Goths Defend Subculture In The Wake Of Dawson College Shooting

The impact of a bizarre shooting that rocked Montreal’s Dawson College Wednesday is being felt far from the shaken city.

Across Canada and throughout parts of the U.S., so-called “Goth” culture is under attack, and many in it are now on the defensive, diligently working to undo the damage done by Kimveer Gill when he opened fire at the school and claimed the life of 18-year-old Anastasia DeSousa.

One such person, Toronto proprietor Sarah Khokhar (pictured), says Goth is about many things from art to music to fashion, but guns, violence and murder are not among them.

” You want to be unique, but you still want to feel like you belong to a certain group…even in mainstream society there’s always those people that are disturbed,” Khokhar said.

“I don’t really think it has anything to do with the way they look or the way they dress.”

Many were understandably disturbed by the 55 violent pictures posted by Gill on the site VampireFreaks.com prior to his shooting spree, and now Khokhar believes it’s more important than ever for Goths to speak out and separate themselves from such individuals and incidents.

“If somebody murdered someone and they’re wearing a sweater from the Gap, people don’t go there and say ‘Oh look, people that dress from the Gap must be disturbed and serial killers,'” she said.

But few seem to be listening, and the Montreal shooting appears to have created a severe backlash against what’s perceived as “Goth”. Prior to the Gill shooting, VampireFreaks claimed 600,000 members. But following the incident new people are signing up just to post messages against Gill’s friends and the Goth community – if there is such a thing – in general.

Always highly self-aware, many that frequent the site know this. One blog entry says, “I’m sorry that it always seems to be this scene that always gets the blame.”

The site has already received more than 7,000 postings related to the shooting in just three days.