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Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth
And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth
She wears Doctor Martens and a heavy cross
But on the inside, she's a happy goth.
— The Divine Comedy, "The Happy Goth"''
Not (necessarily) perky like that, you pervert. Perky Goth comes from the goth subculture, as distinguished from the Mopey Goth.
The stereotypical Goth character, especially in teen shows, is frequently a Snark Knight or a Deadpan Snarker. Sam Manson of Danny Phantom, for example, though " more Greenpeace than goth", has been known to act like a stereotypical goth on occasion, serving as a Deadpan Snarker (as Danny regularly acts Too Dumb To Live) and speaking in a Daria-like saturnine tone whenever the plot or humor would demand it. In fiction as in Real Life, however, they're not all that way, and this is occasionally acknowledged by introducing a Perky Goth.
Contrariwise, the Perky Goth, who is almost always female, operates on the principle that dark does not always mean depressing. She wears the clothes, but her personality is always cheerful and amiable (occasionally approaching Genki Girl territory). Real-life perky Goths are often pegged as former Mopey Goths who just " snapped" one day and decided it wasn't worthwhile to be depressed and sullen any more. Appropriately, this is a Sister Trope to Strange Girl and Elegant Gothic Lolita (the latter referring to an actual subculture mainly popular in Japan), as well as a subversion of the Woman In Black.
A perky Emo Teen is usually a Scene Kid.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Yugi, the titular character of Yu-Gi-Oh! dresses either in all black or in absurdly cute outfits, has wild hair (that's natural) and wears chains, LOTS of leather and dog-collars... Yeah, collars. His monster theme is darkness and black magic and he is regularly possessed by an admittedly evil spirit. None of this stops him from being a pacifist, unbearably cute, friendship-obsessed and a real sweetheart. And cute.
 ◊
- Death in the anime Kamichu has a short scene with the god of poverty. She's a bit beyond perky and well into total bonkers◊. Or maybe she just knows something we don't.
- Misa Amane from Death Note, who also qualifies as an Elegant Gothic Lolita (if you ignore the words 'elegant' and 'lolita', that is).
- Maybe a subversion, since being cheerful and enthusiastic just makes her creepier when you consider her other traits.
- She does temporarily qualify as Elegant Gothic Lolita, as she's wearing clothes like that when she sings after Light picks her as Kira
- Death God Ryuk has elements of Perky Goth.
- Yamie from Kure-nai, who is at her perkiest when interacting with Murasaki.
- Another male example: Nekozawa from Ouran High School Host Club. He's the president of the Black Magic Club, is obsessed with curses, and has plenty of fun being generally creepy. Not even the fact that he's allergic to light seems to bother him all that much.
- The disturbingly cheerful undertaker in Kuroshitsuji.
- Riho Yamazaki, Detective Shido's ditzy secretary, becomes this in Nightwalker: The Midnight Detective. Being a Nightmare Fetishist helps too.
- Nana Ohsaki from Nana.
- Mayako Makishima from the Bokurano novels.
- A disturbing example can be found in Konuma Ryuuko from Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest
- Road Kamelot of D.Gray-Man.
- Cirucci Sanderwicci of Bleach.
- D.N.Angel: Towa looks like an Elegant Gothic Lolita, but has the personality of a hyperactive Genki Girl.
- Reiko, the first Devil Hunter Yohko villian. In spite of her dark nature, she seems to smile alot.
- Sawyer the Cleaner, from Black Lagoon qualifies. In one scene, when she's explaining that the bad smell in a hotel room is from the ooze from rotting corpses she had to clean up in there earlier, she smiles happily, glad to have made things clear, while everybody around her is busy losing their lunch.
Comics
- Death of the Endless (pictured above), from The Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman is described by her author as a Perky Goth. She is not just responsible for Death, though; she also gives the breath of life when someone is born. She's pretty much the person you'd most want to see at a stressful moment like that. Her brother, Dream, fills the Mopey Goth niche.
- Although in stories taking place in earlier eras (read: billions of years ago), Death was a bit of a wet blanket herself before she started spending a few days each century with mortals.
- Nico Minoru, a.k.a. Sister Grimm, in Runaways. In the beginning, at least.
- Lex from Gloom Cookie, on occasion.
- The Bride of Nine Spiders from Immortal Iron Fist is sometimes like this.
- Bettie Cooper, of "Archie" actually went goth in one issue (really!), and was still generally rather cheerful. Her two goth friends were even more cheerful than she was.
- Gilly Woods from John Kovalic's gamer comic Dork Tower is the quintessential Perky Goth; whch greatly annoys her brother Walden, who is a stereotypical Mopey Goth.
- Emily the Strange
- Definitely Nemi
- Nemi isn't a true Perky Goth. She's more of a Snarky, Sarky, Somewhat Smug Goth. Sort of a Garfield Goth, in fact.
- Death from the old Kelly run of Deadpool was pretty mucha Perky Goth. That or just a plain old death obsessed, somehow corporeal, skeleton of some sort.
- In a weird way, Harley Quinn could definitely qualify.
Fan Works
- In The Return conversion into a succubus seems to synonomous with becoming a Perky Goth. Those Two Guys Sam and Naoko choose to dress as perky goth too.
- Especially Yuki/Nabiki the "cute" succubus.
- Played very weirdly on My Immortal, where the main characters are mostly depressed but have pretty much the personality of the preps they hate so much.
- Travels Through Azeroth And Outland has the narrator meet a draenei named Vasalyan, who loves looking at dark and gloomy landscapes. Nonetheless, he's still as joyous as most every other draenei.
Films — Animation
- Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas — although he could also get pretty moody.
- "... Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?/Well, what the heck, I went and did my best./And by God, I really tasted something swell..."
Films — Live Action
- Almost any goth character on Gap.
- Lydia from Beetlejuice, by the end of the film.
- Not really. Lydia is undeniably perky by the end of the film, but she's clearly got no further interest in being just another Goth.
- Raven in Cecil B Demented combines Perky Goth, Badass Adorable, and Cloudcuckoolander in a most intoxicating way.
- Alice in Wonderland: The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) is clearly having a ball floating around like a melodramatic crazy girl.
- Angela in the original Night Of The Demons trilogy
- Morgana from Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies was presumably this, until her boyfriend died in the intro.
- Due to the apparent fetishes/artistic style of the directors, most every character from The Matrix dress in a goth-like manner, but none act the part.
Literature
- In the Christopher Moore novel You Suck, Abby Normal is determined not to show her perky side to the vampires she meets or to other Goths, but she does let the reader in on her secret.
- Steven Brust's Dragaera series has two examples:
- Telnan, introduced in Dzur, thinks like most Dzur warriors (as Vlad sarcastically notes) that black-on-black is a wonderful color combination, but acts like The Ditz.
- Sethra Lavode might be a better example, dressing all in black and having an unsettling pallor (she is an eons old undead), but is surprisingly friendly. She also has a disturbingly silly sense of humor. In one book, she passes sentence on one of her apprentices for attempting to kill several of her friends, influence the succession of the House of the Dragon, and start a war. The sentence is to strand her in an alternate, desert dimension with shelter, plenty of food and water and a stick, and instruct her to write "I will not interfere with the Dragon Council" in the sand 83,721 times.
- Wherein hangs the tale: Sethra IS eons old. Having seen so much, there's really only two ways to go, and the other way would either have destroyed her or the world, one way of the other. If there's anyone entitled to live and advocate the sentiment of "Live Here Now", it is certainly Sethra Lavode!
- Molly Carpenter from The Dresden Files has shades of perky goth, 80's Brit-punk, and BDSM fetish going.
- Raven Madison from Vampire Kisses, she is a mixure of highly sterotyped goth who listens to Him, Marilyn Manson, and strangly enough The Cruxshadows (Strange not because she's goth, but because most music refences were ones that are what people think goths listen to), wears mostly black, is obsessive over vampires, and is disliked by most people, besides that she acts like any other teenager.
- Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs had an odd example. Pamela Voorhees possesses a teenage goth named Gloria Sowici (nicknamed Glo). So we end up with a woman with a borderline Tastes Like Diabetes attitude inhabiting the body of girl described as pretty dour and unpleasant to look at. Suffice to say, characters, such as the guy who picks up the hitchhiking Pam-Glo, remark on the contrast.
- On a related note, Bella Morte (real surname Morrison) from Jason X: Planet of the Beast is a Perky Goth IN SPACE!.
- Jez from Kingdom Keepers has pale skin and dresses like a stereotypical goth, yet acts more flirty than you'd expect. This could be because she's really being brainwashed by Maleficent to spy on Finn.
- Zanna from The Fire Within has pale skin, wears black make-up and black clothes, but is relatively happy and has fun a lot more than normal stereotypical goths.
Live Action TV
- Abby Sciuto, the Lab Rat on NCIS. As Tony DiNozzo put it, she's "A paradox wrapped in an oxymoron, smothered in contradictions in terms. Sleeps in a coffin. Really, the happiest goth you'll ever meet."
- Coreen Fennel on Blood Ties. Vicky Nelson, the acerbic heroine, comments, "No one likes a perky goth."
- One of the teams on The Amazing Race's 12th season was a pair of dating, incredibly Perky Goths. They got 5th place.
- Morticia and Wednesday Addams in both the classic live-action TV show and the Saturday morning cartoon, but not in the movies or Charles Addams' original comic strip.
- The entire Addams Family arguably has Perky Goth tendencies. However, the perkiest character by far (in the film and television versions at least) is Gomez Addams, possibly the first male Perky Goth in popular culture — if you equate "manic" with "perky".
- Merton Dingle from Big Wolf on Campus, a chess club nerd turned Perky Goth.
- God would sometimes appear in the form of a male Perky Goth in the TV series Joan of Arcadia.
- Richmond from The IT Crowd, who listens to Cradle of Filth and is mistaken for a vampire on his first appearance, but who is generally cheery despite being severely demoted and spending most of his time supervising equipment he can't even identify.
- Wizards of Waverly Place has Miranda, who is never seen not smiling, yet is constantly referred to as "scary" and says such gems as "I hate corporate America!" (really, Disney? REALLY!?). The perky part is probably to keep her safe and acceptable (also a result of bad writing).
- Tina on Glee.
- Degrassi The Next Generation: Jane Vaughan.
Music
Puppet Shows
Pro Wrestling
- Former WCW and now TNA wrestler Sting is essentially this, as he kept the costume inspired by The Crow he adopted during the nWo angle, but has gone back to his former upbeat showman persona.
Tabletop Games
- It's implied a lot of Sin-Eaters are like this. They were given the chance to come back from the dead and gladly accepted, so why shouldn't they be happy? Their general culture is one of celebrations and gatherings in the vein of the Day of the Dead and New Orleans funerals.
- Penny Dreadful from Mage The Ascension lives and breathes this trope. It's also implied that just as many of the Hollow Ones are perky goths as are traditional ones.
Video Games
- Lash from Advance Wars is a Perky Goth villain. In the "defeat" conversation at one point in the third game, she even growls, "No more miss nice perkygoth!"
- Jennifer "Jen" Tate, main character of Primal.
- Misery from Cave Story — most of the time.
- Luste Teuber from Rosenkreuzstilette; she also gets Stripperific and Token Loli bonus points.
- Sigrun from Dragon Age: Awakening is a member of the Legion of the Dead, dwarves who have symbolically died and consider themselves dead to the world. Their normal mindset is quite gloomy, but Sigrun manages to subvert the expectations despite of her dark, tattooed exterior. This is even Lampshaded by Nathaniel who thinks she ought to be a bit more grim to suit the image.
- Ashlotte from Soul Calibur 4.
- Nina Cortex from Crash Bandicoot. She's paler than the Adams Family, Darker and More Cynical than Marvel's Death, Yet loves animals and laughs, she has times when she's moody and agressive, but that's because of her Evil scientist uncle.
Web Comics
- The main character of Buttercup Festival is a perky goth, and embodies perhaps the more whimsical side of the trope.
- Gilly The Perky Goth (obviously) from Dork Tower.
- Miho from Megatokyo has been defined by Fred Gallagher as a "perky goth", though she's more of a Little Miss Badass.
- Crystal from Zebra Girl. She starts out completely bubbly from the get-go, and one day decides to go goth on a lark, without actually changing her personality in any way.
- Blossom from Rhapsodies (though she's more Industrial Punk than most examples).
- Amy Fang from Dead Metaphor is a good example. Though she wears death-metal shirts and seems to have an obsession with horror/zombies, she is perpetually perky, energetic and somewhat childish.
- Dora from Questionable Content. Her transition from "mopey" to "perky" allegedly came before her first appearance, and she's called out on it in an early strip by a member of her former "coven". This same member (Raven) shows up a few weeks later with a job application as a non-gothic Genki Girl.
- Death in the webcomic Finder's Keepers seems to be this.
- Subversion: On the outside, Alisin in Fans! is cheerful, fun-loving, and free-spirited, and it's only when you look closely that it's revealed that underneath the perky exterior she's a neurotic, self-loathing and nihilistic mess.
- In more recent arcs, Ally(she's no longer Alisin) was able to shed her self-loathing, due in large part to the unconditional love of her husband Rikk, and later Rumy when she joined them in a triad marriage, plus finding fulfillment in her job as a nurse in a juvenile cancer ward. She also grew her hair out and dropped most of her goth fashions. In the most recent arc, she was held hostage by Keith Feddyg, who told the young patients about her past life, and then killed one eight-year-old who defended her. Ally, bolstered by Rikk and Rumy, was able to say the one thing Keith couldn't bear to hear; "I forgive you."
- Happy Goth from The Devil's Panties.
- Vanity Thorn from the webcomic Sequential Art.
- Esther from Scary Go Round. Her friend Sarah has also become much perkier throughout the comic.
- SGR actually plays with Goth stereotypes quite a bit overall — Sarah goes a bit Tsundere for and winds up dating the much older Ryan, while Esther and Sarah's friend Big Lindsay is less goth and more of a Class 3 The Big Guy (who is eventually Put On A Bus by getting pregnant). And then there's the odd case of Roxy Postlethwaite, who is supernaturally Changed into a "White Goth" — part banshee, Cloud Cuckoo Lander, all Nightmare Fuel.
- Marius, Mordred, and Sarah from My Life in Blue.
- The Order of the Stick's Tsukiko. Evil necrophiliac mystic theurge, but she loves what she does.
- Cassie from The Wotch is a goth and proud of it. Oh, and she always wanted to see a unicorn.
- Katie and Abby from Weregeek, especially Abby.
- Silverblue from Jack is very much this by the time she realizes that everything that happens to her in hell is her own self punishment, and no, she does NOT have to watch the same round of musical holes every day if she really doesn't want to.
- For the sake of completeness, the creator of the character, who uses Silverblue as her Furry Fandom persona, also self-identifies as a Perky Goth.
- The Dark Lordess Tyfnee from Dumnestor's Heroes, as exemplified by this strip.
- Cherri Creeper, the protagonist of School Bites.
- Kanaya from Homestuck is an inversion. On her home planet, most residents stay indoors during the day for fear of the blistering sun (and the undead who rise in the morning), and wear nothing but black and gray. Kanaya, on the other hand, comes out during the day (and keeps actual plants in her home) and wears a variety of bright colors... so, for all intents and purposes, she's the goth of her planet.
Web Original
- At least one of the hosts from the podcast Lime and Violet alludes to having been one of these in the past, after a teenage stint as a more typical Mopey Goth.
- The website SuicideGirls exists to
document exploit these women in their natural habitat. And naked.
- Moria from Gaia Online kind of drifts between this and Regular Punk depending on her characterization. (Though she was a vampire for about a week once, which ranks pretty high on the goth scale.)
- Youtube Japanese instructor Hannah Minx somewhat qualifies as this.
- The writer of this Agony Booth recap declares that most Goths actually are like this, and that Repo The Genetic Opera gives them a bad name for this reason.
Western Animation
- Lydia, from the Animated Adaptation of Beetlejuice. (Not the near-suicidal emo kid from the movie.)
- She did lighten up at the end of the movie, and new wardrobes are expensive.
- Jinx from Teen Titans.
- Perfectly opposite to the darker Raven. And given Jinx's Heel Face Turn at the end of the series, one wonders if they manage to get along now.
- Gwen from Total Drama Island dresses in Goth style and makes the occasonal snide comment, but is otherwise a normal, friendly teenage girl.
- Somewhat Lamp Shaded in "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island" in which she shows pictures of her Goth friends back home, who really make her look tame by comparasion.
- Ditto Triana Orpheus in The Venture Bros., in sharp contrast to the unrelenting weirdness surrounding her home life.
- If you were a goth, wouldn't having a necromancer for a father make you perky too?
- Creepie Creecher from Growing Up Creepie.
- Debbie of American Dad seems to have an obsession with death and the dark side, but for the most part seems very friendly and well-adjusted.
- Shareena from the shortlived animated series Detention.
- Ruby Gloom◊, her ilk, and the people who wear her merchandise.
- Only the ones who get that it's ironic. Those who don't get it, however, are a lot like those people who wear Happy Bunny merchandise because OMG it's a cute sassy bunny wabbit and ooh so cute and ooh it comes in pink.
- Danny Phantom: As mentioned above, Sam Manson is very clearly one of these. By outward appearance, she's your stereotypical Goth girl. But she's actually quite happy with the way life is! It generally appears as though Sam considers herself a Goth because she likes the style... or because she wanted to rebel against her parents.
- Her grandmother is the only one to support her, and she does like the style, so maybe she's kind of a perky goth... on the inside?
- Carl Squared: Ironically not Carl Crashman's sister, Chloe, but her boyfriend Damien.
- The 1999 direct-to-video Scooby Doo movie, Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost features "The Hex Girls", a rock-band trio of friendly Goth girls. They identify themselves as "Eco-Goths", are deeply involved with environmental causes, and the lead singer's Wiccan background becomes key in dealing with the titular Witch's Ghost.
- Count Duckula, on his own show at least.
Real Life
- Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson built an entire career out of being cheerful, sexy and dark.
- As one website owner maintained, Salvador Dalĺ. Think about that. It makes sense.
- Photophobia didn't bother Real Life example and late Church of Satan founder Anton Le Vey, either. After he got rolling, the witty religious rebel played off and played jokes on, off, and with his own image and reputation to a level you'd expect out of (irony noted) the Devil. This was even noted in a interview with him prior to his death undertaken by the pornographic publication High Society magazine.
- However, most of his fangirls insist he's a Woobie/Emo Teen.
- He certainly became one in his later years. He started out as campy and fun, but over time he lost both his sense of humour and his original drive, eventually ending up wallowing in self-pity, abandoned by nearly all his worthwhile followers and family. And it was his own damn fault, too.
- Real Life Example: Voltaire. Nono, not the eighteenth century french author; Voltaire Hernandez, the twenty-first century songwriter, author of humorous perspectives on being a Goth, and occasional stand-up comedian. That Voltaire. He also does music for the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, so that makes him double cool.
- Tim Burton.
- The Lady of the Manners, webmistress (and now author! ~shameless plug~) of the Gothic Charm School.
- Who, although she'll probably never admit to it, has shown some distinctly mopeygoth leanings in the past.
- She's also the real life inspiration for Gilly.
- This t-shirt.
- Lee Press-On and the Nails, a Gothic Swing band. No, seriously. I'm not making this up.
- Grey De Lisle - the voice of Sam Manson.
- Noel Fielding: pretty much the trope codifier
- Christina Hendricks in high school.
- Jhonen Vasquez, the creator of Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, and Invader Zim.
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