Bats Day: Goths Raid Magic Kingdom

Fishnets, body piercing, and latex.  This is how I imagine Fangtasia, the vampire bar on True Blood, would look on a Saturday night.  But this is real life and Mickey Mouse is standing next to me.  Let me back up.

I like Disneyland.  I don’t love it, but I do tend to go at least twice a year.  The rides are nostalgic, the food is good, and I enjoy people watching.  Thousands of tourists by the plane, bus, and carload converge on Anaheim for my amusement.  This time of year, I expect a less interesting visit since the high season is over and the crowds tend to be comprised of locals and random Pac 10 football fans.
This weekend was different.  It started normally enough.  The crowds were a little bigger than expected because they were shooting an ABC Christmas special with the Jonas Brothers.  So there were lots of little tweens running around.  But then we noticed a few Goth kids.  Didn’t think much of it.  We see them in small groups at the mall.  Also Disneyland spruces up the Haunted Mansion for Halloween with stuff from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.  This stays up through New Year’s.  I just figured they were really into Tim Burton.

Then we see Punks, but they are older and pushing strollers. Hmm.  A lot of guys in eyeliner and women in corsets—but we are nowhere near The Pirates of the Caribbean ride.   Then I start to eavesdrop on other people’s conversation in the park.  We’re not the only ones picking up on the high density of torn fishnets and lacy bustiers.  Concerned parents are pulling their kids a little closer.  Husbands are leering at cleavage (full disclosure: guilty).  After awhile the multitude of Goths and Punks seemed to blend in with the rest of the crowds.  Come on there are grownups with mouse ears decked out in full Disneyana walking around too.  Finally our curiosity gets the better of us and we ask two black lace clad women in their late 30’s, “Is there some kind of convention in town?”  One replies, “It’s Bats Day.”  Oh.  Well that explains it.

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Apparently Bats Day is an annual celebration of all things dark, creepy things that go bump in the night, and metal/punk.  Which went a long way in helping to understand why some people just went around in a Ramones t-shirts and others had on Frankenstein platform boots along with a poet shirt and corset (the guy had a tiny waist and the boots made him seven feet tall).  As I said, some of the other patrons were freaked out by the black masses.  But I noticed something amazing about the Goths (its too narrow of a term but I need a catchall).  The Goths were the best parents at Disneyland. They did not have leashes on their children.  The Goth kids were not throwing tantrums. The Goth mothers were not chatting incessantly on cell phones ignoring their kids.  The Goth dads were not zoning out on their Blackberries and iPhones.  The Goths were totally engaged, attentive, and having genuine fun with their children at the “Happiest Place on Earth”.  Need parenting tips—ask a Goth.

While digging around for info on Bats Day, I found this article from pop culture journalist Chuck Klosterman, he experienced Bats Day back in 2003.