A Thing for Vampires

I don't get it. I really don't. Since when did vampires go from being Transylvanian to teens suffering more angst than Harry Potter? I suppose everything goes through a cycle of being popular and then falling out of popularity but I guess I kind of missed that point in time when vampires became 'cool' again. I mean let's face it, vampires or vampire lore has been around for generations but it's certainly not the same time of lore that we grew up with. I mean there are times when I feel that the 'true' vampire lore that I always think of (like Count Dracula) when imagining vampires and what they're up to.

I guess these days when you mention vampires the first thing that pops to mind is the pale guys from "Twilight" or "True Blood" or even the guys in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". No longer are they Europeans with a flair for accents or the desire to 'velcome' you into their castle keeps. They'll hang around in abandoned homes or live with their parents or even set up bases that would make Batman jealous but the fact remains that this change in understanding has changed the face of vampirism for me. I guess for many teens it's a way for them to deal with feelings of being misunderstood as they go through adolescence (I mean let's face it, vampires are as far from the norm as you could expect). In the 1960's it could have been fantasy's of being part of the "X-Men" but now it's vampires.

I suppose there are far worse things that teens could choose to follow but honestly, I just think that this new twist on vampirism is taking the lore and twisting it all around and dumbing it down from a horror element to a teen romantic element. I have read many of Anne Rice's Vampire books which kind of changed the tone of vampire stories for a long time ago itself. But at the time it still maintained some of those elements that typefied for vampires for so long. Basically Euro-trash type vampires who lived miserable lives while struggling to maintain some part of their humanity. Yet it was different than the current trend. There was always a romantic element but now it comes down to the formulaic teen romance. Boy likes girl, girl is curious about boy, they fall in love but a bully tries to come between them and the boy steps up and defends girl. Romance ensues and everyone is happy.

But many vampire books or stories from the past didn't have that 'hopeful' element to them. There was always a little bit of sorrow that you felt for these vampires for their situation. Before they became tragi-romantic characters at their root they were always scary characters and the sad thing is that they are slowly losing that characteristic. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing; it's probably a good thing that there is a resurgence in vampire fiction but still, you can't help but wonder what Count Dracula must be feeling about the fact that his 'people' are now the stuff of teen romances.