Are You A Real Vampire?

 

This poser has nothing on trve kvlt vampires. For real. Image via Wikipedia

 

Note: This post should have been up ages ago (hence the huge delay). It was going to be put up on Vampires.com but as it’s been ages I’m just putting it up here now and then I’ll link to it on Vampires.com if it ever gets posted there. You’ll also note this post is significantly longer than usual.

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Given that I’m quite clearly a multi-talented kind-of-guy, not only can I review films but I can also review people. And as this is a site all about vampires (ed: which will ring true if you’re reading this on Vampires.com, less so if you’re reading it on my blog), what better type of person to review than vampires? I won’t, however, be discussing Dracula or Lestat but instead will be focusing on the non-fictional vampire (though the definition of vampire in this case is being stretched rather thin). While Twilight (I’ll be reviewing the others some time in the future for those who are interested) ruined my fondness for vampire films, I’ll now, for this one-off article, be turning to people who have spoiled my interest in vampire culture; ‘real’ vampires.

I could sum up my view of this issue as follows: Just like Edward Cullen doesn’t come across as mysteriously sexy, people claiming to be ‘real’ vampires do not come across as anything other than the goth equivalent of the cock-end who wears underwear outside their trousers and claims to be a super hero.

One might be tempted to think along the lines of ‘live and let live’. After all, there are bound to be people wandering around thinking all kinds of stupid things and, at the end of the day, believing you’re a vampire isn’t the most harmful thing to think. That’s all well and good if you aren’t, like me, allergic to, what scientists have termed, ‘truly stupid crap’ (it’s crippling, I assure you). Not only that but what is particularly frustrating about websites like this one are that they (without the slightest hint of irony) rally against ‘posers’. That is, they’re perpetuating a sort of ‘in-crowd’ mentality amongst themselves, feeling they can sling abuse at people who are sullying their good name. It’s like watching hardcore Linkin Park fans rant about manufactured boy bands. Just like those asshats that feel it’s their duty to scream at you for falling short of ‘god-like’ on an online game, pontificating tr00-kvlt vampires have made themselves ‘fair game’. Which I guess would make me like (Vampire Hunter) D, if you replaced the sword with a keyboard and the symbiotically inhabited hand for a….well, a hand.

Maybe you yourself are one of the lowly blood bags who are blissfully unaware that there are those who think they’re one of the undead, in which case let me help to fill you in. Firstly, ‘real’ vampires don’t claim to be undead, presumably because that would be a genuine supernatural characteristic and is much harder to seriously claim than, say, being clever (see criterion #4). In fact, there are no interesting claims being made at all. If you thought that Edward Cullen verged on being a truly rubbish creature of the night, you’ll be even more disappointed to find that ‘real’ vampires, by comparison, are as dexterous as a paraplegic and as mentally alert as a coma patient.

How are we supposed to spot these fiends? Thankfully, ‘real’ vampires have spelt out the criteria you need to meet if you are to join the Super Best Friends a ‘real’ vampire. These include the following:

• having bad lighting and shit insulation in your bedroom (criterion #20)
• being a self-important commuter (criterion #23 & #24). For anyone in England, this means ‘being from London’.
• having irises (#28)
• hanging out with people as socially inept as yourself (#30)
• pissing people off because you’re busy whining about how your steak isn’t rare enough (#38)
• making sure you get your 5-a-day (#8 & #11)
• still getting asked for your ID when you’re in your early 20’s and trying to buy alcohol (#6)
• coming from a broken home (#5)
• and possibly my favourite, being disliked by your toaster (#33)

Clearly anyone meeting the above criteria are not of the human race. Although why I can’t get this image out of my head when reading pages like that is a mysterious mystery.

But fear not, mere mortals! Just like there are people claiming to be the new-age nosferatu, the world is also populated by ‘real’ slayers (Seriously). Although unless a lot of this slaying is covered up by The Man, it seems that the most blood that has been shed during this great supernatural war has been from a desk that was unfortunate enough to come face–to–face with ‘Hacky’. So it’s probably best not to seek shelter from a slayer in times of need. Or at all, ever. For anything.

Brilliantly, the disclaimer on the site points out that “Any individuals who are or who know someone who has taken the information from this site to cause harm to themselves or others, [should] take action by properly alerting the authorities”. So you’re more than welcome to tell everyone you’re Van Helsing, so long as the most that you slay is your dignity. In fact it’s probably just better to just buy the first couple of seasons of Buffy and quench your need to kill the cold ones through cathartic means. Or, stop pretending you have a calling to kill vampires. One of the two.

Maybe all this could be used for a new Blade film? One which could proudly boast ‘Based on a true story’. OK, so maybe you’d have to replace Wesley Snipes with Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon and cast Sheldon’s friends (bar the hot one from 8 Simple Rules) as the vampires. Admittedly you’d also have to make the evil vampire plot something along the lines of a dastardly attempt to make the general population aware of their superiority via a shitty Geocities website. Sure the fight scenes would be non-existent, but at least there’d finally be a film about REAL vampires and not ‘poser’ vampires like Lestat and his ilk. In fact, I’ve already scripted a potential dénouement:

Blade: #knocks on the front door of a typical suburban house, a woman answers# ‘Hello Mrs Sanders, I’m here to speak to Dave?’

Mrs Sanders: ‘Oh hi Blade! My, haven’t you grown since I last saw you! Come right in, don’t mind the dog. He’s just in his room, might want to leave your coat on as it’s a little chilly up there. Will you be staying for dinner?’

-Background music -something by Celldweller-

Blade: ‘No, this won’t take long’

#goes upstairs and goes into Dave’s room#

Dave: ‘Gah! So you made it past my hell-hound Cerberus and fought your way past my Guardian She-Bitch!’

Blade: #draws Hacky# ‘I’ve seen what you’ve tried to do, calling for a vampire revolution. Take down the website or this will end badly for you’

Dave: ‘Dude, what’s with the knife? Wait, isn’t that a letter-opener? Anyway, I totally just got the new Halo game, wanna co-op?’

Blade: ‘Oh cool! Yeah, let me just go ask your mum to bring us up some cola’

It’s a work-in-progress and I currently have no studio backing. But, you know, give it a few months.

In a way it’s rather bleak that some people have to go to such inane lengths in order to feel good about themselves. In another way, it’s an utterly misguided form of elitism that deserves the ridicule it gets. I was going to conclude this topic on a bit of a neutral note to try and balance it, until I scrolled through this page. The bit that got to me was at point #3, where it suggests the best way of getting human blood is to ‘find an emo’. In the site’s own words:

People talk bad about emos but truth is they don’t care about cutting themselves, and they like the attention that a real vampire wanting that blood will give to them

I guess this is a somewhat more serious tone than I would otherwise take, but as I support the ‘To Write Love On Her Arms‘ charity on this very blog (please do take a few minutes to check out the Social Vibe app on the right hand side of the page) I feel that I should raise this point. Self-harm, although a popular topic to mock (I’m by no means saying it can never be funny; there are some hilarious jokes about it on the net and I firmly believe that anything can be made fun of), is a serious issue and to seriously suggest that people who do it need the attention of these fuckwitted misfits in order to feel good about themselves is a level of egotistical wankery that I previously thought was only populated by people who own Apple products. Brushing off all instances of self-harm as nothing more than a pathetic means of getting attention is akin to claiming people with lung cancer just have a bit of a chesty cough. 20-25% of people who die by suicide have previously been admitted to hospital for self-harm; suicide being the fourth leading cause of death & sixth leading cause of ill health & disability of those in the age range of 15–44 (World Health Organisation, 2000). And there you were thinking I couldn’t be informative as well as an asshole.

Right, I’m off to go play the latest Castlevania so I can replay the vampire levels and pummel the scrawny bastards with my crucifix-shaped Swiss Army knife until my eyes bleed.