Why do people think Eric and Dylan were goths?

I dont get this. Ive been into the goth scene for quite some time. Im planning to become more into it, as I still havent got the clothes etc.

I can only state so far that anyone that sees Dylan and Eric as as goths must have been extremely misinformed. Theres so much information provided about the gothic subculture these days. Theres no excuse to try and educate oneselves.

I know that it stems from the whole misinformation back in the day, but seriously. Its easy to see that they werent goths or anything like that if people just payed attention to what its really all about.

I assume because they wore a lot of black and people kind of misconstrued that into being goth.

In my school Dylan would have been considered “alternative”

Eric would actually have been considered still a bit preppy.

Yup

I always wondered why like a cheerleader would never date a goth guy in HS? Is it because she's afraid she'll lose her "social status"?

While I'm not saying they were goths - or anything else, I didn't know them, it doesn't surprise me people think of them as goths. Wearing all black, long trench coats, liking heavy and gloomy music, shopping at hot topic, being depressed, growing hair out from depression, being edgelords drawing pentagrams and Satanic stuff due to Doom and Quake. Horror films. Joy Division is a Nazi reference. The Goths themselves are Germanic.  Wilder Wein is a pretty goth-ish tune. Referencing HP Lovecraft. All of that fits one or both of them. Not sure what else you call Chris Morris wearing all black and an artsy beret. They certainly come across as the type to befriend goths and punks, at least. The Trench Coat Mafia is basically or at least perceived as "people who arent jocks who feel like outcasts who wear long black clothes", which is most easily summed up as "goth", even if they didn't e. g. wear black lipstick, or whatever. It's said Eric changed from "prep" to wearing all black, and Dylan changed to growing his hair out and already wore the trench coat.

Not to mention all the press in the wake of the massacre, false or otherwise, about Marilyn Manson.

Thats more like a stereotype, actually. Goth is actually a lifestyle and people are genuinely misinformed

They weren't specifically goth, but they fell under the alterative subculture spectrum of grunge, punk, emo, goth, and etc. They dressed dark. They wore black trench coats, combat boots, listened to rock bands like nine inch nails and kmfdm, eric wore flannels, and dylan said he wanted to get a read leather jacket at one point. I would label them as grunge

WhiteGirl1O78 wrote:

They were. They dressed in black, wore trench coats, combat boots, and listened to rock and electronic music. Dylan wanted to get a red leather jacket and hated preps so much that he wrote an essay about killing them. He also had stereotypical long, rocker boy hair. Eric wore a flannel in one of his photos. They looked like stereotypical goths to me.

Goth is way more than a fashion statement. Most people assume that because you listen to dark music and wear dark clothes that makes you a goth. But this isnt true. A lot of people dress in Black and are not goths. Such as metalheads, punks, etc. They may have liked or listened to industrial bands and to dress up in Black, but that doesnt make them goth. If you want to learned more about the goth subculure there are websides such as Cemetary Confessions that do regular podcasts regarding the gothic subculure.