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The gothic culture was a horror movement. The first goths look like corpses with white faces, occult symbols etc. There was no aesthetic or romantic thing. This romantic thing is a phenomenon of the 1990s or an influence of the new romantic movement and has nothing to do with the traditional gothic subculture. The same with Gothic architecture, Gothic novels etc. The name of the Gothic subculture came from the Gothic music, a dark, punky music genre, related to death rock and horrorpunk. There was no relation to the Gothic architecture, but a preference for dead and old buildings in ruins, cemetaries, symbols of decay, etc. It was a ""death romanticism"". The term ""gothic"" means ""dark, gloomy, spooky"". I agree, that there are new developments. But now you have a culture without any relation to the roots. Metaller are listening to metal music, punks are listening to punk music, but goths are listening to futurepop, metal and techno? Bullshit! They're not goths! They're derivatives or parallel movements.  

Btw: Do you have any reliable, scientific source that definitions of gothic rock have shifted over the time? A drum machine was in use since the early days of gothic rock. It's not a mid-80s thing."