SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Postdoctoral fellow John Edgar Browning, who has spent his entire academic life studying the depiction of vampires in film and literature, originally thought that there must be something deranged about real people who identify with the characters that seem more suited to horror movies than a historic district in Louisiana.
"Until 2009, the only area of vampire studies that I hadn't approached was real vampires, said Browning, who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I think I subconsciously saved it for last because I just thought what a lot of people think: that they must be crazy and have read too much fictional work about vampires.
The vampires whom Browning spoke with claim they can't control their urges, which amount to a need for around two or three feedings [ note: "feeding" is one of many specific terms the vampire community uses ] a week. If ample blood is on offer, they might refrigerate it and later combine it with other ingredients, like tea.
According to Browning, symptoms of vampirism start to manifest around puberty, when those who later become reliant on ingesting blood find themselves physically "drained" for no discernible reason. They usually discover accidentally that blood offers a remedy: They might bite their lip, for instance, and realize that swallowing the metallic liquid between their teeth gives them an instant burst of energy.
When Browning started his research, he was most surprised to discover that most of the community members didn't have an extensive knowledge of how vampires are portrayed in popular culture. Once, when he mentioned an episode of "True Blood," he said, "no one knew what I was talking about."
This lack of awareness indicated to him that the vampires weren't super-fans who had simply taken their obsession with fantasy narratives to an extreme. Rather, they were normal people with routines no different from everyone else.
No different, that is, with the exception of one grisly drinking habit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @02:52AM
This lack of awareness indicated to him that the vampires weren't super-fans who had simply taken their obsession with fantasy narratives to an extreme. Rather, they were normal people with routines no different from everyone else.
These people live in the city that features largely in Anne Rice's vampire novels. By sheer coincidence non-fans congregated there?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:07AM
Maybe isolated individuals get into it spontaneously, biting lips and drawing blood becoming the equivalent of biting fingernails and other small habits. But once a few individuals group together, they become a beacon for the others. They slap a name on their philia. They urge each other on, and expand their blood horizon. The psychological dependence grows until they become, in essence, real vampires. Addicts of the blood.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday October 29 2015, @04:13AM
There is also a significant population in Atlanta Ga. I can't think of any prominent vampire story set there.