Students at the University of Alabama were invited to attend a “goth picnic” at the Peter Bryce gravesite on Thursday under the full moon.
With a culture primarily surrounding Greek life and football, the University’s goth community is relatively small.
“The joke was, I got every goth in the state of Alabama to come down here,” said John Oliver, a first-year student majoring in chemical engineering who organized the event.
Oliver said that while the goth community was small in Tuscaloosa, multiple attendees at the picnic came from the decently sized goth scene in Birmingham. He described the goth community as the “darker and spookier side of stuff,” consisting of its own distinct clothing style and music, but the musical element is the core of the community.
At the event, attendees socialized, ate food and listened to songs of the goth genre. Music by Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure and The Sisters of Mercy was chosen to be played, as Oliver regarded them as influential bands in the goth community.
“Music is everything,” Oliver said. “They think I’m goth because I’m dressing like a goth, when it’s really the music that is the cornerstone to everything.”
Oliver organized the event in accordance with darker goth themes, picking the location as the Peter Bryce gravesite on the night of a full moon.
Thomas Patton, a freshman majoring in economics, discovered the event on a flier at Lakeside Dining Hall.
“I think it’s interesting, just checking out a goth event. You never really see those in Alabama,” Patton said.
In addition to those with different levels of interest in goth culture, the event appealed to those interested in alternative communities.
Zachary Yarbrough, a senior majoring in creative media, said he heard about the event in a Dungeons & Dragons Discord server.
“I’ve been meaning to join one,” Yarbrough said. “I feel sort of isolated among my peers normally, because they refuse to talk about things like D&D or anime. In most cases, I get scorn from said people.”
Additional students in attendance learned about the event from fliers in different locations around campus and an Instagram account advertising the event, displaying the goth picnic’s reach and appeal to students with varying interests.
“If you’re gonna come here, you’re gonna listen to music and have a good time, and that’s totally cool,” Oliver said.
