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Peachy keen!
"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 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 Daria type 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 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.)
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Yugi, the titular character of Yu Gi Oh dresses in either in all black or in absurdly cute outfits, has wildly dyed hair 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.
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- 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.
- Maybe a subversion, since being cheerful and enthusiastic just makes her creepier when you consider her other traits.
- Nana Osaki from Nana wears goth attire, although she is mostly described as a punker.
- 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.
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, Death was a bit of a wet blanket herself before she started spending a few days each century with mortals.
- Comic Book example: Nico Minoru, aka 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
Films
- Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas — although he could also get pretty moody.
- Almost any goth character on Gap.
- Lydia from Beetlejuice, by the end of the film.
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.
- Dragaera 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. Telnan's master, Sethra Lavode, might be a better example, dressing all in black and having an unsettling pallor (she is an eons old vampire), but is surprisingly friendly.
- Wherin 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.
Live Action TV
- Abby Sciuto, the Lab Rat on NCIS.
- 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 Perky Goths. They got 5th place.
- The Count from Sesame Street. ("Ah hah ha ha ha ha!")
- 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.
- Arguably the entire Addams Family has Perky Goth tendancies — but 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.
- In a rare male example, 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.
Professional 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.
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Video Games
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 Badass Lolita.
- Another Webcomic example: 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).
- And another one: 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.
- A third: 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.
- 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.
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.
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, So Yeah...
- 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.
- of course since Raven is the daughter of a demon-god and has to repress her emotions or risk wreaking havoc on a global scale she has an excuse.
- 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.
- The title character 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.
- Yumi from Code Lyoko is not so much Goth but liking to dress in black.
Real Life
- Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson built an entire career out of being cheerful, sexy and dark.
- This Troper has spent many times on gothic forums and have found it that at least half of the real goths are of this kind (while angsty ones are mostly just angsty teens to overcome it).
- This troper supports this theory, with an addendum. Those who tend to congregate online will be 50% perky goths (looking to socialize, discuss and vent some... rather non-perky ideas from time to time) 25% mopey goths (with tendencies towards self-pity, though not always in a derogatory way) and 25% romantic goths (who may be, variously, perky or mopey — but are a breed apart for other reasons). On a bad day, most romantics will act like angsty suburban teenagers. Feet will be stomped. Bitch fits will be thrown. Perky goths just... snap. Loudly.
- Real life being what it is, this troper has found that the three personality types are more tendencies than absolutes and one will sometimes blend into the other and then back to whatever the default preference is.
- The various Xgoth lables are very broad, and application varies not only with the person, but the age and mood as well. The excessively angsty teens are typically written off as "spookykids" by the more self-effacingly humourous mopeygoths.
- 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.
- Real Life Example: Voltaire. Nono, not the eighteenth century french author; the twenty-first century songwriter, author of humorous perspectives on being a Goth, and occasional stand-up comedian. That Voltaire.
- 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.
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