I can't help but think there's a little bit of a Welcome to Night Vale influence - but a (distorted? misinterpreted?) Southern Gothic trend started around 2012-

I can't help but think there's a little bit of a Welcome to Night Vale influence - but a (distorted? misinterpreted?) Southern Gothic trend started around 2012-2013. I saw a lot of revisiting of dark recolorings of reality in that vein crop up when that podcast came out, particularly on tumblr. If you look up the "Southern Gothic Meme" or "____ Gothic" memes (for your city, state, concept, etc) theres some really entertaining shortform writing out there. :)