Netherworks, Computer games, but this query doesn't have anything to do with that. I live in the part of Oakland which sticks up between Emeryville (artist's colony gone techy) and Berkeley (where people express themselves quite freely). I'm quite used to seeing people dressed in black. When a netpal who is a monk came down from Canada for a visit, he identified himself by saying "I'll be in black". I decided to wear purple that day. ;^) However, he was very easily distinguished from that trainload of people wearing black. His clothes were designed to not be noticed. At conventions with live action games, there are almost always a couple of goth and/or vampire groups. I'll be at Origins in a couple of weeks and the halls will be full of people, but even an outsider like me can probably get them sorted by type (even if the label is wrong): over here we have lace cravats and posy water, over there we have torn black underwear hanging down in shreds, etc.. Grooming and body language have something to add to the equation as well. So, let's hypothesize that people wear clothes of a particular style to be identifiable with a group. What happens when they are not wearing clothes? Most of the tattoos (both in the photos and in the skin textures) show tattoos in places which would normally be covered by clothing. Are different styles and placement of tattoos and piercings also symptomatic of the different subcultures? Let's suppose that an alien n-ray stripped all the clothing from the people of Berkeley. Ka-Zap! Could we sort out the hell's angels, the goths, and the performance artists based upon their body decoration alone? Carolly