Mar. 26, 2010

It goes without saying, but vampires are easily the most fashionable of all monsters. A number of different subcultures and groups from all around the world are influenced by the vampire style. For some, though, an influence of style just isn't enough. The whole idea of being a vampire is extremely desirable. However, as attractive as it may be, most people are unwilling to deal with the consequences of being turned into a vampire. So what do they do instead? They fake it.

Faking it is generally frowned upon, by vampires and humans alike, but it serves as a safe alternative to actual vampiric transformation. On a whole, these fake vampires tend to fall under three distinct categories.






The most common of the three categories, Vampyres are those who choose to act as if they were real vampires, even though they most definitely are not. Most of the mannerisms this group is known for have been adopted from modern cinema, such as wearing lots of black clothing and makeup, staying indoors during the day, and drinking blood. Now, wearing lots of black and staying indoors are basic lifestyle choices, but drinking blood is taking that choice to an entirely different (messed up) level.



Vampyres don't pretend to have any sort of craving for blood like actual vampires do, but they choose to drink blood anyways. You know, just for the hell of it. This brings up numerous severe health issues, which is why it's usually done only with a person's partner. During intimacy, the "aggressor" will delicately cut into the flesh of his/her partner and drink the blood from the wound. Coincidentally, murder scenes that follow these exact details have played out in over a dozen episodes of Law and Order: SVU. The aggressor's partner gains satisfaction from being cut into—a heightening of feelings of sorts, a mixture of pain and pleasure. It's also an act that legions of emotional teenagers perform, but for the opposite reason.




This is usually done with a knife or another sharp object, but some people take the dentistry route to have fangs surgically attached to their teeth. I guess it makes it more authentic. Why this is considered to be a reason to refer to oneself as a vampyre, though, is unclear. Sounds more like an otherwise normal person with a freaky S&M and bloodplay fetish if anything.




Also known as "psy-vamps," psychic vampires usually make no attempt to outwardly portray themselves as a vampire. Instead, their "vampiric" behavior takes place on the inside. Whereas real vampires feed off blood, psy-vamps feed off the energy of those in close proximity to them.

Have you ever known somebody who, whenever you are around them, just seems to suck the life out of the situation? Some of those people believe they are psy-vamps, rather than accept that they're just boring, party-killing, unentertaining downers.

Drinking blood makes sense (well, not really); it's a lifestyle choice. But psychic powers? These people actually believe they have some sort of psychic ability? Nobody really believes in that silly hypno bullshit.

There's actually a perfectly logical explanation for believing in psychic ability: people are fucking stupid. These social outcasts have tried to unsuccessfully fit in for years. To deal with this, they turn to Goth culture. With its ties with the vampire world, they soon discover this idea of the psy-vamp and the rest is history. "Oh my god, that's totally me! I'm a vampyre!" You're an idiot. These people have found an excuse (other than their own personal responsibilities) for not fitting in and have attached themselves to the idea.

It's like self-diagnosis with WebMD. You go on perfectly fine and leave thinking you have osteoporosis and attention deficit disorder.




While not a real category, energy vampires are really nothing more than another classification for psychic vampires, a subset if you will. In fact, both groups are exactly the same save for one distinct difference.

Energy vampires seem to be completely unaware of what they are doing to those around them, oblivious to the effects they have on people. Psychic vampires, on the other hand, do it on purpose. What a bunch of jerks.




This last category, the least common of the three, varies significantly in terms of creation. Vampyres and psy-vamps are created from social context, but plane crash victims (PCVs) are created from disaster and the resulting mental illness. This transformation usually takes place high in a mountain or a deserted island somewhere when a plane that has suffered a severe technical malfunction crashes. The sole survivor is then left with nothing but a ruined plane hull, dead bodies and no connection to civilization. To survive, the PCV is forced to feed on the bodies of the passengers.

To gain a better understanding of the slow mental degradation one suffers during a disaster like this, use the following timeline of an example plane crash and imagine yourself in the situation.

0h:0m	Plane begins boarding. You shove the rest of your Cinnabon into your mouth before entering.
0h:10m	You notice both flight attendants are women in their midforties. Both have bleached-blonde hair and copious amounts of makeup caked on top of their fake tans. You feel sorry for their vain attempts to hold onto their youth.
0h:20m	Captain announces the plane will be departing shortly.
2h:12m	Takeoff.
2h:27m	Flight attendant announces peanuts will not be served due to an allergy of one of the passengers. You recognize the bullshit and stop feeling sorry for her.
3h:40m	Technical malfunction.
4h:40m	Pilot announces the malfunction.
4h:41m	Flight attendants begin cleaning up fecal matter from various passengers' seats.
4h:56m	Lone virgin onboard makes desperate plea to lose virginity before he dies. Elder flight attendant volunteers.
4h:57m	Virginity traded for humiliation. (Premature ejaculation is all the more embarassing at 30,000 feet.)
5h:06m	Total engine failure.
5h:08m	Crash.
5h:47m	You regain consciousness and find yourself washed up on a beach, facedown in the sand. You have miraculously not drowned while unconscious.
5h:50m	Begin search for survivors.
5h:51m	Finding no survivors, you make a fire and a lean-to for shelter using spare wreckage and palm fronds.
6h:30m	It's now been 6.5 hours since you've had anything to eat. Contemplating your situation, you realize what you must do to survive.
6h:40m	Feast upon the flesh of another human.
7h:12m	Harvest leftovers.
8h:43m	You find a volleyball and begin talking to it.
9h:17m	You decide growing a beard might be pretty cool.
10h:02m	Bedtime.
16h:30m	You wake up: “Morning, Wilson.”
16h:42m	Hungry, you find a healthy-looking Asian guy. Again feast upon the flesh of another human.
17h:07m	You're hungry again. Feast upon the flesh of someone more filling.
18h:32m	You are attacked by the smoke monster!
19h:57m	Begin searching the plane hull for useful items.
20h:11m	Discover stash of airplane food! You do your best Seinfeld impersonation. ("What's the deal with airplane food?!")
20h:41m	Discard airplane food; feast upon the flesh of another human.
23h:04m	Rescue workers arrive!
23h:37m	Feast upon the flesh of the rescue workers.

Given these extreme conditions, one can see how such a person would go crazy. It starts with eating people for survival and ends with a man drinking blood and running around like an animal, snarling at the rescue workers who come to save him.

As it stands, it's hard to say if this is due to humanity's primal instinct or whether our fascination with monsters in popular media has anything to do with it, but active research is being done and progress is underway.

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34 Comments

THIS JUST IN: Anonymous posting is for lame-os.

Seriously, though, registered accounts are totally way better. Anonymous comments must be manually approved before they show up on the site. Registered users' posts show up automatically, they don't have to bother with that goofy captcha crap, they get to use their profile pictures, an actual name, custom titles, post counts, etc.

You don't even have to put your password in or anything either. It's totally safe. So get a Twitter account if you don't have one. It only takes a minute. Or just be a jerk and continue and post anonymously.

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