Spending Up Creepie

Of all the subcultures in the world these days I've always thought that goth was one of the pricier ones to be a part of. With all the piercings, makeup and a cows worth of leather in their outfit just looking goth is hard on the wallet and you haven't even bought any Cradle of Filth albums yet. It appears that I'm not the only one to realise this; there's alot of gothic-style brands and merchandise these days (Emily the Strange anyone?). The idea behind this seems to be that companies can take a kid who rubs the jocks the wrong way and helps them to embrace their less-than-sunny disposition by selling them products that make them feel a part of something. To maximise the number of people buying freaky contact lenses the companies realise that they need to make goth both mainstream and cool. Goth-style in kids entertainment is one way to do this. Here's where Growing Up Creepie comes in.

It's been a while since I've posted about a show on Rollercoaster, the last one was Zoey 101 which coincidently comes on just after Growing Up Creepie. GUC treads a fine line between being Goth and being 9 year old friendly. Creepie lives in a brooding mansion with her insect family (no seriously, her mother's a praying mantis); she wears alot of makeup, has multi coloured streaks in her hair and has one eyebrow permanently raised. There's no denying she's goth influenced but by making her a hero and giving her a diverse posse takes the edge away just a little and makes her accessable to kids. Another thing they do in these shows is make everybody else a misinformed moron. This is probably what I find most annoying about these shows. I'm all for goths but when they start heading in the "superior outcast" direction (quoting my friends there, can't remember who said it first though) I find it a little tiresome. In some ways I found GUC to be like a pre-teen Daria. I'm a huge fan of Daria and so this may sound like a compliment, but GUC has no elements of satire or social understanding. In the end though I don't think GUC is that bad, I'm fairly indifferent actually. Kinda makes for a lackluster post huh? Well that's too bad 'coz I've already written it and I'm not writing another one. But hey, at least you've learnt that goths and inects are related.

PS. I promise I'll be funny again one of these days...