Neil
Gaiman really said it best in this
article. Vampires as we know them today were a Victorian ruse to talk about sex without actually having to talk about sex. Vampires were evil incarnate, especially for women. If you didn't watch yourself, protect yourself, you'd been swooped in on by the dude with the pointy fangs and flowing cape and he'd make you do nasty, immoral, sinful things. The horror!
The point is that vampires used to be the epitome of evil. No one actually wanted to be them. At least that's what they said. They were something to be feared, to be repelled, not to be swooning over.
Then came the likes of The Lost Boys (I'm not just saying that,
Gaiman pretty much gives that move credit for the hot vampire turnaround) where it took away the repellant and replaced it with a yearning. Yeah, sure, they were blood sucking beasts but they were young and hot and immortal. And the only trade in is no sun tanning? Where do I sign up?
But at least those vampires still maintained some semblance of irreparabl
e action. They were still evil but the notion of being a vampire was more appealing. Maybe blood-drinking wasn't so bad. But recently the vampire has been taken even further and
de-
evilized even more to a simpering, whining
emo nerd who can't comprehend the fact that he should go get a tan if being undead were so bad. They're not really vampires anymore. They're yuppies with stick-on fangs and blood fetishes that don't function like the vampires we all know and love. They've
de-evolved to something closer to human. What the hell's the point?
Gaiman is convinced that the vampire craze is a cycle. It went dormant for a while after the 20s and 30s hype and then amped back up in the 80s and 90s, and now the beginning of the 2000s but hopefully, and one can only hope, vampires will head back down into hibernation mode in order to rejuvenate into their former selves. They've been out too long. They're tired. They can't maintain the punk rock Billy Idol evil
hardass facade that long. Not with all the fangirls. They're giving in. They're getting neutered. They're losing their evil.
That's why I really have no desire to read much of the vampire fiction that's out there now. I don't want a yuppie with fangs. I want my bad ass vampires. Yeah, the Lost Boys were hot but you wouldn't catch them undead in school, let alone pining after some bland
noob. They'd be eating her. Like they tried to do to Michael. The sex was what drew you in but it was just a ruse. At the end of the night, you were dinner. While we Lost Boys
fangirls pine after our boy of choice we're all very much aware that, had it been real, we would have had our throats torn out of our asses.
There'd be no love. No snuggles.
There'd just be blood and death. Vampires kill people. Period.
So I guess I'm going to tough out this last leg the the cycle. What choice do I have? I can live in the past, and I do, and just pray to whatever god that may be listening that he bestows testicles on vampire-kind once again in the not-so-distant future. I mean, do the Twitards today even know who Bela Lugosi is?
