From Fictional Footnotes to National News

Running head: FROM FICTIONAL FOOTNOTES TO NATIONAL NEWS

From Fictional Footnotes to National News

The Evolving Focus of Public OVC Fora from the Late Nineties to the Present

Hesperus

Current and Longitudinal Analyses of the VampireIdentifying Subculture

December 1, 2015

FROM FICTIONAL FOOTNOTES TO NATIONAL NEWS 2

Abstract

A thorough understanding of the vampire community as a whole demands a history of the online

vampire community (OVC). This research project detects the themes arising in the publicly

accessible posts of six historically significant OVC foraVampirism Research Institute,

alt.culture.vampires, Smoke & Mirrors, House of the Dreaming forums, Atlanta Vampire

Alliance forums, and the Vampire Community News Facebook groupusing an automated

thematic analyzer to tag each of 100,637 posts with detected thematic content. Each analyzed

forum demonstrated unique levels of interest in analyzed themes though a strong interest in

spirituality and the supernatural and themes relating to vampiric identity, particularly the

legitimacy of vampiric identities and feeding methods, presented itself throughout the analyzed

OVC. Results also demonstrate how the OVC grew with the help of sites originally intended for

fans of vampire fiction by selfidentifying vampires sharing links to fora run by and for actual

vampires, providing a path for others drawn to the fictional or folkloric vampire who may

identify as vampires themselves. Analysis further reveals that rates of OVC anger, previously

found to be relatively high for online fora generally, have dropped considerably over the OVC’s

history.

Keywords: vampire community, thematic analysis, subcultural history, automated lexical

analysis, online vampire community, real vampires, real vampirism


Introduction

The online vampire community (OVC) is a subculture of selfidentified vampires from around the globe who share ideas and experiences relating to their identity. Evolving as a communication and coordination tool for the vampire subculture predating the Internet, the OVC has existed at least since the early 1990s, as evidenced by November, 1992 conversations in the alt.vampyres Usenet group about reallife sanguinarianism (Leistiko, xorcist&cyberden.uucp, Daniel, Launcelot Gobbo=, Buckner, & Marius), and the concept of a “vampire community” (VC) may have initially arisen from the OVC (Vyrdolak, n.d.). Exploring the topics discussed in the OVC and the relative importance attributed to those topics is essential to fully understanding the history and continuing development of the VC as a whole.

One of the earliest OVC fora open to public view was Liriel McMahon’s Vampirism Research Institute (VRI) (archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20021007155918/ http://members.aol.com/ VRIInfo/private/archdir.htm). Started in March, 1997 just a few years after Interview with the Vampire was released in 1994 and one year after the infamous 1996 Florida “Vampire Cult” killings, VRI originally set out to present survey results and qualitative research on fans of vampire fiction. McMahon’s site also included a guestbook for visitors to comment on the content of the site which quickly led to conversations among regular commenters, transforming the guestbook into a functional discussion board. Because of its original design as a guestbook, each entry had a line specified for the visitor’s website, making it an excellent early resource for those seeking out additional online sources of information on the subject of vampirism. VRI’s guestbook quickly drew the interest of people speculating on the existence or possible existence of actual vampires as well as selfproclaimed vampires.

One of several real vampires who contributed to VRI’s guestbook was Sanguinarius, who referenced her then new Sanguinarius Vampire Support Page website and her Yahoo group Discussion & Support for Real Vampires (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ vampirediscussion/info). Founded in November, 1998, the same year Yahoo! Clubs initially launched (Cryer, 2011), Sanguinarius’ group is the oldest Yahoo OVC group and remains active today. In contrast to VRI’s forum, Sanguinarius’ Yahoo group was founded to facilitate discussions of real vampirism and actively discouraged roleplaying and any confusion between the experiences of real vampires and those portrayed in fiction.

Also arising soon after VRI’s inception was the alt.culture.vampires (ACV) Usenet group (accessible at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.culture.vampires). Started in February, 1998, ACV, as expressed in ACV’s FAQ (Morrison, 1998), sought to fill a demand among Usenet users for discussions about actual vampirism distinct from roleplaying or conversations about fictional vampires, clearly differentiating ACV from alt.vampyres (AV) (accessible at https://groups.google.com/ forum/#!forum/alt.vampyres), which was founded in

http://web.archive.org/web/20021007155918/http://members.aol.com/VRIInfo/private/archdir.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20021007155918/http://members.aol.com/VRIInfo/private/archdir.htm

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.culture.vampires


September, 1992, a few months before its first post in November of the same year. Still open today, ACV is one of the OVC’s longest continuously running fora.

The House of the Dreaming (HotD) (forums accessible at http://houseofthedreaming.net/ messageboard/phpBB2/) emerged soon after ACV’s creation. Matriarch of House of the Dreaming, Madame X, recalls

With the inception of House of the Dreaming in 2000, a discussion board simply needed to be created so that we could discuss pertinent matters, matters of study, stay in touch with members and get to know potential members online. That same year we inaugurated a forum on Yahoo Groups that we used avidly and consistently through 2004. Less than a year later we unveiled our website but our main contact board was still on Yahoo Groups. It was clear that we needed a more private, reliable and resource friendly webbased forum, and in 2004 we closed our Yahoo group in favor of our new webbased forum. Here it became easier to create an inner and outer circle as well as special interest areas. Currently our web based discussion forum provides public read only areas replete with articles and ongoing discussions, as well as more private discussion and study areas that require forum access registration, or affiliation status, like Dedicancy or Membership. Over the years our forum has become a virtual tome of knowledge and experiences that inspire, motivate and educate all that delve into it. We find that our forum is an invaluable tool to search key concepts, discuss matters in privacy and the best possible tool (aside from inperson interaction) to get to know each other. While social networking groups like MySpace, Orkut, Hi5 and Facebook have been and are good vessels for communication, our timeless family archives are the interactions and discussions that can only be accessed in our webbased discussion forum. (Madame X, personal communication, November 20, 2015)

Not long after HotD introduced itself to the OVC, Smoke & Mirrors (S&M) (accessible at http://smokeandmirrors34981.yuku.com/) appeared to fill the growing needs of the OVC. As S&M’s founder, Lady CG, explains,

Smoke and Mirrors was founded in 2002 by myself and my cofounder, Hapsburg. S&M, as it’s fondly called, was created to fill what, at the time, was a need in the Sanguinarian community in particular, and the VC in general, for a place where ANYTHING could be discussed. ANYTHING. No subject taboos, rules that established a right to discuss and disagree amicably, when necessary, and a policy of hand holding. My dream and goal, then and to this day, was to create a network where a light was always on and there was always someone around to hand hold when needed. No one should ever have to go through awakening alone. No one should ever have to grope blindly in the dark for information and no one should HAVE to be sick from blood or other needs. S&M board

http://smokeandmirrors34981.yuku.com/


and network still endeavours to find ways to fill these needs in the community while encouraging research, written articles and other means of moving our community forward in a way that is healthy and empowering for those who call themselves “Vampire” or any other term that represents what we are. (Lady CG, personal communication, November 6, 2015)

Soon after S&M entered the OVC, the Atlanta Vampire Alliance saw a need for a place to share and discuss VCrelated news and research. The original AVA forums, now AVA v1.0 (archived at http://www.atlantavampirealliance.com/forums/), ran from October, 2005 through December, 2008 before the opening of the still active AVA v2.0 (accessible at http:// www.atlantavampirealliance.com/forum/) in January, 2008. As AVA founder, Merticus, recounts,

The Atlanta Vampire Alliance [AVA] was founded on August 12, 2005 by five solitary (ronin) members of the vampire community seeking to develop a neutral organization dedicated to research and education for both sanguinarian and psychic vampi(y)res. In addition to our work with the Vampirism & Energy Work Research Study (VEWRS & AVEWRS), we strongly value offline interactions and host monthly social gatherings in and around Atlanta, Georgia (USA). From the onset of the creation of our organization, we decided that the open sharing of information was necessary in order to achieve our educational initiatives and the promotion of research into real vampirism for both members of the Community and the general public. It's for this reason that we created a publicly viewable forum that is still operational to all who wish to join or simply peruse the discussion threads. Largely dormant following the postforum era Facebook migration of the Vampire Community, this forum remains available to all who wish to read and occasionally share their insights and experiences with others. (Merticus, personal communication, November 20, 2015)

Utilizing the widespread use of social media, Merticus began Vampire Community News (VCN) including the highly popular VCN Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ vampirecommunitynews/), the first post of which occurs in 2010, the year Facebook introduced its groups feature (O’Neill, 2010).

Vampire Community News (VCN) was founded by Merticus in 2008 as an extension of the internal news sharing services for Voices of the Vampire Community (VVC). I've been archiving news, articles, media and other related information concerning the vampire subculture on virtually a daily basis since late 2005 including past historical content dating back to the 1990s. I decided that after the gradual demise of many websites, forums and groups that a flexible but consistent news and historical aggregation source needed to be developed and made accessible to everyone. VCN began through

http://www.atlantavampirealliance.com/forums/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/vampirecommunitynews/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/vampirecommunitynews/


Ning, MySpace, LiveJournal, Yahoo Groups, and standalone forums but soon developed into the presentday iteration you now see on Facebook, WordPress, Twitter, Tumblr and various syndicated feeds. In addition to providing monthly news updates and other public interest articles and/or polls; we routinely liaise with media contacts, researchers and work behind the scenes to foster communication between groups and individuals. (Merticus, personal communication, November 20, 2015)

Clearly the VC has expanded greatly with the help of the Internet since the 1990s, consistently taking advantage of the latest available computermediated communication technologies and occasionally aided by sites devoted to vampire fiction. Examining the levels of activity of the OVC, the themes most frequently discussed, and the degree of passion with which those discussions were held can more deeply illuminate the development of the VC, not only in terms of modes of communication, but volume and content as well.

Methodology

To identify trends in the activity level and thematic focus of the public OVC, the number of posts as well as the posts themselves had to be collected from publicly accessible OVC fora. All forums’ content from their earliest accessible posts through December 31, 2014 were gathered using Excel’s PowerQuery for VCN and Google Sheets’ importdata function for VRI, ACV, S&M, AVA, and HotD including each post’s text, date and time, and poster’s user id. Only those posts that were accessible without an account or login information were gathered and included in analysis in order to protect the privacy of posters who may not have consented to the reading or analysis of posts made to nonpublic fora or subfora. Many of the subfora of S&M, HotD, and AVA require logins for access due to the sensitive nature of certain topics so neither the number nor the content of those posts are included in analysis of either activity levels or thematic trends.

Posts were scanned for words/phrases corresponding to expected themes and all posts including at least one reference to vampires or vampirism yet not including any words/phrases already associated with existing themes were tagged as unidentified vampiric themes. Each post tagged after the initial scanning as unidentified was read by the author. If a previously unidentifiable post belonged in an existing thematic group, the list of words/phrases for that group was updated to include the word/phrase within the previously unidentified post that identified it as referencing that theme. If the post related to a distinct yet theretofore unlabeled theme, a new list of words/phrases associated with that newly identified theme was added to the master list. This process was repeated as many times as necessary to minimize the number of posts that went unclassified.

Once all posts initially tagged as unidentified were read and classified, all posts were revisited to assure that no new themes or thematic words/phrases were overlooked within posts


that had multiple themes, one or more of which were already identified, thus masking those posts from further scrutiny in the previous step. Twenty percent of each year’s posts for each forum, whether or not its themes had been previously identified successfully, were randomly selected to be individually read by the author to identify any additional themes addressed in those posts.

Upon completion of this process, the 42 resulting distinct themes were organized into 6 broader thematic categories: sub or otherclassifications within or relating to the vampire subculture; intraVC issues relating to the development and maintenance of the VC by its members; VC visibility or relations with nonvampires dealing with how vampires interact with or are seen by nonvampires; vampiric identity or experience themes describing how vampires relate to, experience, or express their vampiric identity; religion and spirituality; and other themes including mainstream politics, sex/sexuality, items for sale, news, and brief responses (See Appendix I for more details on thematic categories and individual themes).

The data on OVC activity levels included not only those public fora analyzed, but also the number of posts to VCrelated Yahoo groups, namely Discussion & Support for Real Vampires, real life psychicvampires, Society Nocturnus of Gotham, Les Vampires, real_vampires, and Vampire Nation High Council. OVC Yahoo groups play an important role in the history of the OVC and their levels of activity grant insight into where the OVC primarily congregated during certain time ranges. Posts to these groups, though, were not public, as they require at least a Yahoo login and occasionally a moderator’s approval to access; the number of posts made during each month, however, are publicly visible and so were gathered and totaled to track trends in Yahoo OVC groups’ quarterly activity levels. For VRI, ACV, S&M, AVA, HotD, and VCN, the total number of already archived posts were simply totaled for each quarter.

Results

OVC Activity Levels

Consistently over the time range analyzed, a single public online forum overcame all others in terms of activity at any given time. Specifically, as shown in Figure 1 below, Vampirism Research Institute (VRI), while modest in comparison to its successors in terms of activity, monopolized the OVC from its inception in 1997 through the founding of alt.culture.vampires (ACV) in 1998 when ACV provoked far more activity through VRI’s complete departure from active postings in 2001. Eventually, as ACV’s popularity gradually waned after its 2000 high point, the Smoke & Mirrors (S&M) forum began its ascent with its founding in 2002, overcoming ACV’s activity level in 2003 and maintaining that lead over other fora for years. Similarly, S&M held its position as top contributor to the publicly visible OVC until the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA) forum, entering the scene at the close of 2005, surpassed S&M in the final quarter of 2009, establishing itself as the chief OVC forum until the


Vampire Community News (VCN) Facebook group, first appearing in 2010, overtook it by far in 2012 and climbed to unprecedented levels of activity for the public OVC.

Figure 1. Contributions of Each OVC Forum to Overall Public OVC Activity by Quarter 1997 2014

The overall public OVC level of activity can be seen in Figure 2 below to have risen sharply from 1999 through 2000 before gradually waning and then staying mainly below 2,000 posts per quarter until 2012 and finally reaching its highest point yet in 2014.

Figure 2. Overall Public OVC Activity 1997 2014

Meanwhile, activity in the private Yahoo groups analyzed for activity level, as shown in


Figure 3 below, gradually climbed overall from 1999 through the second quarter of 2008 before sinking only to reach its highest point in the second quarter of 2010. After that, OVC activity in Yahoo groups plummeted and remained remarkably low through 2014.

Figure 3. OVC Overall Yahoo Group Activity 1997 2014

The overall increase in OVC activity from 1997 through 2014 can be partially explained by an increase in Internet use generally from approximately 60 million (around 1% of the world’s population of 5.9 billion at the time) in 1997 (International Telecommunication Union, 1997) to nearly 3 billion people (about 40.6% of the global population of roughly 7.2 billion) in 2014 (International Telecommunication Union, 2014).

Thematic Frequencies

Vampirism Research Institute’s guestbook accumulated 1,223 posts with an average of 64 posts and 33 posters per quarter from its inception in the first quarter of 1997 through its final post in the third quarter of 2001. The most frequent thematic category of posts throughout VRI’s activity was Vampiric Identity, making up 43.34% of all VRI’s posts, significantly higher than each of the other thematic categories identified. The individual theme with the highest frequency throughout VRI was OVC Fora/Sites, contributing to the IntraVC Issues category, at 18.89% (231 of 1,223 total posts) followed by Spirituality and the Supernatural at 17.58% (215 of 1,223 total posts).


Figure 4. VRI Overall Thematic Distribution

The alt.culture.vampires Usenet group drew far more activity, collecting a total of 29,980

posts with an average of 441 posts and 84 posters from the first quarter of 1998 through 2014. Again, VampiricIdentitythemed posts made up the majority of detected themes in this forum, followed by Religion/Spiritualitythemed posts which made up 46.72% of ACV posts. The most frequent individual theme arising in ACV posts was Spirituality and the Supernatural within the Religion/Spirituality category at 30.99% (9,290 of 29,980 total posts) followed by OVC Fora/Sites at 22.60% (6,774 of 29,980 total posts).


Figure 5. ACV Overall Thematic Distribution

Smoke & Mirrors similarly inspired primarily VampiricIdentitythemed posts followed

by posts regarding Religion/Spirituality between the third quarter of 2002 and 2014, over which time S&M produced 25,381 posts in its publicly visible forums. S&M averaged 508 posts and 36 posters per quarter during the analyzed range. At 24.07% (6,108 of 25,381 total posts), Spirituality and the Supernatural was the most frequently occurring individual theme in the S&M public forums followed by Feeding Methods in the Vampiric Identity category at 12.11% (3,073 of 25,381 total posts).


Figure 6. S&M Overall Thematic Distribution

From the third quarter of 2004 through 2014, the publicly accessible forums of House of

the Dreaming generated 2,491 posts with an average of 57 posts and 11 posters per quarter. Notably, the HotD forums focused far more heavily on Religion/Spirituality themes with these posts making up 59.78% of those analyzed, followed distantly by VampiricIdentitythemed posts at 33.68%. The most frequent individual theme detected in the HotD public forums was Spirituality and the Supernatural at 39.54% (985 of 2,491 total posts) followed by Mainstream Religion at 10.40% (259 of 2,491 total posts).


Figure 7. HotD Overall Thematic Distribution

Atlanta Vampire Alliance’s publicly visible posts, combining both AVA v1.0 and AVA

v2.0, from the final quarter of 2005 through 2014 numbered 9,535 with an average of 258 posts and 31 posters per quarter. AVA’s posts were dominated by VampiricIdentitythemed posts making up 53.26% followed by posts regarding Religion/Spirituality at 39.28%. At 26.50% (2,527 of 9,535 total posts), AVA’s most frequently detected individual theme was Spirituality and the Supernatural, followed by Feeding Methods in the Vampiric Identity category at 16.63% (1,586 of 9,535 total posts).


Figure 8. AVA Overall Thematic Distribution

In stark contrast to all other forums analyzed, the Vampire Community News Facebook group produced more Otherthemed posts than those of any other thematic category. Otherthemed posts made up 19.88% of posts, followed by 14.99% of posts regarding Religion/Spirituality, and 10.62% related to Vampiric Identity. VCN was also the most prolific public OVC forum analyzed, producing 32,027 posts with an average of 1,884 posts and 148 posters per quarter from the final quarter of 2010 through 2014. Of all individual themes in VCN’s posts, Brief Responses arose most often at 16.14% (5,168 of 32,027 total posts) followed by Spirituality and the Supernatural at 9.90% (3,171 of 32,027 total posts).


Figure 9. VCN Overall Thematic Distribution

Combining all 100,637 posts from all considered fora, the most prevalent thematic

category was Vampiric Identity at 35.45% (35,671 of 100,637 total posts) followed by Religion/Spirituality at 33.05% (33,261 of 100,637 total posts).


Figure 10. Public OVC Overall Thematic Distribution 1997 2014

Figure 11. OVC Thematic Trends 1997 2014


As demonstrated in Figure 11 above, the Vampiric Identity and Religion/Spirituality thematic categories were the most prominent except in 1998 when posts referencing VC Visibility themes took a small lead (52.2% versus 50.3% of public OVC posts) over VampiricIdentitythemed posts and, more recently, in 2012 through 2014 when Otherthemed posts surpassed all others by a strong margin. Of all Otherthemed posts from 2012 through 2014, an average of 77.6% (5,236 of 6,746 Otherthemed posts) were brief responses, far higher than any other themes in the Other category for these three years, as shown in Figure 12 below. The average percentage of brief responses in Otherthemed posts over all analyzed years is 28.1%, the most briefresponsedense year before 2012 appearing in 1997 with 46.9%. This major increase in the proportion of brief responses and, by extension, Otherthemed posts coincides precisely with the onset of VCN’s dominance in the public OVC.

Figure 12. Subjects of OtherThemed Posts 2012 2014

Within the most popular overall thematic category of the public OVC from 1997 through

2014, those relating to Vampiric Identity, discussions of the legitimacy of vampiric identities were most frequent, generating 9,012 posts, followed closely by posts describing feeding methods, which made up 8,840 of the total 35,671 posts qualifying as VampiricIdentitythemed.


Figure 13. Subjects of VampiricIdentityThemed Posts

Aggregating posts by the time ranges in which each forum was the most active (1997 for

VRI, 1998 through the third quarter of 2002 for ACV, the fourth quarter of 2002 through the third quarter of 2009 for S&M, the fourth quarter of 2009 through 2011 for AVA, and 2012 through 2014 for VCN), the mean number of posts per quarter in each thematic category is shown in Figure 14 below. ACV proved the most prolific in each category except Otherdominated soundly by VCN’s era with an average of 562 Otherthemed posts per quarter from 2012 through 2014in mean posts per quarter.


Figure 14. Mean Posts Per Quarter in Each Thematic Category by Forum Within That Forum’s

Era

Figure 15. Overall Thematic Category Percentages by Forum 19972014

As demonstrated in Figures 15 and 16, both the percentages and the number of posts in

each forum devoted to each thematic category varied widely. VRI, ranging from only 1997 through 2001 and producing only 1,223 posts in total, had a strikingly lower number of posts in


every thematic category than each of the other fora analyzed. At 35%, however, it had a higher percentage of posts dedicated to IntraVC Issues than any other forum. ACV, the longest continuously running public OVC forum included in analysis, generated more posts in every thematic category except Classifications, which was dominated by S&M, which had 6,697 Classificationsthemed posts, though those posts made up only 26.39% of S&M’s posts compared to 33.30% (3,175 Classificationsthemed posts of 9,535 total posts) in the AVA public forums. ACV also produced the highest number of VampiricIdentitythemed posts at 15,388 (51.33% of 29,980 total posts) though AVA’s forums contained a higher percentage of VampiricIdentitythemed posts at 53.26% (5,078 of 9,535 total posts). Similarly, ACV offered the most posts on Religion/Spirituality with 14,007 posts, though HotD had the highest percentage of posts on this subject by far with 59.78% (1,489 of 2,491 total analyzed posts). While VCN contained the highest number of Otherthemed posts at 6,367, both HotD (22.08%) and ACV (22.39%) had a higher percentage of posts with themes in the Other category than VCN (19.88%).

Figure 16. Overall Thematic Category Frequencies by Forum 1997 2014

Rates of Anger

With an average rate of anger from 1997 through 2014 of 24.86%, public OVC anger rates have gradually declined in recent years to levels consistent with prior findings of anger rates of 10.1% in VCN’s substantial posts (those eliciting 25 or more comments) from 2010 through 2014 (Hesperus, 2015, 16). Rates of anger reached a high in the third quarter of 2002 at 49.42%.


Figure 17. OVC Anger Levels (1997 2014)

The thematic category inspiring the highest rates of anger in the public OVC overall during the time range analyzed was VC Visibility at 50.19% of posts (11,550 of 23,012 total VCVisibility themed posts) with this theme registering as angry. The lowest anger rate belonged to Otherthemed posts, 32.26% (6,303 of 19,539) of which registered as angry.

Figure 18. Rates of Anger in Overall Public OVC Posts by Thematic Category 1997 2014


At 55.58% (847 of 1,524 posts), the rate of anger of posts regarding the theme of

“Vampires Depicted as Violent” was the highest not only of the VCVisibility themed posts, but of all themes in all categories analyzed. While the proportion of VampiresDepictedasViolent posts that were angry was higher than each other theme in the VCVisibility category, that superior proportion was only statistically significant (ɑ = 0.01) over the proportions of ActualVampiresinMedia, VampiresinContemporary Fiction, Folkloric/MythicalVampires, “Turning”Requests/Speculation, and News posts. At the 0.01 significance level there was insufficient evidence to confirm that anger occurred in VampiresDepicted asViolent posts significantly more frequently than in posts related to ConflictWithNonVampires, Scholarly/MedicalResearch, or VampireHunters.

Figure 19. Rates of Anger in VCVisibilityThemed Posts

Grouping angry posts by thematic category in Figure 20, the number of angry posts in

each category spiked in the first quarter of 2000, aligning with the spike in general activity shown in Figures 1 and 2 and the increase in the number of posts belonging to each thematic category as shown in Figure 11.


Figure 20. Trends in Angry OVC Post Frequency by Thematic Category 1997 2014

Discussion

OVC Activity Levels

Each forum’s overall number of posts follows predictably from their unique histories and the nature of this analysis. VRI, providing the lowest level of activity recorded, was also the earliest and shortest lived, and was never originally intended for use as a forum for interaction. Accordingly, it attracted a relatively small number of posters who then, as indicated by VRI’s most frequent individual theme, OVC Fora/Sites, likely found their way to more comprehensive fora. The activity levels seen in S&M, HotD, and AVA appear lower than they might otherwise due to the exclusion from analysis of the private or inapplicable subfora, largely explaining the apparent decrease in activity after ACV’s popularity began to wane. VCN’s exceptionally high levels of activity owe themselves in large part to the network effect of Facebook, allowing vast numbers of users easy access via a site many frequent daily.

Thematic Frequencies

The context of each group also sheds light on the different levels of interest each forum demonstrated in varying themes. It is unsurprising that VRI’s most frequent individual theme was OVC Fora/Sites given the board’s original purpose as a guestbook that specifically encouraged visitors to mention their own websites. VCN’s high frequency of brief responses likely follows primarily from its nature as an open Facebook group; because of Facebook’s policy of requiring users to hold only a single account that bears their legal name, any user interested in commenting on the content of a VCN post must be willing to risk anyone else with


access to Facebook, including employers and others who may not be aware of that commenter’s affiliation with the (O)VC, discovering and reacting to their statements.

Aside from explicable deviations in some of the fora, the groups analyzed displayed a striking consistency in thematic focus. Notably, spirituality and the supernatural was the most frequent individual theme in all analyzed fora except VRI and VCN, in which spirituality and the supernatural was the second most frequent theme, suggesting a broad interest throughout the public OVC in topics relating to the paranormal. The most frequent thematic category in VRI, ACV, S&M, and AVA as well as the analyzed fora overall was vampiric identity, the most frequent themes of which were the legitimacy of vampiric identities and feeding methods, indicating a significant interest in the OVC in both the limits of the vampiric subcultural identity and practical means of meeting the needs that form the foundation of those identities for many of the subculture’s members.

Rates of Anger

The themes eliciting the highest rates of anger belonged to the VC Visibility category and primarily featured discussions of violence or conflict. That depictions of vampires as violent registered as more angry than any other theme analyzed follows naturally from the fact that the discussion of violence immediately registers as aggressive, requiring only that commenters speak on the subject with some indicator of disinhibition for posts to further convey anger. Similarly with posts regarding vampire hunters, conversations about hunting, particularly when members of one’s own community are the target, require aggressive language and naturally inspire emotional arousal. Conflict with nonvampires also registered as one of the most highly angry themes, as descriptions of conflict lend themselves to aggressive language as well.

Perhaps most telling is the high rate of anger detected in posts related to scientific or academic research into the vampire subculture. That this topic, which includes no inherent reference to aggression, registers as so frequently angry in analysis indicates that this theme tends to inspire angry responses in OVC participants. Conclusion

The public online vampire community has grown considerably since the nineties, branching off from sites dedicated to fans of vampire fiction and the vampire mythos by founding new sites run by and for members of the real vampire subculture. Both the number of sites and the overall OVC activity has grown to unprecedented levels in recent years and the level of anger expressed in those fora has greatly decreased. OVC discussions have consistently focused on spirituality and the supernatural and themes relating to the vampiric identity, primarily the legitimacy of vampiric identities and feeding methods. Further understanding the nature and development of the vampire subculture requires continuing to record and


contextualize its history. Future research should pay particular attention to the spirituality and vampiric identity issues most frequently arising in analysis.


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Retzinger, S. M. (1991). Violent emotions: Shame and rage in marital quarrels. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Vyrdolak. (n.d.). The real vampire community’s early days. Retrieved from http://bylightunseen.net/earlydays.htm


Appendix I: Thematic Analysis Methodology

All OVC posts included in this project were subjected to automated analysis in order to detect the presence of specific keywords or phrases indicative of certain themes. After collecting all posts and related data (e.g.: dates and user ids for each post) from their respective websites, each post was scanned for the inclusion of keywords or phrases associated with themes expected by the author to appear at some point within OVC posts. Posts in which some reference to vampires or vampirism were detected but no specific themes were found were then reviewed manually to identify what themes those posts referenced and the keywords or phrases in those posts indicating their themes were added to the existing thematic keyword lists and/or new lists were created for newly discovered themes. This process was repeated until the number of unidentified vampiric posts was negligible and every post was reevaluated using the final set of thematic keywords to assure no identifiable themes were overlooked. When individual posts were found to refer to multiple themes, those posts were tagged with every theme detected.

A reference to a particular theme in a post does not imply that the poster held either a positive or negative opinion toward that topic; it indicates nothing more than that the theme identified by the analyzer was found worthy of mention. As such, the results of this analysis point to the relevance to the OVC of particular themes at various times, but not necessarily to those themes’ popularity. The scope of each theme and each encompassing thematic category as well as examples of posts that would qualify as each theme follow.

Sub or OtherClassifications/Identities within or relating to the community Sang: posts referencing sanguinarian vampires or vampirism (e.g.: including phrases such as

“consumption of human blood” or “who here is a sang?”) Psi: posts referring to psi or psychic vampires or vampirism (e.g.: “psychic vampires” or “psi

vampirism”) Hybrid: posts discussing vampires who feed by two or more methods (e.g: “is vampiric

hybridism on the rise?” or “I feed on both blood and psi energy”) Donors/Swans: references to those who donate or otherwise offer support to vampires (e.g.:

“looking for a donor in the Seattle area” or “I’ve been a Black Swan for nearly a decade”) Otherkin/Therians: posts referring to therians, therianthropy, otherkin, or otherkinity (e.g.: “the

idea that werewolves and vampires are natural enemies is just a myth” or “I identify as both vampire and demonkin”)

IntraVC Issues: themes relating to the development and maintenance of the VC by its members Specific (O)VC groups/events/gatherings OVC fora/sites: any posts mentioning other OVC forums or sites (e.g.: “Hall of Memories is now

up and running!” or “Check out the Real Vampires Support Page for more info”)


VC governing bodies: posts referring to an actual or hypothetical attempt at a VCwide government or council (e.g.: “a vampire ‘High Council’ dictating guidelines for the whole community is doomed to failure” or “is there any hope for a successful vampire central authority?”)

Seeking contact/meetups: posts seeking to make personal contact with others (e.g.: “is there anyone here in the Washington state area?” or “anybody interested in chatting about real vampirism can contact me by email”)

Sang vs Psi disputes: posts featuring or referring to arguments based on primary feeding methods or the identities corresponding to those feeding methods (e.g.: “psi ‘vampires’ have no legitimate claim to the word ‘vampire’” or “Sangs are more aggressive and violent than psis”)

Racial representation within the VC: posts mentioning race as it relates to the VC (e.g.: “what percentage of the VC is nonwhite?” or “vampires are of all different races”)

Caste system: posts referencing a vampirespecific caste system (e.g.: “Kitra are natural counselors” or “I’m so grateful there was a Mradu there to help me keep a cool head”)

VC Visibility/Relations with NonVampires: themes relating to how vampires interact with or are seen by nonvampires Conflict with nonvampires: posts describing conflict between vampires and nonvampires (e.g.:

“the legal system discriminates against selfidentified vampires” or “Social and cultural stigma keeps the vampire/et. al. subcultures underground”)

Actual vampires in media: references to selfidentifying vampires in the mainstream media (e.g.: “did anyone see Don Henrie on Mad Mad House last night?” or “what did you think of the A&E special with LadyCg in it?”)

Vampires described/depicted as violent: posts describing vampires as violent (e.g.: “vampires are monsters who kill people in the streets for blood” or “vampires are all sadistic”)

Vampires in contemporary fiction/pop culture: posts referring to vampires as represented in fiction and/or pop culture (e.g.: “I’m tired or Buffy and Twilight fans flooding our forums” or “Anne Rice’s novels are generally wellwritten”)

Folkloric/mythical vampires: posts referring to folkloric or mythical vampires (e.g.: “it was believed that a vampyre may not enter a dwelling unless he/she is invited” or “the idea that vampires are allergic to garlic came from the tendency of vampire hunters to wear garlic around their necks to guard against the smell of open graves”)

”Turning” requests or speculation: posts discussing the possibility of turning a nonvampire into a vampire or requesting such a conversion (e.g.: “I would do anything in exchange for a Dark Embrace” or “vampires can’t pass on their vampirism by swapping of blood”)

Scholarly/Medical/Academic Research regarding real vampirism: posts discussing scholarly or medical research related to real vampirism (e.g.: “Laycock’s latest paper is a breath of fresh air” or “it’s about time we started scientifically explaining vampirism”)


Vampire Hunters: posts discussing those who claim to hunt vampires (e.g.: “socalled ‘vampire hunters’ have watched one too many movies” or “I got a message from this guy saying he was a vampire hunter”)

News: posts referring to recent events or news articles (e.g.: “I’m so sick of seeing killers in the newspaper described as ‘vampires’” or “according to the Associated Press, sentencing will take place next Monday”)

Vampire Identity/Experience: themes relating to how individuals relate to, experience, and express their vampiric identity Vocabulary: Proper definition of “vampire”: posts discussing how to define “vampire” or “vampirism”

(e.g.: “according to MerriamWebster, ‘vampires’ are reanimated corpses” or “what exactly are the criteria for labelling a vampire?”)

Identity label other than “vampire”: posts proposing or addressing labels other than “vampire” for members of the VC (e.g.: “I prefer the term ‘hemophage’ to ‘vampire’” or “can’t we come up with some name for ourselves other than vampire?”)

Collective noun for vampires: posts discussing a possible term for a collection of more than one vampire (e.g.: “would a group of vampires be called a ‘brood’?” or “I heard a group of two or more vampires was called a Kiss of vampires”)

Nightside Names: posts referring to specific names adopted by members of the VC for use within the VC (e.g.: “when I awakened I gave myself my name” or “Nightside names are essential to keep some vampires safe”)

Origins/Etiology of Vampirism: posts discussing the possible origins of vampires or vampirism (e.g.: “some claim that all vampires are descendants of Cain” or “is it possible vampirism is some kind of virus?”)

Legitimacy of vampiric identity: posts questioning or asserting the validity of an individual’s vampiric identity or of the vampiric identity in general (e.g.: “anyone calling himself a vampire is delusional” or “she’s just a LARPing wannabe vamp”)

Is Vampirism a choice?: discussions of whether or not people can consciously choose to be vampires (e.g.: “anyone who suggests vampirism is a choice has probably never suffered the effects of not feeding” or “vampires are born that way”)

Awakening: posts relating to the process of Awakening (e.g.: “at what age did you Awaken to your vampiric nature?” or “I started having vivid dreams about feeding when I Awakened”)

”Cure” for vampirism: posts discussing or refuting possible means of ending an individual’s vampirism or vampirismrelated traits or ending all vampirism as a whole (e.g.: “I’m looking for a cure for blood cravings” or “a vampire’s chakras cannot be fixed”)

Vampirespecific traits: discussions of characteristics associated with vampirism (e.g.: “vampires tend to report higher than average sensitivity to sunlight” or “vampires can recognize each other by what is sometimes referred to as their ‘Beacon’”)


Longevity/Vampiric Aging: posts referring to vampirespecific patterns of aging or longevity (e.g.: “vampires may seem to age a lot more slowly, but we’re not actually immortal” or “I’m going through vampopause”)

Feeding Methods/Tips (General): posts offering detailed descriptions or general discussions of vampiric feeding methods (e.g.: “always use sterile lancets for drawing donor blood” or “feeding on ambient energy between more substantial donations helps to stave off the headaches”)

Religion and Spirituality Mainstream religion: any post mentioning mainstream religion or its adherents (e.g.: “are there

any Muslim vampires in this forum?” or “the Christians next door keep making the sign of the cross whenever they see me”)

Spirituality and the supernatural: posts addressing spiritualitywhether religious or notand/or any topic relating to the supernatural (e.g.: “astral projection” or “I think my house is haunted”)

Empathy: posts referencing empathy (e.g.: “I associate my naturally high level of empathy with my vampirism” or “I can certainly empathize with that”)

Morality/Ethics: references to morality or ethics (e.g.: “it’s immoral to feed on someone without their consent” or “is it ethical to feed on animal blood if the animal is mostly unharmed when no human donor is available?”)

Other Brief response: any post consisting of two or fewer words (e.g.: “lol” or “f@$# you!”) Mainstream Politics: comments including references to general, nonvampirespecific political

topics (e.g.: “Republicandominated Congress” or “I miss President Reagan”) Sex/Sexuality: posts referring to sexual acts or sexuality (e.g.: “drawing blood can be intensely

erotic” or “I’m primarily submissive in the bedroom”) Goth: any mention of the goth subculture (e.g.: “I’m not really that big a fan of goth music” or

“goth fashion really helps me express my vampiric identity”) Items for sale: posts offering something in exchange for money (e.g.: “mint first edition hardback

copy of Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire only $9.99!” or “check out this alleged vampire hunter’s tool set on ebay”)

Anger: Aggression + Disinhibition Aggression: posts tagged as aggressive contained one or more words from a list of hostile terms

derived from the General Inquirer (GI) master spreadsheet (Harvard University, 2000). The “Hostile” entries in the GI initially contained 833 words. Eliminating redundancies and words that might not read as aggressive depending upon the context, 701 words remained.


Disinhibition: any posts including indicators of general emotional arousal such as profanity (Jay, 2009), the use of multiple consecutive exclamation points or question marks (Neviarouskaya, Prendinger, & Ishizuka, 2007, 226), writing with a period between each word or syllable (Retzinger, 1991, 74), or typing in all capital letters (Neviarouskaya, Prendinger, & Ishizuka, 2007, 226) registered as signifying a disinhibited state on the part of the commenter.

Anger: posts were tagged as angry when they registered as both aggressive and disinhibited. For example, “I hate pretzels” wouldn’t be read as angry even though it contains aggressive language (i.e.: “hate”) because it includes no indication of the heightened emotion generally associated with anger. On the other hand, “I HATE YOU!!!” would be labelled as an angry post, as it contains both aggressive wording and indicators of disinhibition.


Appendix II: Data

Available upon request


Appendix III: Research Hypotheses and Statistical Tests

Proportion of VRI Posts Belonging to the Vampiric Identity Thematic Category Descriptive Statistics

Thematic Category Number of Posts (n) Proportion of Posts Belonging to Category

Classifications 1223 0.10

IntraVC Issues 1223 0.35

VC Visibility 1223 0.28

Vampiric Identity 1223 0.43

Religion/Spirituality 1223 0.30

Other 1223 0.12 Inferential Statistics

H1: Vampiric Identity proportion > proportion of:

Test Performed

Test Statistic Value

pvalue Significance Level (ɑ)

Conclusion: Claim Is

Classifications TwoSample zTest 18.6027 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

IntraVC Issues

TwoSample zTest 4.2252 0.000012 0.01 SUPPORTED

VC Visibility TwoSample zTest 7.9807 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

Religion/ Spirituality

TwoSample zTest 6.9698 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

Other TwoSample zTest 17.0443 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED


Interpretation: the proportion of posts made to the Vampirism Research Institute’s online guestbook belonging to the Vampiric Identity thematic category was significantly higher than the proportion of VRI’s posts belonging to any other thematic category. Proportion of ACV Posts Belonging to the Vampiric Identity Thematic Category Descriptive Statistics









Test Performed





IntraVC Issues







Interpretation: the proportion of posts made to the alt.culture.vampires Usenet group belonging to the Vampiric Identity thematic category was significantly higher than the proportion of ACV’s posts belonging to any other thematic category. Proportion of S&M Posts Belonging to the Vampiric Identity Thematic Category Descriptive Statistics









Test Performed





IntraVC Issues







Interpretation: the proportion of posts made to the Smoke & Mirrors public online fora belonging to the Vampiric Identity thematic category was significantly higher than the proportion of S&M’s posts belonging to any other thematic category. Proportion of HotD Posts Belonging to the Religion/Spirituality Thematic Category Descriptive Statistics








H1: Religion/ Spirituality proportion > proportion of:

Test Performed





IntraVC Issues



Vampiric TwoSample zTest 18.4575 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED


Identity


Interpretation: the proportion of posts made to the House of the Dreaming’s public online fora belonging to the Religion/Spirituality thematic category was significantly higher than the proportion of HotD’s posts belonging to any other thematic category. Proportion of AVA Posts Belonging to the Vampiric Identity Thematic Category Descriptive Statistics









Test Performed





IntraVC Issues







Interpretation: the proportion of posts made to the Atlanta Vampire Alliance’s public online fora belonging to the Vampiric Identity thematic category was significantly higher than the proportion of AVA’s public posts belonging to any other thematic category. Proportion of VCN Posts Belonging to the Other Thematic Category Descriptive Statistics








H1: Other proportion > proportion of:

Test Performed





IntraVC Issues




Vampiric Identity




Interpretation: the proportion of posts made to the Vampire Community News Facebook group belonging to the Other thematic category was significantly higher than the proportion of VCN’s posts belonging to any other thematic category. Proportion of Total Posts That Were Brief Responses Descriptive Statistics

Forum Number of Posts (n) Proportion of Posts that were Brief Responses

VCN 32027 0.16

VRI 1223 0.04

ACV 29980 0.01

S&M 25381 0.04

HotD 2491 0.06

AVA 9535 0.05

Inferential Statistics

H1: VCN’s proportion > proportion of:

Test Performed




VRI TwoSample zTest 11.9152 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

ACV TwoSample zTest 68.0853 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

S&M TwoSample zTest 45.8074 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED


HotD TwoSample zTest 13.9059 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

AVA TwoSample zTest 28.4806 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

Interpretation: the proportion of posts that qualify as brief responses was significantly higher in the Vampire Community News Facebook group than in each of the other OVC fora analyzed.

Mean Number of Posts Per Quarter by Forum

Descriptive Statistics

Forum Number of Quarters Analyzed (n)

Standard Deviation Mean Number of Posts Per Quarter

VCN 17 1992.242658 1883.941176

VRI 19 75.34897369 64.36842105

ACV 68 862.8829417 440.8823529

S&M 50 497.3535223 507.62

HotD 44 36.37288532 56.61363636

AVA 37 397.5845728 257.7027027

Inferential Statistics

H1: VCN’s mean > mean of:

Test Performed




VRI TwoSample zTest 3.763343918 0.000084 0.01 SUPPORTED

ACV TwoSample zTest 2.918864695 0.001761 0.01 SUPPORTED

S&M TwoSample zTest 2.818699669 0.002416 0.01 SUPPORTED

HotD TwoSample zTest 3.781557092 0.000078 0.01 SUPPORTED


AVA TwoSample zTest 3.335253499 0.000426 0.01 SUPPORTED

Interpretation: VCN has a significantly higher mean number of posts per quarter than each of the other analyzed fora.

Proportion of Thematic Categories Registering as Angry


Thematic Category Number of Total Posts Per Category (n)

Proportion of Posts Belonging to Category That

Were Angry







H1: VC Visibility proportion > proportion of:

Test Performed





IntraVC Issues


Vampiric Identity






Interpretation: posts related to VC Visibility were found to be angry significantly more often than posts in each of the other thematic categories.

Proportion of VC Visibility Themes Registering as Angry


Theme Number of Total Posts Per Theme (n)

Proportion of Posts Belonging to Theme That

Were Angry

Conflict With NonVampires 287 0.53

Actual Vampires in Media 675 0.45

Vampires Depicted as Violent 1524 0.56

Vampires in Contemporary Fiction 4715 0.48

Folkloric/Mythical Vampires 4210 0.49

“Turning” Requests/Speculation 4460 0.52

Scholarly/Medical Research 1942 0.54

Vampire Hunters 1239 0.56

News 3960 0.48 Inferential Statistics

H1: Vampires as Violent proportion > proportion of:

Test Performed





Conflict With NonVampires

TwoSample zTest 0.9262 0.177171 0.01 INSUFFICIENT

Actual Vampires in Media


Vampires in Contemporary Fiction


Folkloric/ Mythical Vampires


“Turning” Requests/ Speculation

TwoSample zTest 2.4336 0.00755 0.01 SUPPORTED

Scholarly/ Medical Research


Vampire Hunters


News TwoSample zTest 5.3592 < 0.00001 0.01 SUPPORTED

Interpretation: posts relating to the theme of Vampires Depicted as Violent were significantly more angry than posts related to Actual Vampires in Media, Vampires in Contemporary Fiction, Folkloric or Mythical Vampires, “Turning” Requests or Speculation, and News. Those posts regarding the violent depiction of vampires were not statistically significantly more angry at the 0.01 significance level than posts tagged with the themes Conflict with NonVampires, Scholarly or Medical Research, and Vampire Hunters.