NOTE: This has nothing to do with goth freakshow circuses and their vacuum-gluing dwarves.
Bats Day In The Fun Park is an annual weekend-long gathering of Goth culture enthusiasts which culminates in a big, black, fishnetty trip to Disneyland. It's the kind of event that, unless you're into some flavor of goth or another, takes you by surprise when endearingly incongruous photos turn up on flickr of ardent alt-culture types frolicking in Cruella de Vil's corporate entertainment garden.
And though it seems most of the Anne Rice fans [update: have been chased off by her newly zealous conversion to evangelical Christianity, I'm told, and so it probably wouldn't be accurate to automatically assume goth=Anne Rice fan unless it's goth Bible camp.] haven't yet settled down yet, there are a few dads and kids in the mix.
The photo above of an appropriately morose-looking toddler in a Cure t-shirt is from orejudo's stream. The dad and matching baby in black, zippers, and mesh sleeve things is from ladypuppy1939.
When I first saw this mom and her baby, for example, I assumed the only black shirt dad had was from his PacBell company picnic. But that was because dad was fishing around in the Rock Star Baby stroller, looking for the rhinestone-studded skull pacifier.
[images via ladypuppy's flickr stream and the batsday tag on flickr via boingboing]
Bats Day In The Fun Park [batsday.net]
I think it's great that they do this. I bet there's a pretty healthy amount of parents involved. I see tons of goth families on non-bat days.
BTW, Anne Rice sold this demographic out. I don't think they like her anymore.
[duly noted. I hope I remember for next year's post. -ed.]
I was there that day and actually spoke to the woman pictured above. She happily answered my "What the hecks going on today?" questions and even pointed out some previously undiscovered child care areas at the park.
Our one problem with Bat Day? Too many goths getting liquored up at The Grand California Hotel bar so WE couldn't get a drink during our narrow nap window.
[holy moley, it IS a small goth world after all. -ed.]
goth my *ss!.
when the hell did vampyres get fat? sorry all, but Anne "bat-sh*t-crazy" Rice did the goth movement no favors. As a late 80's black/purple haired/ shaved headed, freak; these 'goths' are about as TTL as 'Torrid', the store they buy there +sized fishnets from.
Where the hell are the skinny, starved, dis-enfranchised, disillusioned, bitter, razor-cutting, self-tattoing, SELF-piercing (cause nobody else would do it, back in the day) stone-drunk-ing, f-the-man-ing, goths today?
Going to the local mall to buy 4 "Cinn-a-buns", a nose ring, and a pair of black fishnets (+3) doesn't make you a goth. Especially if you're at f-n DISNEYWORLD. (I should add that I've LONG lapsed out of the alt lifestyle, having sold out long ago and now with the teufelskind). But come-the-hell-on...
If you're at DW, you AIN'T a goth... Not even if you're there for 'social irony'. Sorry. Go back to the mall.
rant ends here.