#I’m aware I could’ve talked about the queerness and chronic illness stuff more

[nerdygirl2000bbse]

I feel like I see vampirism as an allegory for a lot of different things. As a queer woman I can relate to feeling like you’re some other, hiding in the shadows to stay safe. As someone with chronic illnesses, I can relate to the lifestyle of a vampire, needing to stay indoors when most people are out enjoying themselves, having dietary needs that people would be put off by, and again that feeling of being an outsider among other things. But most recently, as in over the past year or so I’ve started to look at vampires as a representation of untimely death.

In modern media, a lot of vampires are young. They’re 16-21 year olds who will never physically age and will watch everyone around them grow old and eventually die. But I’m coming from it in a slightly different direction. A little over a year ago I lost a close friend at the age of 21. We were in college, senior year, we had so much more of our lives to live. Of course we had some pictures, but when someone dies, especially that young, you learn that some pictures are never enough. They’re few and far between and cherished. And as you grow older and you achieve more milestones, they stay the same, forever frozen as who they were the last time you saw them. You have birthdays, but they’ll never age again. You graduate college, start job hunting, start the next chapter of your life….they don’t. Now I know a lot of people think of ghosts and the dead, but sometimes, especially with young deaths, I feel like a vampire is so much closer to the truth. They stay alive by your memories, never changing even as you do, and when you think about them too much you start to think about your own mortality, and I think this questioning of mortality is kinda the key for vampires. You don’t expect someone that young to die. You don’t want to. Especially not a friend. And then you start think about how it could be someone else. How it could be you. And you’ll be the next person stuck as an unchanging memory in the minds of those who love you. Mortality is scary. Facing morality is scary. And an undead creature that goes on in the world feeding off the life force of others is scary. But the memories of others only survive if we go on sharing them and thinking about them, so don’t they feed off of us too?

Over a year later and I still remember my friend the same way. He will be 21. His voice won’t get more hoarse, his hair will never gray, his face will never wrinkle. And in 10, 20, 50 years I’ll remember him the same way because he will never change, never get to grow old, never get to be something more than what he was. But if we all stop thinking about him, if he no longer “lives on” in our memories, he essentially dies again. A death for someone already dead. That’s pretty vampiric to me.

I am currently writing a thesis on Vampirism and how it can work as an allegory for sexuality, obsession, lust, illness/disease, corruption, liberation, etc. I'm writing this as a base for an art project for my last semestre in the bachelor's degree I'm taking.

Point is, I want to have as many different interpretations that connect with one another at the center. So, I ask you: what does vampirism symbolize to you personally? How do you connect and interpret it? Do you view it as something to embrace, or as a cautionary tale?

And for my LGBTQ+ people out there: do you view vampirism as a parallel to queerness? Do you see yourself in there?

Don't be afraid to be ranty or ramble. Different views on this topic are always interesting!