opalborn:

Just a quick note in case y’all aren’t aware: I’m seeing a lot of these “(location) Gothic” posts going around, and they’re cool and I’m totally into this, but please be aware that Southern Gothic is not about weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Southern Gothic uses the grotesque and surreal elements of gothic literature to explore, highlight, and engage with the very real tragedies of the South, including racism, classism, poverty, religion, the decay of the antebellum way of life, the insistence on clinging to absurd and empty traditions as a way of clinging to that past, the glorification of the antebellum past, family ties and customs, military service, etc.

Which is all to say that Southern Gothic is social critique. I don’t know the rest of the country well enough to say if that’s what’s going on in all these cool posts, but I wanted to point it out in case it hadn’t been spelled out clearly yet  ^^

And norms about gender, sexuality, and a bunch of other stuff.