1. When it came to online shopping, there was only one destination: Grindstore.
2. But IRL it was always Hot Topic or Blue Banana, where you had a weird admiration of the staff.
3. You dreamt of all the tattoos you'd get when you were old enough.
4. In the meantime, you may have been super rebellious and got a slightly-unusual ear piercing.
5. Myspace was too mainstream for your alternative style, so you relocated to a site like Vampirefreaks.
6. When you first visited a place filled with other non-conformists, you immediately made plans in your head to move there when you were old enough to.
7. Your first gig was kind of a traumatic experience.
8. At one stage you definitely considered getting a pair of Dr. Martens, but they were just too much of an investment.
9. Plus you didn't want to go full goth.
10. Summer involved wearing plenty of band T-shirts.
11. Because the full leather look just didn't appeal to you.
12. You were still very much into black though.
13. And when it came to backpacks, you were all about the skateboard brands.
14. You experimented with a wild streak of hair-colour, but nothing too dramatic.
15. Your weekly Kerrang! subscription was super important to you.
16. When it came down to music, you liked songs with a bit of screaming, but not too much.
17. You hated being categorized as either a goth, emo, or any other subculture that was floating around at the time.
18. Older people always told you that it was all just a phase you were going through, and looking back, they were kind of right.
19. But hey, you'd probably be a lot more embarrassed now if you went full goth.
