From the Gothic nosferatu to pop culture

According to a study done by The Nielson Company, consumers have been drawn to all things vampire since the Twilight series and film became popular, along with the HBO series True Blood. 

Such fans are appearing online to get their next fix of the Cullen clan before the wave of hysteria resumes with the release of New Moon’s film adaptation next month. According to the study, as many as 553,000 unique visitors spent an average of two minutes and 45 seconds on the Twilight site, of which one minute 47 seconds was spent watching the New Moon trailer.

Add to that the increased popularity of Vampire Wars on Facebook and MySpace, and the increasing popularity of sites like VampireFreaks.com and VampFangs.com, Twilight’s success sees Stephenie Meyer, like Buffy, turning the living dead into a mainstream pop-culture. Although the book was marketed to young adults and teens, the unique visitors to the Twi-sites were 25-34 year-olds; women being 44 percent more likely to go online.

The fascination with the vampire, declares the book The Blood is the Life: Vampires in Literature, is in its nature to be both good and evil – a mystifying oxymoron used by Romantics (and Sylvia Plath in “Daddy”) to provide comment on interpersonal relationships. Although varied in form from the Roman lamia to the Victorian aristocrat, the vampire is “the heroic antagonist or living dead”.

Since used by Coleridge, Blake, Poe and Keats (some go so far as to say that even Emily Brontës Wuthering Heights imposes vampiric tendencies onto Heathcliff), vampires have not retained their professionalism or detachment from human society. 

But we can’t blame Stephenis Meyer for this, for Mr Smith in Charles Beaumont’s Blood Brother complains to his psychologist:

“I always likes my steaks rare, but this is ridiculous! Blood for breakfast, blood for lunch, blood for dinner. Uch – just the thought of it makes me queasy to the stomach!”

To add to the growing list of unique visitors, visit New Moon’s official website.

By Jason Esch