News:

Tell us, pray, what devil
This melancholy is, which can transform
Men into monsters... - John Ford

Main Menu

When did vampires become so popular?

Started by LadyLycanthrope, August 19, 2010, 06:58:48 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

LadyLycanthrope

Okay so I'm having a debate with this guy on when vampires became so popular. He hasn't come up with an answer to this but I have. I say that the vampire became popular when the superstition of vampires got way out of hand in western europe in the 18th century, causing a mass hysteria where they would dig up bodies and stake them because they were afraid of them coming back to life and drinking their blood and what not. Also, John Polidori's The Vampyre is responsible for creating the popular image of the vampires we see today in fiction and he inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula. I went into more detail about my findings, like mythology of the vampire (Empusa, Mormolyceia, Lillith (it is debated that she was a vampire), strix, lamia and other myths that are out there) because that's important too.

Anyways this debate was sparked when I commented that the Twilight vampire myth is absolutely fake and the author herself told everyone it was just made up. Vampires don't really sparkle unless it's in Twilight so it can't really be added to the vampire mythology can it? I mean it's not a general description of vampires that has been used for centuries, yeah?

Any help on when vampires became so popular would be appreciated.  <^>
Suicide girl takes her last breath, consumed by darkness and by death. And so it is the tragic end, of the wicked girl with the twisted grin.

Angelus

Sounds like you have this down pretty well by yourself. Vampire mythology cannot be something first discovered in a fictional media made exclusively for entertainment. So no, sparkling does not add into the myth. Just as sunlight was not mentioned in any vampire myth. They came out at night because thats when the bad things come out. Nothing to do with sunlight. In some regions a vampire may operate during the day, in others only between certain hours.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Alexander Pope.

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk