When I Was In College (tm) in the mid-eighties, we used the term "art fag" to signify a sort of
beta version of what people now call a "
goth": They dressed funny, they wrote
execrable poetry, they listened to
the Cure,
the Smiths,
Joy Division (the more clued-in ones, anyway) and
Bauhaus. I once played
Eno's "
Third Uncle" for one of them and he told me that he "liked the original better". They always monopolized the
college radio station. There was a
thrift shop thing going on there which I don't think the
goths are into, but otherwise it was a real similar
schtick. I didn't project a coherent fashion statement so they thought I was beneath contempt. They may have been right. Most of us found them sort of annoying.
All hail the
Dead Milkmen; they're from (or three of them are from)
Lancaster County -- an even more barren and desolate armpit of
Pennsylvania than I'm from. By the way, Joe Genaro (a.k.a.
Joe Jack Talcum, a.k.a. etc. etc.) has a band now called
Butterfly Joe, who I haven't heard.