Dear South: What in the heck is gooey butter cake?

Gooey Butter Cake.  A food that most Yankees such as myself would raise their eyebrows and/or roll their eyeballs at you if you mentioned...what the heck is that? As I become more and more obsessed with food blogs I keep seeing this strange recipe.  I am not a Southern girl.  I was born and raised in Pennsylvania and haven't lived below northern Virginia.  I don't know too much about the South either but I do know this: every 'southern' food that I have ever tried has been indescribably amazing.  Its like...comfort food, even though I've never had it before.  Anyway, after seeing this recipe repeatedly on multiple blogs and then I saw it in a Paula Deen magazine and that was the last straw.  I had to try.  I really wanted to try this from 100% scratch but I forgot to take my butter out of the freezer so I had to cheat a little bit and use the recipe with the cake mix.  I will make this again from 100% scratch, I promise but this will have to do for now.  It is Paula Deen's recipe so I mean, I'm pretty sure it can't be bad.

gooey butter cake.
1 box of yellow cake mix (I used Duncan Hines white cake mix, I didn't have yellow)
1 egg (room temp of course)
8 tablespoons butter.

filling.
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese (softened)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 16 oz box of powdered sugar

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. Mix cake mix, butter and egg together until a light dough forms.
3. Spread dough across bottom of prepared pan.
4. Beat cream cheese until smooth.
5. Add the eggs, vanilla and butter and beat together.
6. Add powdered sugar and beat well.
7. Spread over cake batter and bake for 40-50 minutes (mine took about 38 minutes).  Center should not be quite set.  Don't cook too long or its not gooey!

Oh. Man.  This stuff is really. freaking. good.  I just tried my first piece.  I don't even know how to describe it.  Its like chewy on the bottom and gooey on the top.  Its like sugary, buttery, carmely, candy cake or something.  I think this is my new favorite dessert.  And the best part? It literally took me 10 minutes to throw this together.  I can't wait to try it completely from scratch, but for now...bring on the cake mix.   Just try it and you'll stop judging.

Want to try more cake? Try the only carrot cake you will ever make again.  You won't be disappointed, I promise.