The Gothic Aesthetic in the Core 2000s

Goth became more recognized and popular as a style and subculture in the mid to late 90s largely due to industrial bands, marilyn manson, nine inch nails and certain vampire/dark movies of the time using the aesthetic.

In the early 2000s pop and rock groups starting using parts of the aesthetic more often and hot topic type fashion became a bit more accessible and mainstream with many more branches across North America opening up. Other examples include; more common use of guyliner, HIM, studded wrist bands, nightmare before christmas t-shirts, revival post punk groups that were a bit darker, actors playing goth roles more often etc 

By mid 2000s the newest wave of emo bands started appropriating the goth look, a slew of tim burton movies and other horror/dark movies start making this aesthetic even more commonplace, Emily the Strange (goth character) clothing is super mainstream and worm by celebrities such as Britney spears and Julia Roberts. You start to see this gothic influence in lots of places. 

Some time after circa 2006 to 2012 or so you start to see kids books and novels, toys, shows, more use of gothic graphic fonts, or fast fashion with this gothic influence. Ex. Twilight, kids gothic dolls, hipster comics, pseudo gothic imagery and fonts on shirts for toddlers at Walmart, Vans shoes etc. 

Goth aesthetic was slowly entering the mainstream in the early 2000s especially in 2002-04. I remember also seeing pop music with some kind of kind of goth influence around that time as well. You also have HIM, Placebo, The Killers and the Rasmus and Evanescence who were very mainstream and used gothic imagery or sound in addition to other groups as well.  

"In the early 2000s pop and rock groups starting using parts of the aesthetic more often and hot topic type fashion became a bit more accessible and mainstream with many more branches across North America opening up. Other examples include; more common use of guyliner, HIM, studded wrist bands, nightmare before christmas t-shirts, revival post punk groups that were a bit darker, actors playing goth roles more often etc "

I guess this was an alternative to people who didn’t like the whole McBling look that dominated at the time.

HP’s marketing seemed to be about this at the time

I would post images but I can’t do it on mobile and when I try to flip it to desktop mode to upload images it brings me back to mobile page that doesn’t let me upload images. 😕

Now I’m back on my iPad here’s what I mean about HP’s ads circa 2006-2007

  

Don't forget Corpse Bride ! which had the same trailer music as nightmare before xmas haha

It's not necessarily a backlash against pop punk, but rather, pop punk itself becoming much darker as the mid-2000s came. You had new bands like My Chemical Romance and Simple Plan obviously expressing a darker tone. This is also why Green Day and Blink-182 remained relevant into the emo era, as with American Idiot and the self-titled album respectively, they obtained a much darker tone. When you consider how goofy those two bands were in the 90s (particularly Blink-182), seeing this shift was definitely emblematic of overall shifts in pop culture. Of course, some bands didn't do this shift. Said bands largely lost relevance come the mid-2000s. Bowling for Soup for example largely only kept their relevance because they did the theme song for Phineas and Ferb.
For a great example of the pop punk shift in the mid-2000s, let's look at some songs from Green Day and Blink-182
Green Day
Dookie - 1994



American Idiot - 2004


Blink-182
Enema of the State (1999)


Blink-182 (2003)