2015 May 4, Mary Grace Garis, “How Pete Wentz Invented Guyliner … Kind of”, in Bustle‎, New York, N.Y.: Bustle Media Group, archived from the original on 2023-09-25:

     [A]lternative teen culture was really concentrated, with mallgoths, emos, and (shudder) scene kids sharing equal grounds on Myspace.

   • 2019 March 11, Tom Rasmussen, “The IG [Instagram] Documenting the Hot Topic Mallgoths of the 90s and 00s”, in Dazed‎, London: Dazed Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-08:

     “Funnily enough ‘mallgoth’ was meant to be a bit of an insult,” explains Trinity Levy, the Arizona-based high school senior who started the Instagram account @1990smallgoth. “Being called a mallgoth was the equivalent of being called a poser. The purpose of it was to describe the kids who loved Marilyn Manson and bought Tripp pants from Hot Topic back in the day, but still identified or were seen as goth. I'd say that that broad description is still true at its core. Despite its name, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with the goth subculture besides sharing a few aesthetics.”

   • 2019 April 26, Nevàn Campos, “Three Overused Fashion Trends”, in The Oarsman‎, Los Angeles, Calif.: Venice High School, archived from the original on 2023-02-02:

     Next, are the wannabe mall-goths of the 2000s. Self-proclaimed "e-girls" and "e-boys" sporting chain link chokers and belts, big black bell bottoms, outfits plastered with images of roses, and "emo" accessories and makeup that strives for a look that breaks society's conventions, but falls short.

   • 2019 October 29, Heather Christle, “It’s Officially Spooky Season. Here’s How to Dress for It Like an Adult.”, in Elle‎, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Magazine Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-08:

     My own teen encounters with the look occurred during the ’90s reign of Hot Topic mall goths, an era Jeremy Scott gleefully—and a good deal less restrainedly—celebrates in his Moschino collection, an exuberant gathering of Halloween kitsch that will likely make traditional goths groan.

2. (uncountable) The culture or fashion style adopted by such a person.
   • 2006 July 27, David Colman, “The heyday of the dead”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-31:

     "The skull is all-purpose," said Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker. "It simultaneously refers to horror movies, to the Misfits and, by extension, all punk rock, and to a generalized culture of blackness and spookiness and the larger, mall-Goth culture."

   • 2016 May 18, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, “‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Killed Off a Main Character, and It Should Kill Off More”, in The Daily Dot‎, Austin, Tex.: Daily Dot, archived from the original on 2022-05-17:

     For the most part, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has grown stronger with every season. […] Case in point: the last five minutes of the finale, which included a six-month time jump; Daisy adopting a mallgoth vigilante persona; and the "birth" of AIDA, a humanoid A.I.

   • 2018 May 22, Isabel Slone, “What Does the Mall Goth Nostalgia Trend Really Mean?”, in Fashion‎, Toronto, Ont.: Fashion Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-09:

     For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, "mall goth" was a style of dress that combined the hallmarks of punk, goth and metal subcultures and thrived like bacteria in the petri dish of the early 2000s. […] As a black trans femme, [Aaron Rose] Philip speaks to why the revival of mall goth is doing so much better with racial diversity compared to the early 2000s, when the subculture's largest demographic consisted of angry suburban white teens: "That edgy kind of feel resonates, [but] a lot of people thought they weren't allowed to be goth because they only knew it as a white thing," she says.

Alternative forms

• mall-goth, mall goth

Translations

inauthentic or trendy goth; person who dresses in goth-inspired clothes, is interested in industrial metal and nu metal music, etc.

Finnish: mallgoth-gootti Macedonian: мо́лгот m (mólgot)

culture or fashion style adopted by such a person

Finnish: mallgoth-tyyli Macedonian: мо́лготски стил m (mólgotski stil)

Further reading

• mall goth on Wikipedia.Wikipedia