Eli5: How did the term “Goth” go from Germanic tribes destroying Rome, to the music and fashion we know today?

Question

Eli5: How did the term “Goth” go from Germanic tribes destroying Rome, to the music and fashion we know today?

In: 7280

Answer 1

British journalist reporting on the DIY dressed youths at clubs like the Batcave did a “moral panic” move a described them as “Barbaric like the Vandals and Goths”

The name stuck and also allows to draw a connecting line to Goth Literature (Romantic and Fantasy which starkly opposed the Enlightenment ideals of its time), which in turn links to Goth Architecture (a descriptor for medieval architecture in the Renaissance), etc.

The label “Goth” has been used to essentially describe anything seen as “backwards”, “barbaric” or simply unaligned with the principles of the time – always as a reference to the Goths destroying Rome as if these movements were going to “destroy foundations of society”