The best advice I found myself in my course of heading towards a personal style was the following: simply don't care about any stereotypical "niche" and just like what you like, do what you like to do, dress in the clothes you like and listen to the music you like.
Of course, it is easy and nice to know the direction your style is going roughly, so you are not too confused. However, this "main course" should not limit your personality in any way.
To clear things up, there is this false information about what "Emo" really is all over the media.
Some say, it is "an attitude", like you are "Emo" when you are overly emotional. I think this is rather misleading to teenagers, because they are all pretty emotional people! (Trust me, I know.)
To make it short, "emo" is basically a music genre, such as pop, rock, punk and yes, goth. The people who listen to this certain grenre "Emo-core" are described as "Emos". Nowadays, all those other aspects, such as "style" belong to the categorising of people with different music tastes as well, that is why there is this confusion.
To get back to your question, because I feel I tend to digress:
If you want to follow my advice from the beginning, then explore the music genres "emo" and "goth". These links will be glorious mines of information for you (this blog helped me a lot):
link
link
After that, it will be a lot easier for you to choose the path you want to go.
There is no "better" or "worse". To me, the "goth" outweighs the "emo" for several personal reasons. But that does not have to be the case for you. I even used to think of myself as an "Emo" when I was younger. I liked the alternative look and because "Emos" were for some time more in the foreground than Goths, I got to know them more a bit earlier and felt drawn to the style. Later I realised that the music was not actually that appealing to me and the darker aesthetic way more pleasing than the leopard print etc. Then I "found" Goth - the rest is history. :)
I am sorry if this reply was too long for you, gothgirl76 (interesting that you call yourself that, considering that you seem a bit uncertain about the goth subculture) or the others who were reading this (or wanted to...).
At last, I wish I could help in any way.
If anyone wants to know more or needs more help, I am willing to be there for you. Send me a message. Just be aware of the fact that I am not the Goddess of "Gothdom" or anything like that, but instead a "baby bat" as any other younger goth.
