pimppeter2 said:
Heh, Brilliant review. Lulz ensued
Personally I blame 30 Days of Night for this, since it all seemed to start shortly after it's release.
I never realized this, but when I thought about it
you're absolutely right.
Actually this is not correct, the entire thing started to fall apart around like the early 90s. It's simply that it's been getting increasingly more obnoxious as time has gone on. The original 30 Days Of Night three issue comic series wasn't until 2002 (I looked it up to be sure) and by then this whole modern "so goth to be dead" Vampire thing was in overdrive. Back in the mid-late 1990s a comic series called "Preacher" even had a character called Cassidy who was arguably a clever satire of the modern pop-culture vampire, and then took things as far as to have an entire cult of vampire poseurs lead by a real Vampire who was making a joke out of the entire thing by creating a persona based on "current" overdone vampire chic. The last issue of Preacher having come out in the year 2000 (I looked that up too just now).
In general while her writing wasn't totally original I look back at like Anne Rice as the person who started the whole thing. Anne Rice being a dark fantasy author who also writes erotic fiction like "Exit To Eden", "The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty", and "Belinda". The entire sexed up vampire thing having what were some interesting ideas but rapidly turning into be what seemed to be her crusade to capture the ultimate boy on boy undead orgasm in text.
Her writings (especially before they got that bad) in turn spawned things like an RPG called "Nitelife" which in turn inspired a game called "Vampire: The Masquerade" that created a heavy duty mythology and drew in portions of the geek community. V:TM getting a lot of press coverage early on due to some crimes associated with it early on include an elaborate "Vampire Clan" sex scandal involving underage participants and muliple suicides. It's been a long time, but back when I was on BBS systems using things like Fidonet that was a huge occurance, and seemed to get more attention drawn to Vampire: The Masqerade than anything else.
A cult TV show called "Forever Knight" about a Vampire Detective called "Nick Knight" also appeared in the early 1990s and likewise inspired some interest in the whole "redemptive vampire" genere.
As a result of the relative success of the things above you gradually saw more and more writers jumping on the concept as being rife for exploitation. Where once it was relatively novel, you gradually saw romantic, redemptive, elitist "modern vampires" cropping up everywhere. "Anita Blake Vampire Hunter" being one of the long running book series, and of course we also saw a successful TV series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" involving very similar themes in the late 1990s. By the time "Buffy" came to TV this was already a HUGE stereotype which is why it was seen as a potentially lucrative idea (and it paid off big time).
Somehow the entire vampire/goth chic thing managed to continue to convince it's fans and followers that it was somehow "new and hip" despite being "old and stereotypical". I mean if you think about it this has been going on for nearly 20 years.
The whole "Vampire Chic" thing has also spawned an entire "paranormal romance" genere right alongside it that is the domain of teenage girls, and overweight housewives, with the occasional sci-fi/fantasy nerd still retaining some interest. As time has gone on were wolves, witches, fairies, ghosts, and other supernatural things have all gotten involved with this stuff.
The basic "appeal" to the entire thing is the idea the fantasy of being chosen by some elite and powerful "aristocrat of the night" for your specialness and being elevated above everyone else. Pretty typical empowerment fantasy, it's just done with a lot of mythological creatures.
Oh and one final thing for those who read this far:
Truthfully while "Interview with a Vampire" was written back in 1973 (according to Anne Rice's wikipedia page) and is the earliest attempt in this kind of spin of things I can think of/verify, I think the "so hip to be dead" spin could be blamed on 1987's "The Lost Boys" which is really where the whole "sleep all day, party all night" immortal party boy thing really got started.... and ironically it was done for comedic value as much as anything.
Basically the point being that I think "30 Days Of Night" is simply another bandwagoner, albeit the Alaska spin was one of the more original gimmicks to use. Twilight is pretty much the essence of the entire subculture diluted down to sickly sweet and bubble gum and coca cola. Easy to follow, and hits all the bases. Plus the author probably was willing to sell out cheaper than others in the same game. Not quite my genere, but people that I know who are REALLY into the whole thing have told me the Twilight books are okay, but the "Sookie Stackhouse" books are better for example and the author of those managed to land an ongoing TV series which might be more profitable in the long run (although the movies probably result in a quicker short term gain).
Sadly if I had any talent as a writer I could probably make a fortune writing derivitive fiction about a pair of gay Irish vampires named Michael Fitzpatrick, and Patrick Fitzmichael who run an LA Fetish club. Throw in a drug dealing werewolf with pretensions of taking over their turf, a "Mary Sue" witch who is the only girl the vampires can stand to sleep with, and some nonsense about stoping a turf war between the powers of Faerie and enraged Native American spirits and well... New York Times bestseller list, here comes I!
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