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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 looorg on Wednesday October 28 2015, @11:24AM
At the end of this horrible article they do indeed ask an actual doctor instead of consulting the "real vampires". The "cure" offered by drinking blood is psychological and that carries a strong placebo effect. The end. The article should have carried with that instead of the ramblings by someone with a post.doc. in the depiction of vampires in literature and movies.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Wednesday October 28 2015, @04:28PM
Liberal arts majors gotta eat too! ;-)