Nothing is Sacred
Posted on November 20, 2008
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It’s amazing when a new fad jumps out seemingly out of nowhere, but with the power of the internet has fandom reached far superior levels. No longer is it cool to have gotten in on the ground level, to be cool you have to have gotten in on the ground level and have become obsessed with whatever it is and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a small chance at being ‘cool’. There’s 2 giant areas of our society deeply hit by the coolness recession, tattoos and vampires. Both of which have gotten so large they’re created a counter counter culture much like what Robert Crumb created back in the 60’s, it’s still animation that’s bringing said culture to us.
First tattoos, I’ll admit this one’s more of a stretch but I only mention it because I did find a comic commenting on it. “God I hate it when dumbass sorority bitches get shitty tattoos”, now I haven’t personally seen an increase in ’sorority bitches’ getting tattoos but I would assume the artist has. It may even be that the artist was apart of this ‘counter culture’ of tattoos and gets irked every time she sees her counter culture copied by people who she feels doesn’t understand it. It was only a matter of time though, we have several reality shows on tattoos and the more tattoos people seem to get the more they’re accepted into the ‘counter culture’ of tattoos. Despite all this economic worry most of my customers have I haven’t seen any worry in the tattoo parlor when I walk home from work, in fact if anything I see more and more people there as the days go on. “You liked tattoos before they got all POPULAR”, thus creating the counter counter culture of tattoo hipsters pissed off the trend continues on.
Now vampires, this is one trend even I’m slightly guilty of but I’d hardly consider myself anything more than ‘interested’. Lost Boys was just before my generation, as was The Goonies, that’s not to say I didn’t like them I just never rode the wave of popularity they had. Lost Boys was big enough for them to try and make a sequel this year and it would seem it didn’t do as good as they hoped. They were trying to ride the wave of all the new Stephenie Meyer books, to which Stephenie Meyer will seem to be the sole recipient of popularity this year. South Park poked fun of that, but they were going after the counter counter culture more than the counter culture, obviously trying to beat the punch when we start getting reports like “Millions of crazy Twilight fans show up to the theater dressed like vampires”. They’re like the voice for goth kids, who were goth long before anyone every thought of the ‘retarded’ idea that you’re somehow a vampire.
Of course True Blood is no exception and has it’s only minions behind it, I happen to be one of them but I was never interested in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. I do like the show, enough to continue watching it but it’s hardly something I’d consider dressing up for. Yet even HBO did some investigating in a few specials they aired covering this counter culture of people who actually think they are vampires.
Featuring:
* Lord of Fangs
* Vlad’s Lair w/ DM Stefanos
* Biting Booth
* Divination Readings
* Carnal Auction
* Belly Dancing
* Raffle
This is why South Park was spot on, you have a booth where ‘vampires’ can bite down on…other people? Yet near the end of the night everyone’s going to draw names out of a hat and give out prizes, because being immortal isn’t enough you want a bath lotion kit with it. You even have people going as far as dential implants (the guy who runs this event has them) to become vampire, yet now the ‘counter culture’ people have to sit by and watch as ’sorority bitches’ wait in line over the weekend to see the new heartthrob hit “Twilight”.
The appeal of True Blood is too great, it’s a window into a culture we know nothing about, our first reaction to a culture we know nothing about is imitation. Which seems to have been the same problem with the tattoo culture, are nerds next?
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