Oh for sure, but musical genres are different for a reason. Much of what is claimed to be punk these days is simply "a different genre," and it should be ok to be "a different genre than punk." You can see it as gatekeeping all you like, but My Chemical Romance (commonly claimed to be punk in my area by the people who I am talking about, "those who don't know what they are talking about") is as punk as Buck Owens (nobody makes that claim, I use him to point out the ridiculousness of everything having to be specifically punk regardless of the actual genre.)

Just call yourselves something else if you are something else, just like you would with everything else. You don't hear me claiming Discharge is the best goth band around, do you? I'm not proclaiming to be a goth because I like D-Beat am I? So why am I the asshole for expecting others to learn the differences in genres and subcultures? What, all heavy music and black clothing is the same to you? That's subcultureist!

(Btw if it isn't clear that this debate in which I am correct is as serious as pineapple on pizza, it ain't that deep. I'm still right though, you can be free to have your own thing without claiming to be something you're not, it's ok, it's actually better!)

Oh I know it isn't "dead dead," good shit is still being made, lot of it actually, and there's some good gothy music being made too albeit more synthy stuff, but they've been bastardized from their original forms to the point of unrecognizability in some circumstances to the degree where people's favorite "punk band" is My Chemical Aromas or some such nonsense.

I just personally think that rather than attach themselves poorly to an already developed subgenere/subculture, they should just call themselves their own thing. It'd be like if I said I'm a country star but all I do is spoken word, "no, you're a spoken word star, and that is fantastic, but country music is one thing and you are another."

Frankly imo, that is the charitable way to view it too, because otherwise I'd view them to be like the "punk" version of dudes in cowboy gear and silverados on their way to their accounting jobs.

Didn't Trent Rezner start producing electronic music/become a DJ?

Sure, goth music is pretty varied now. If you look at the bands that play at Wave Gotik Treffen you'll see a lot of variation: https://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/english/past.php That just means it's a vibrant scene, there are still traditional goth bands though.

Deathstep is dupstep but by vampires?

My area has a bit going on too, and kicking out nazi punks is par for the course, but that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who's "favorite punk band" is like my chemical romance or a day to remember, which are not punk.

Hell yeah me too (but if we're gonna have this fight, Iggy started it! Lol). I don't mean to say that there aren't punks still, or good shit being made, but you gotta know where to find it and people who claim to be "punk" have to pass a litmus test to find out if you're the same type of punk as eachother (which is to say, of newer stuff would you rather listen to Vivisected Numbskulls or My Chemical Romance (or whatever those kids are into these days, idk because it is also a decidedly different genre people just proclaim to be punk and then you get called a gatekeeper because you recognize the difference in musical genres, fuck it I guess Buck Owens is punk too then.)

X to doubt.

Dated one. Got stuck with them during the pandemic matter of fact. They most certainly do call themselves goth, because thick makeup in the style of "internet" and a pair of fishnets makes one goth now.

Sad state of affairs at the Ministry fan club.

Not one.