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.
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My Niece was one of these folks and had her fake fangs removed recently.
did she bite you?
did it hurt?
is she keeping the fangs?
I thought she had a speech impediment or her front teeth had receded. No biting and now married off to another Vampire.
hahahah!
well, glad she did not bite you – also glad she found a match made in, um, hell? hahahahahahh
Some people just sound so needy and are always looking for new ways to get attention.
i’m with you on that one! head shaving used to work but has become so “been there done that” once britney spears did it…hahhaha
No thanks on the blood, but could you pass the biscuits, please (smile).
HA!!
double ha!
What we need to do is encourage this as much as possible in order for the whole thing to go away. As soon as mom or dad asks to be part of the action, then it is time to move on to something else.
that would DEF! kill off any fun from the vampire stuff – hahahhaha. mom and dad should indulge the kids then with coffins, capes, test tubes for blood storage, etc. as christmas gifts.
you have some of the dandiest ideas, alan in kent wa!
Its almost like we lost WWII and Romanians and Germans took over and running the media??!! As well as the “crime” shows with the dead bodies on the table with their guts hanging out.
“nothing’s shocking” – jane’s addiction.
Well. You could look at it as the new replacement for “illegal” drugs (laughing)…Most people can tell the difference between fantasy & reality – for those few who can’t – maybe their parents should have paid more attention when raising them! Horror is horror.. Vampire movies have been around for generations – what “adults” choose to do is their own stupidity! It’s just another fad that will pass w/time!
ha! thanks for chuckle, dpw. and i do hope the fad passes soooooon….
“New level of STUPID” is correct…
They won’t be pulling this vampire crap after someone sends a couple of rounds of buckshot into their “coffins”!
hahhahah – you tell ’em, shotgun slade! thanks for input!
Hm. I remember going through that phase last year actually. I think some of the main reasons we teens do this is for the main reasons of most things:
A. The media making us believe that skinny is beautiful. And what better way to be thin then live off a single liquid diet?
B. Young is beautiful. And when you’re a vampire, you’re young forever~ (Unless you have the misfortune of being turned when old.)
C. Who doesn’t want to be different? Nowadays, so many of us are trying like hell to stand out from the crowd. Sadly, being a vampire is now like, totally in.
Yup, that’s gotta be it…But it is kinda fun freaking the rents out like that (if you have the fortune of having rents that would rather be squeamish then constantly pick on you for wanting to be a vampire…I didn’t T^T)