Creators in cars getting Cook Out: Get to know TikTok stars Dakota and Jackson Wright | Opinion

There’s no line at the Huntersville Cook Out, but the cashier is struggling to get the burger toppings right.

In a bubblegum-colored Toyota 4Runner, TikTok personality Dakota Wright corrects the employee when he reads the order back. In the passenger seat is his husband/co-star, Jackson Wright. Dakota’s tone is firm but not demeaning.

“No one can ever say we’re rude,” Dakota tells me. He and Jackson have drawls as Southern as sweet tea and dried tobacco. They’re the kind of accents you usually can only find outside city limits.

Almost two years ago, Dakota and Jackson found their niche at the Huntersville Cook Out. In April 2021 they showed off their orders with their friend and posted it to TikTok. By the time they got home, the video had 500,000 views. It hit 1 million views by midnight.

Since then, the duo’s “food haul” videos have become a mainstay on Dakota’s TikTok, which now boasts 648,500 followers. He’s also got 79,800 Instagram followers and a growing YouTube presence.

Their videos are raunchy, punny and full of food. The highest-performing videos are about the restaurants you could find anywhere. Recent hits include visits to O’Charley’s, P.F. Chang’s and Cracker Barrel. They highlight local restaurants as much as possible.

“We started this in the middle of the pandemic,” Dakota explains. “Right when restaurants were starting to open up for indoor again, I really started to hit those.”

The videos have helped Dakota too.

Dakota had anorexia in his early 20s and dealt with binge eating later on. It’s something he’s worked on in therapy, but the videos he makes and the comments from viewers remind him he isn’t alone.

“People are like, ‘I know you’re not actually eating on camera, but the fact that you’re so comfortable and laughing and having fun with food in front of your face is helpful,’” Dakota tells me. Jackson says the responsibility his husband feels as a role model has helped him regulate the emotions that exacerbate his eating disorder.

Jackson still has a full-time job, but the account is a joint effort. Together the two of them are creating content that isn’t like anything else on TikTok — and all they’re doing is being themselves.

“I just want to showcase me being me, and hope that that changes somebody’s mind,” Dakota tells me.

“I ain’t giving these people the time of day.”

Dakota grew up in Cana, Virginia, an unincorporated community on the state border across from Mount Airy, NC. Jackson is from Clintwood, a small Virginia town close to the Kentucky border.

Despite similar settings, Dakota and Jackson had very different experiences being gay in the rural South. Jackson’s mom worked at his school and his brother was on the football team, so people left him alone. He still grew up as gay kids often do: isolated and alone, living in his head and waiting for the day he could leave his small town.

“My coping mechanism, I’d say, was ‘Let me be the funny one,’ Jackson tells me, “because then they’ll think of me as ‘The Funny One,’ instead of ‘The Gay One’ or ‘The One with the Cleft Lip’.”

Down the interstate, Dakota was growing up in the opposite scenario. He was from a family of outsiders, despite the fact that his dad grew up there.

In eighth grade, Dakota helped with his middle school’s televised morning announcements — he’s always wanted to be on television, he says between sips of Diet Coke. The program aired with a short delay in the video.

“I remember being in the room recording it and hearing myself on the TV and hearing people shout ‘faggot,’ ‘queer,’ stuff like that whenever I come on the camera,” Dakota says. “To hear that, with a 30-second delay, and try not to lose it — it was very difficult.”

When Dakota started doing well on TikTok, there were some straight men who would try to mock their videos and the tone of their voices. After discussing it with Jackson, Dakota began calling out select mean comments. The videos making fun of them stopped.

“Ever since I’ve come out I’m like, ‘I ain’t giving these people the time of day,’” Dakota tells me. “I’m not gonna give them what they want. If they want to call me a slur, I’m mouthy. I ain’t got no problem cussing somebody out. But I’m not gonna let somebody see me cry or be hurt.”

Jackson is more reserved than his husband and does not engage with the mean messages. But he admits that some of the ugly comments come from other LGBTQ people. It’s a common theme within any marginalized community: in a culture where diversity is not cherished, the people who make it big are held to impossible standards.

“‘We don’t act like that, you’re bad representation for our community,’ and I’m just like, ‘If you’re gay, you’re gay.’” Jackson tells me.

“Something as little as an accent makes them feel not alone.”

Although the Wrights are not from North Carolina, Huntersville is their home. They met in Greensboro at a Halloween party. They don’t dream of moving to a big city despite the homophobia they experience in the South.

Dakota has a self-proclaimed “Kris Jenner” haircut and glowy skin. Jackson is muscular with a crew cut; Dakota jokes that people don’t notice his husband is gay until he opens his mouth. They love Bravo so much they got engaged on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” in 2018. The video of the proposal is full of references to “The Real Housewives” franchise. They don’t dull themselves for others in real life or online.

“Toxic masculinity is so dangerous, I think,” Jackson tells me. “It took away a lot of years of my life, worrying about how I talked before I walked in a room.”

Both Dakota and Jackson say straight men who meet them are often scared to compliment the videos.

“I’ve had people DM me and say ‘I used to hate gay people, I used to think you guys were weird, but seeing you guys coming together over food and making me laugh has changed how I feel,’” Dakota tells me. One person told him the only other gay person they’d seen in media was Neil Patrick Harris.

The Wrights are successful because they refuse to shy away from their true selves. They are reminding LGBTQ kids in places like Cana and Clintwood that they aren’t alone. They represent the kids who frequent Cook Out and Cracker Barrel, just like their straight classmates. The kids who love the South but are not always accepted by it can find solace in seeing someone who is unapologetic about being themselves.

“Something as little as an accent makes them feel not alone, you know?” Dakota tells me, referencing his viewers. “It would be so easy for us to like, run away to a big city where we’d be accepted, but at what point are you working against change if you just leave?”