We’ve seen bad fads come and go – think Cabbage Patch Kids and polyester leisure suits – but we’ve yet to see one that literally sucked as bad as all this vampire mania.
First came the slate of vampire TV shows and movies, ranging from True Blood to Twilight. The latter has the added bonus of featuring actors that look dead or dying even when out of character.
Then we had all the merchandise showcasing these dead or dying people. This included the usual T-shirts, posters, bumper stickers and pillows. It also included a bit more unusual items, like the putty-faced Twilight star shower curtain and even a Twilight glow in the dark adult toy.
Still, it was not enough.
Now the mania has tread one step closer to madness with people actually emulating the Draculian creatures.
Yes, vampire-happy folks, mainly teens and 20-somethings, are now biting each other and sucking each other’s blood.
We could say fine and dandy, if these people want to flit about in their little vampire circles slicing up each other’s skin and then sucking on each other’s wounds, so be it.
Parents with teens engaging in the mania may disagree, as the practice can be a bit of health hazard – and parents get the medical bills.
Thanks to the legions of bacteria that dance about in the human mouth, human bites are actually more hazardous than animal bites.
In addition to the risk the bite becoming infected, blood-suckers also have the chance of licking up a blood borne disease.
Nothing like a nice mouthful of HIV or hepatitis B or C to warm the cockles of a cold, dead vampire heart.
And the vampire obsession is not necessarily containing itself to a little circle, but spreading out like big flapping bat wings.
A couple of pseudo-vampires in Arizona, Aaron Homer, 24, and Amanda Williamson, 21, allegedly stabbed a homeless guy when he didn’t let them drink his blood, says the NY Daily News.
Homeless man Robert Maley, 25, who could not have been all that homeless since he was living in the couple’s apartment, told cops that he would let the duo drink his blood in the past but was stabbed when he mocked the duo’s “religion” and just said no.
Maley ended up arrested on a probation violations while Homer was charged with aggravated assault. Both pseudo-vampires were also charged with false reporting to police, since they made up some story about Williamson being stabbed when police showed up and found a trail of blood.
We’re still waiting of reports far beyond stabbing, perhaps with teens sealing and burying each other in coffins or maybe even pounding wooden stakes through each other’s hearts.
While vampires can be sexy – provided you’re turned on by gleaming fangs and putrid pale skin – sexiness is not the main reason behind the craze.
Vampire obsession is so hot for one simple reason – teens have run out of things that shock their family and friends.
Even sticking a safety pin through their eyelid no longer gets many people to even blink. There’s no more shock value of tattoos, sniffing glue, smoking pot or listening to angry songs that tell them to go out and shoot people.
Heck, many of the parents or pals themselves have likely indulged in some of these now-passé practices.
But sucking blood is new, now, exciting – and a good way to stir up an otherwise ho-hum and so dreadfully mortal existence.
[tnipoll]
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Ryn Gargulinski is a poet, artist, performer and TucsonCitizen.com Ryngmaster who used to like vampires until everyone got so gaga about them. Her column appears every Friday on Rynski’s Blogski. Her art, writing and more is at RynRules.com and Rynski.Etsy.com. E-mail rynski@tucsoncitizen.com.
