"Gothic Souls in need of expression."

"About 400 years ago in Europe after important dukes and such finally got a permanent black dye, and around when coffee houses and chocolate became popular among oddballs."

"The idea of the beauty found in the darker side of life has been around for a very long time. I would have to say that it began in Europe."

"I think it orginated from the cross fertilization of industrial malaise and revived occultic practices."

"My goth originated from me. Yours from you. Everyones from themselves."

"The writings of Horace Walpole (late 18th cent.)"

"Gothic novelists of 19th century."

"punk in the mid 80's"

"It was a subset of the Punk subculture..."

"The 'goth' we as society see today originated as a subcultural shoot of the intellectual youth which has been embodied by other generations in other forms. Goth originated with the first onset of night witnessed by a being with enough motor skills to fear his or her own fates."

"Funerals."

"As a child of punk and glam, taking the power and downbeat attitude of punk and combining it with the style and presentation of glam."

"I'm not sure, somebody who was bored, and decided to categorize him/her self."

"Fictional stories, superstition."

"First I think music was much important, now the scene is going to get commercial."

"The music London, the term Ian Astbury."

"ancient legends which primitive cultures used to explain death"

"spunoff from the punk/deathrock scene in the mid eighties"

"sadness"

"Hmm...is it really Bauhaus? I think it just sorta exists...i mean its just a feeling inside, and fashion and music came later..."

"An ancient tribe 'Villigoths'"

< shrug >

"I think it just came from regular people who gave up and begin to dwell in their sorrows, and decided to give into anger and hatred... or maybe not, i dunno!"

"European like romantic vampire culture."

"Flapper culture."

"Punk rockers and glam rock mixed with the classical periods."

"Alice Cooper - to punk"

"the batcave"

"The rebellious human psyche, wanting to disect the cosmology forced upon us, instead of blindly accepting it like the other docile creatures thrown amongst us."

"Sunless lands (Europe)"

"Those who dwell in thought."

"There's always been a dark side to some people. Only recently it got a title."

"The Dark Intelligencia that has been around since the rennaissance."

"The Goths in the 25th century."

"Goth is a god but im not sure about which country it originates from!"

"In our souls... It's a way of thinking that can be found in many eras and areas."

"The fascination with the period and need to be different."

"Historical period mixed with dark, brooding music."

"The dark and romantic parts of the soul."

"Beeing alienated because you did not want to look and think like the rest. Goth is a thing inside us all which grows when you get alienated for being yourself."

"Ostra and Visi Goths of the 400 AD - 700 AD"

"Medieval times (of course everyone has an element of goth in them its just more defined in some)."

"People getting upset."

"Supposedly Sisters of Mercy."

"It's from people who wanted to be completely different--originated in London."

"Victorian era definetly. The drinking of absinthe made men crazy, twisted, and they learned to dwell in darkness away from the rest of the world to sit in their own world of madness and pain."

"The Ancient Druids."

"Gothic Novels by Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, E. A. Poe."

"goth - England; Gothic era - the rebuilding of the St. Denis cathedral in Paris."

"The Salem Witch Trials."

"The Germanic tribe of the same name 'The Goths.'"

"Shadows of a sad people, and we are crowing."

"Hell. Not a bad thing."

"Every insighted individual that hasn't fell into the 'American Dream.'"

"I believe there have been goths throughout history, but they were never categorized, because 'class' and 'culture' gradually dubbed them 'gothic.' There was no starting point."

"Take hippies and blend them with a darker and more somber attitude"

"15th century Romans."

"Medieval Germany..the Black Plague and all that, although I suspect we could trace it to Ancient Babylon."

"The old days in Europe when there was monarchy everywhere."

"Glam rock - Alice cooper/David bowie from Ziggy Stardust. Thus Glam Goths (Siouxsie + Banshees) emerged."

"paleonoctem"

"Souls of those who 'know.'"

"Punks and 'different' people who followed a different branch of the punk family tree and only realized they were goths when someone pointed it out to them."

"London 1977"

"The dark imagination which is timeless."

"San Francisco."

"Medieval times naturally, but if you mean the new scene, I would go with music band such as the Cure, Depeche Mode, Love and Rockets, etc."

"England, of course."