The Rise of the Emopire, who is to blame?

Cafe Society
1

Vampires…they used to be cool, not as cool as Werewolves, Zombies or Ninjas, or even the elusive WerewolfZombieNinja (a distant relation of ManBearPig, I’m totally serial here…), but they were cool…
They live forever
They have Nasty…Sharp…Pointy…Teeth!! (what an eccentric performance!)
they live on a high-protein liquid diet
they don’t cast a reflection
they are repelled by religious symbols (but so am I, and I’m not a vampire, at least I wasn’t the last time I checked…)
sunlight causes them discomfort (hmm, it does to me too, hmm, so maybe I AM a vampire after all…)
and most importantly…
They REVELED in their power and immortality, they had a hypnotic allure over women, and were often surrounded by groups of attractive women with huge…sharp…pointy…teeth, they knew they were badass and they loved it

classic examples are Dracula (Stokerian), Blade (not strictly a true vamp, but still a badass), Angelus, Spike, and early Lestat, Count Orlock, and many other classic vampires

But change was coming, unwelcome change, vampires started to become whiny, whimpery, navel-gazing wusses, they took on an aura of depression, they lost their fangs (both metaphorically and often physically), current incarnations of vampires are nothing more than wussy “pretty-boy” navel gazing Emo wusses, heck even Count Von Count is a more manly vampire than the current crop of wussy Emopires/Metropires, and he’s nothing more than a cloth and felt puppet (Muppet, actually)

I was wondering when modern vampires started to “lose their fangs” as it were, I think the first inkling of the “Emopire/Metropire” class of “creature of the night” was the film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, specifically Louis, instead of reveling in “The Dark Gift”, he spends the entire movie whining about how much his un-life “sucks” now that he’s on his new liquid diet…

I’m reasonably sure that Louis was the Index Case, Patient Zero, the start of the “Emopire”, what do you think, who is to blame for starting the current infestation of Emopire movies?

2

I’d say more Lestat than Louis, and only from the second book. While Louis is very emo in IWAV, it’s appropriate in context, and serves as a suitable contrast to the manic Lestat.

It’s only in the second book that we find out Lestat is one of those emo-on-the-inside guys, plus he’s way more influential on the genre than Louis. I nominate The Vampire Lestat.

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I’d say it started with The Lost Boys in 1987, the first big vampire flick specifically targeted to teen girls. From there the inevitable slide downhill began. Anytime an idea begins to be target developed and marketed to teenage girls it will eventually skew younger and younger until it reaches the lucrative and fanatical pre-teen demographic. Pre-teen girls like slightly older, dangerous-looking-but-really-sweet-on-the-inside boys, IOW, emo boys. When a 21 year old Kiefer Surtherland donned fangs and a Billy Idol outfit, it was the beginning of the end of the vampire as demon paradigm.

And Angel was emo enough to suck all the fun out of Angelus anyway, like a white dwarf of badass next to a big black hole of emo.

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By the way, from the thread title I thought this would be a Star Wars thread, with a misspelling.

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Angel wasn’t a vampire so much as he was Vampire-Man, a superhero with the powers of a vampire. Beisdes, he was way too much of a dork to be emo - emo vampires don’t dance becaue they’re too cool, not because they’re lousy dancers, and they’re *definitely *not Barry Manilow fans.