Regional Gothic

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About

Regional Gothic is a Tumblr-based literary genre which applies facets of the traditional Southern Gothic genre to other distinct geographical regions. Posts in the genre often are written in the second person, in the format of a bulleted list that details several dark, depressing, moody or creepy aspects of the regional lifestyle.

Origin

According to the Tumblr user wehaveallgotknives^[5], the first known instance of the #regionalgothic tag on Tumblr was in a post by user clive-gershwin-palmer created on January 13th, 2015.

http://clive-gershwin-palmer.tumblr.com/post/107960237979/imagine-suburban-east-coast-australia-gothic

The genre pays homage to the Southern Gothic literary genre, which often incorporates distinct geographical concepts related to the American Southeast into a dark or sad story.

Spread

Regional Gothic became popular on Tumblr in March of 2015. Popular areas to portray have included the New England and Great Lakes regions of the United States.^[2] Some popular posts include Midwest Gothic, posted March 27th 2015 by sparklyandheroic^[3], which has over 12,000 notes as of April 12th, 2015, and Southern California Gothic written April 5th 2015, by fanfoolishness and sharkodactyl^[4] which has garnered over 17,000 notes in the same period.

Various Examples

Midwest Gothic sparklyandheroic - At night you hear coyotes howling and deer screaming. At night you hear trains in the distance. At night you hear frogs. The worst nights are the ones where there are no sounds at all. - You let your dog outside, on a tether, so he can't run off. He stares out at the field behind your house, and further, at the woods behind it. You see nothing. You're glad. It's worse when you see what's out there - The cats have caught something and dropped it on your back step, proud and haughty. You thank them. You have no idea what they caught. You never want to know what it is. - Summer nights are full of bonfires and laughing and even though the fire is blazing, the light of it doesn't reach very far. Shouldn't it reach farther? Shouldn't you be able to see everyone's faces clearty? You havent had anything to drink. The fire doesn't feel very wam at all. - The com fields are awful, yes, but you can ignore what walks them when the stalks are tall and golden. The soy years are worse. It's almost impossible to ignore them, then. - Road crews fill in the potholes with asphalt. Road crews fill in the potholes with tar. Road crews fill in the potholes with meat. The roads are satisfied and you are safer - One night the road pops one of your tires. You do not leave the car. You do not check the damage. You call someone for aid, and it's only when there are at least four people, all armed with heavy flashlights, that you leave the car. Someone is chanting in a language you don't know. The eyes that watch you from the soy fields do not blink. - You shouldn't swim in Lake Erie. All the same, you've seen people far away, in the water Everyone laughs and jokes about retuming to the old ways if the snow keeps up. When it snows in March, towards the end of the month, the jokes become less funny. No one wants to draw straws. - If you left the state limits, would the land drop off like a cliff, falling into space? Or would there be nothing, nothing, nothing, just empty roads and rest stops that all look the same? Text Source: sparklyandheroic 8,366 notes

southern california gothic sharkodactyl It is summer. The sun is shining. It is winter. The sun is shining. You aren't certain, upon reflection, when the last time was that the sun was not shining You are starting to fear that In-N-Out is not actually a burger chain, but rather a cult. Whenever you bring it up people's eyes glaze over. They are so hungry. Oh, god, they are all so hungry You're fairty certain that one Starbucks store is following you. There wasn't a Starbucks on that comer a minute ago...right? . . .There is some sort of warp in the space-time continuum near Los Angeles. There is no other explanation for why you have been stuck in traffic this long. No matter what channel you tun the radio to, all you can hear is static. Ocasonally the distant sound of a voice speaking in Spanish, as if trying to convey a message to you from many miles away. .When the rain starts, everyone around you panics. What do they know that you don't? - You hear them sometimes, shrieking overhead. They look like birds but no birds that you ever knew. Once you catch them in a pair of binoculars. You slowly lower the lenses. They are not birds and never were - You walk along riverbeds. They're concrete, dry, empty. What's a river? you wonder sometimes, but you never find out. - At times when you drive over the hill into Los Angeles you see it waiting looming above the short skyscrapers. You tell yourself it's only grey smog choking the sky, but sometimes it looks like a wave. Like the Pacific has finally revolted against this city nestled between so many faults. You eagerty watch for it to move, to engulf, but not yet. Not yet. - The palm trees aren't from here. The jacaandas aren't from here. The people aren't from here. Nothing really lives here. Nothing really stays. - There is an hour every night where the roaches gather on the street comer The insect hour, maybe, where they discuss new business, see long lost friends. You tread carefully. The last time you crushed one the infestation in your squat two-level apartment six blocks down lasted for weeks. - There's another earthquake on another day, shaking the office and sending supplies tumbling, and when you ask your coworkers about it they stare at you blanky. "What earthquake?" they ask, and you realize they can't feel them anymore Source: sharkodacty 15,107 notes

Search Interest

not available

References

^[1] Wikipedia – Southern Gothic

^[2] Tumblr – #regional gothic

^[3] Tumblr – Midwest Gothic

^[4] Tumblr – Southern California Gothic

^[5] Tumblr – Did you invent the reigional[sic] gothic essays?

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Recent Images 4 total

toronto gothic .At Union Station you're already late. You step lightly through the sea of commuters. The perpetual mass of tourists block your way to the subway entrance. Impatient, you try to shove your way through the mass, but once you get through the station is foreign to you. You stand with your back to the tumstyle and open up your map. Then you wonder if you can squeeze in a quick trip to the Eaton Centre before your bus leaves for Everyone wakes with a start in the night. They walk to their windows. Even if they see it they face it. Fear creeps up through their bones. The tower is dark. The tower must never go dark. Never look to the lake at the west end of the Queen line. Never let the graves go marked. Never give the Lakeshore patients a reason to come back. . .Lithe young athletes practice on the brilliant new green at Dundas and River. Loud pump up music blares. A low rumble ripples to no apparent end, and with no origin. The new grass ripples, then puckers, then splits as the anguished wail of hundreds of bodies covered in dirt reach helplessly for their escape. The field is green again the next moming The subway stops, it pulls backwards. The doors open. The driver opens the door to his compartment. He makes direct eye contact with the front of the train. He places his finger to his lips and makes sure they're silent. Suddenly, theirs is the only compartment with people in it. A homeless man stumbles at the crosswalk in front of the Forever 21 at Yonge and Dundas. You stop to help him up. Suddenly, you see yourself thanking you and walking away. You try to say something, but the only words that come out are BELIEVE IN THE LORD and ONLY ONE FAITH. Everything else is gibberish. . . Rosedale is such a beautiful neighborhood. You notice the smell. Everyone notices the smell. When you know what it is youve been there too long . The ice will never leave, everyone knows this now. The ice serves a purpose. We ignore how much the escaping air feels like the pounding of fists. .A Torontonian goes to Chicago, finds their exact same address as at home and steps inside. Their family is wating for them.

Regional Gothic
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Regional Gothic
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Top Comments

Minty

Apr 08, 2015 at 06:38PM EDT

KnowYourMeme Gothic:

The entries come and go, the fads fade and stay, the memers grow dank and old, but the meme-ories will forever haunt them all.
At first, you thought it to be a mere circlejerk, but no, apparently mere jokes can become an entire culture, even corrupting the minds of once-thought-to-be impenetrable memers.
It might be funny at first, but slowly, with the crippling power of age, it too will become what it most feared: Cancer.
It never disappears. It constantly watches you. You try to escape its ever-present glare, but you cannot, for you know it will outlast you. Gamergate.
In a website of blue, the fear of many is the red pool of the dead.

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