The virality of the goth girlfriend may have peaked, but her reign is far from over. In fact, while the rest of us continue to pine for the original big titty goth, another type of morbid minx has entered the mix: the country goth gf.
Last week, TikToker @gutknot posted a video of herself in all black with flawless black eyeliner and lipstick, lacing up her Demonia platform boots, hiking up the ladder of her John Deere tractor and putting that bad boy into drive. Her followers loved it, driving the video up to nearly four million views.
“I’m in love,” one person said in response. “Babe, ya gotta stop giving this content away for free,” wrote another. In an earlier video she posted of her starting a much older tractor, the response was much the same. “I’ve never been so attracted,” a guy replied.
What is it about the country goth that makes us go so wild, though? Quite simply, you just don’t see it everyday. While there are plenty of women who operate tractors on a regular basis, they’re somewhat of a rare sight, and a goth woman doing it feels even rarer.
Tractor or not, though, the goth/country combination is particularly effective. It works because of its inherent dichotomy — many view rural communities as a place of uniformity, separate from the cultural influences that might introduce someone to these alternative, often countercultural aesthetics. Moreover, some might even view rural communities as hostile toward goths; it makes sense why — platform boots and black clothes aren’t exactly great for farming, and we don’t typically associate the darkness of goths with the life-giving, sun-loving world of farming.
Of course, embedded in this assumption is the underlying belief that country folks are incapable of anything other than group-think, destined only to hold the opinions of those directly around them. But it’s 2022, folks — you don’t have to live in Manhattan to be able to listen to Type O Negative or buy black clothing.
@gutknot isn’t the first example of the country goth to make the rounds, either. A 2015 meme of a cowboy with the caption, “Is it really possible for an emo girl and a country boy to be in a relationship?” asked us to consider the duo a whole seven years ago, and the entire literary genre of Southern gothic — which originated in the early 19th century — suggests that there’s something inherently gothic to country living. Johnny Cash, whose music often had a Southern gothic quality while still dominating mainstream country, is yet another example of how harmonious this combination can be. He literally called himself the “Man in Black”!
More recently, there’s also been a broad online movement dubbed “yallternative” that combines rural country live with a variety of subcultures. Last May, for example, a woman on TikTok named @hillbillygothic went viral with a video of herself dressed in all black, playing a banjo out of the back of a pickup truck. The hashtag #yallternative now has 292 million views on TikTok.
But with @gutknot’s recent videos, both TikTok and Twitter have made the renewed discovery that a dark siren who can plow the fields is what they desire in life. Indeed, it is possible for a country boy and an emo girl to be in love! More than that, though, the country life and the goth aesthetic can be symbiotic, and they live together as one in the form of a country goth gf.
All we need now is to figure out how to square dance to The Cure.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
