Sunday, September 27, 2009

A vampire obsession

From Times UK Online

Soft flesh, sinking teeth, romance, possession — we're having a gothic moment with Twilight and True Blood

I remember walking through Soho with a friend about 10 years ago. It was late and we’d had a few drinks. Lumbering gloomily towards us were a couple — he in full-length leather coat and chalk-white make-up, she resplendent in dyed black hair, purple velvet bodice, net skirt and thigh-high boots. My friend muttered something disobliging about Camden Market. I said, slightly louder than I meant to, “Tragic goths”, and laughed so hard that I banged into a lamppost.

Shortly after this, I wrote a feature about people who genuinely believed themselves to be vampires, including a man who had had his teeth filed into fangs, along with his unscary posse, all of whom lived in a squat off the Caledonian Road. Again, I was overcome with laughter halfway through.

Of all the 1980s youth cults, goth has always struck me as the most comical. They were always so provincial: you never met a goth who came from, say, Shoreditch. They were always from places like Pontypridd or Mablethorpe, with their little cloaks and spider’s-web necklaces. And they took themselves so seriously: you wanted to tickle them and say, “Psst, you’re not really undead. Here, have a Wotsit.”

It is with some incredulity, then, that I am obliged to report that goths have had the last laugh. In 2009, we’re all vampire-obsessed. You can buy black nail polish at Superdrug. Dita Von Teese, Nicole Kidman and Madonna have helped popularise intense pallor, and starlets such as Rumer Willis and Kristen Stewart continue the tradition. Every luxe make-up and fashion brand around can sell you all you need to look freshly exhumed; meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan is posting pictures of herself wearing fangs on Twitter.

read on

1 comments:

Lacey J Edwards said...

This reminds me of an episode I watched recently on South Park, lol. The school was being over taken by "vampire kids" and the goth kids who had always been there, were being mistaken as vampire kids. It was an all out war between the two.

I had a few friends in high school who were in to the goth fad, but none of them were obsessed with vampires. I, on the other hand, had Dracula movie posters cluttering my bedroom walls. Stacks upon stacks of vampire novels, and I played sports and dressed somewhat "preppy" >_< You just never know.

Thankfully, I have only met one loon who had his teeth capped to look like fangs. To each his own I suppose.