The Vampire in Popular Media

Vampires, blood-thirsty creatures that have preyed on the living for centuries. Almost 120 years ago Bram Stoker’s Dracula painted us a picture of how terrifying, yet seductive, these supernatural beasts can be. As time moved forward, various artists: writers, actors, directors, continue to create images of the vampire. Thanks to popular media: books, movies, and TV programs such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, Only Lovers Left Alive, Twilight, and True Blood, the deadly beautiful creature known as the vampire continues to capture the attention of audiences of many ages.

The Sexy Supernatural

Zombies, ghost, and even witches on some occasions are depicted as ugly, and deformed creatures, with rotting flesh, missing limbs, unnatural skin, but not the vampire. Of course in most depictions the vampire looks paler than the average human, but other than that, you normally wouldn’t suspect they’re different. They stand out in looks though, appearing more beautiful than the average human being. This gives him or her the advantage, making it easier to lure his/her fictional victim in first, followed by his real, live audience: listeners, viewers, and readers.

In his article Fearless Vampire Kissers: Bloodsuckers We Love in Twilight, True Blood, and Others, Bernard Beck talked about the sexual elements of the vampire that started being presented explicitly in the 1950s and the 1960s. The vampire’s attractiveness and mysterious sensuality made it that easier for him to get the girl. He is not only “a mortal threat to their lives, he was also an irresistible stimulus to their passions.” This is a common theme in most modern day vampire programs because their seems to always be at least on male vampire who manages to sexually attract a curious human female.

One reason this is possible is the actors and actresses who play them are found to be attractive to other people. Probably one of most well-known performances was by Bela Lugosi, in the 1931 film, Dracula. As the years progressed more actors would add glamour and elegance to the vampire image in their own depictions. I remember seeing a trailer a while back on YouTube for a vampire movie from 1983 called The Hunger. The movie starred David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon a cast of actors who at the time were considered beautiful, sensual, elegant, and sexy in their own degree, allowing the seductiveness of their characters to stand out.

In later media featuring the creature such as the popular HBO series True Blood, and the CW series Vampire Diaries actors such as Alexander Skarsgard, Ian Somerhalder, Paul Wesley, and Nina Dobrev would hypnotize us with their attractive features: their muscles, beautiful eyes, and overall fit forms. Even if these are features that the actor or actress already had to begin with, it shows that the one of the first things we are meant to notice about the vampires is their physical beauty.

Stephanie Meyer’s popular book turned movie series Twilight, took the image of the vampire to a new level though. Rather than catching fire and turning into a pile of ashes like the vampires of Dracula or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampires of Twilight shined like diamonds in the light. Thus making them more attractive to the human eyes. As long writers and directors continue to make create a sexually and physically attractive image for the vampire, people will continue to allow themselves to be hypnotized by the vampire.

The Gender Role in Vampires

When Dracula was published in 1897, it created an image of the male vampire, and his victim was always a woman who met the standards of Victorian beauty. The count himself was the only male vampire depicted in this literature and adaption. In her 2010 research article, Sins of the flesh: anorexia, eroticism and the female vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Emma Domı´nguez-Rue´ explains that most Victorian women indulged in food whenever possible; these were the women who were believed to have a large sexual appetite, and when the three vampire sisters fed on Harker he noticed these qualities right of the back, and it drew him in.

Contrary to Bram Stoker’s depiction of the female vampire, many recreated versions of the female vampire are depicted as thin, busty, and curvy. There are also some cases where the female vampire is seducing a male victim and attempts to seduce him so she can turn him and use him for her own desires. This has been seen in Buffy The Vampire Slayer with Buffy’s vampire lovers Angel and Spike; Angel was sired by Darla and Spike was sired by Angel’s creation, Drusilla. A similar thing happened in True Blood when we discover that protagonist Bill Compton was turned into a vampire during the civil war by a vampire woman named Lorena.

There are still male vampires who seduce and lure women, such as in Twilight and Vampire Diaries, but it can be seen in media that the female vampire has been given a stronger and more seductive personality to make them appear just as dangerous as the male vampire.

The Vampire-Curious Female

Bella Swan from Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood are both characters that interest and curiosity in the vampire. Of course unlike Bella who had to figure out exactly what Edward was for herself, Sookie already knew that Bill was a vampire when she first encountered him. Both of these women entered similar situations though as they became so fascinated by the vampire concept that they took time to learn about the vampire men and eventually fell in love with them.

Bella and Sookie are generally naïve heroines in the beginning though, and learn how to mature when being with a vampire starts leading to dangerous and even life-threatening events.

Buffy is different from both these heroines in that way because she had to learn how to toughen up when she discovered she was the slayer and that her destiny was to fight the demons that walked the earth. This gave her some time to mature a little more than Sookie and Bella before she met her first vampire lover, and she was younger than both the other heroines by the time she met Angel.

The danger and romance elements that are present in these situations creates a genre that seems to draw in the female viewer at the very least. It can create this sense of envy, making us wish we could be as strong as the young heroine and brave dangers while still keeping our deep and attractive vampire companion/lover.

Why We Hold Onto Them

Despite all the violence that tends to occur in vampire novels, TV shows, and movies, we are still drawn into them. Of course we are able to understand that since these are fictional creatures and events. So things like a war between vampires and werewolves or a form of hepatitis that affects vampires when they drink from infected humans, are going not going to occur any time in the future.

As Linda Heidenreich pointed out in her article Vampires Among Us, the current condition of our culture inspires fear in the people and that is what has caused the up rise of the vampire media. Perhaps one of the reasons why we find ourselves attracted to them is to escape the dangers that are currently occurring in our country and our world that are caused by factors such as terrorism, LGBT rights, political disclosures, and the rise in immigrant population. The vampires are unwelcomed and unwanted aliens that attempt to and sometimes succeed in crossing our borders, much like the unwanted people that we tend to fear mainly because they are different from ourselves; to us the vampire is the monster, like they are.

While I see this as holding some truth because we tend to fear the unknown, I also think the vampire also draws us in because we know that they are fictional and by comparing them to those that we fear, we are in a sense able to make ourselves believe the monsters aren’t real. Yet there is still also the sense of beauty and glamour about their attitudes and appearances that draws us in. With all of these factors combined and put into a tangible and viewable media, we will continue to be seduced and captivated by the cruelly elegant and beautiful monster that we know as the vampire.

Larry Hochberger, One of the Few Original Print Journalists

I walk into the office for the Chestnut Hill Local, and ascend a flight of narrow stairs on my left. I’ve never been to a newspaper office before, so I have no idea what to expect, but I was still surprised, a small narrow section of the top floor, and everything that goes on in such a space is part of creating the small circulation town paper. There is a man sitting behind a desk as I enter the office and I tell him I’m there to see Larry Hochberger, the associate publisher. He leaves and a few seconds later I am greeted by a tall lean man with gray hair and glasses, at least he is what I expected age wise. He introduces himself as Larry and ushers me to his office at the end of the hall.

His office is small, but it looks neat enough, the walls are plain except for a few color painting and a calendar on one wall. His desk looks organized, the only thing that looks remotely close to clutter is a few copies of the Chestnut Hill Local on top of it.

After briefly asking me a little bit about myself, how I am in my senior year, I am a journalism major, I am originally from New Jersey, etc. I begin asking Larry the questions

He grew up in Villanova, about 10 miles from his office, adding that it was “a typical all-American situation.” He tells me about his education background at Episcopal Academy and how he began writing about sports for a local newspaper called the Main Line Times, a paper that still exists in print today.

Journalism was not a field he originally planned on studying though. He tells me that went to Northwestern University in Illinois, a school he attended because he “liked the idea of a suburban college not in a city but not far from the city.” Originally a history major, Larry began writing articles for the student paper, something he adds, that his older sister had done as well when she attended college a few years prior.

“I decided I wanted to take a journalism course,” he said. “And they said you can’t take a journalism course because you’re not in the school of journalism. He was told that he would need to transfer into the school of journalism and then transfer out once he completed the course. So that was exactly what he did, “but I really got my journalism education writing for the student newspaper,” he says.

Throughout his college career, Larry’s journalism career would continue and new journalistic opportunities would arise.

While he was still in college, an election year came along, and he and other writers for their college newspapers had the opportunity to go to Chicago and cover the campaigns.

“We got to go meet presidential candidates, and go to rallies,” Larry said. “I was 18-years-old and I got to go meet presidential candidates and write stories about stuff and it was really exciting.”

He would continue to write for the college’s newspaper, the Northwestern Daily for the rest of his years at Northwestern, and in his senior year of college in 1974 Larry’s career in journalism took another step forward when he became the editor-in-chief of the Northwestern Daily.

Then in 1975 Larry was decided to further his education, but not in journalism. He attended University of Miami Law School.

He wasn’t sure what his next step was, he tells me. “I liked journalism, and I liked law. I thought I would be able to see what a legal education was like and I thought it would be useful no matter what.”

Yet he did not stray from journalism, while in law school he worked for the Miami Herald in their legal department, and as a reporter during his second and third summers of law school.

“I was feeling around to which of these I would do and how,” he says. He thought about doing things like media law, legal reporting, and entrepreneurial journalism, before deciding that he was going to find a small newspaper to run.

He eventually found a small newspaper in suburban Washington, and started doing his own production work.

“We bought our own equipment, and we ran our own shop in college,” Larry told me. “So when I got my own paper I decided that we can do the same thing, in addition to publishing my own paper we can publish other people’s papers.”

This is something that he still does to this day with Chestnut Hill College’s paper, The Griffin, as well as other organizations’ papers. This led him to start a business called Type Incorporated, which he became president of and “ended up doing about 120 school newspapers in the Washington area.”

The company also helped schools who didn’t have newspapers get them started and helped schools that did have papers sell advertising for them, and produce the papers.

“It was a lot of work, but it was a lot fun,” he says. “I loved working with the students; and we actually partnered with the Washington Post to put papers in schools that didn’t have them. There were inner city schools that didn’t have newspapers in them and the Washington Post was interested in doing it and we were too, so we partnered up and got a newspaper going in every inner city school.”

I looked at my questions to remind myself what comes next, the next question feels out of place to me after asking all my previous questions and hearing all these fascinating stories, but it’s still on the list and I think it’s important to know.

“If you had to add it all up right now, how long have you been working in the print news industry?” I ask him.

He pauses to think on it for a minutes. “If I count since I was in high school when I started writing for the Main Line Times, and I was about 17, that’s 45 years.”

This is a surprise. I knew there are people who start young in the field of journalism, but I never thought I’d meet someone who’s been in the field for close to 50 years.

“It’s actually quite impressive,” I say.

Next I ask him how he found his way to the Chestnut Hill Local. He says had to move back to the area for family reasons, and “started over” taking a job as a classified manager for a big print paper known as the Delaware Daily Times.

“It was a different experience for me,” he says. “It was a big staff, it was a union organization, and it was owned by a national company, but overall it was a good experience.”

Next he tells me how he found his current job that “required a very unique skill set.”

“They wanted somebody that had experience in circulation, editorial, print, and advertising,” he says. “And because I owned my own paper I’d done all those things. So I think it was a really good match for both of us.” 

“What do you like about this area?” I ask looking at the next question in front of me.

“I like the city, but I like not being in it,” he says. Then he mentions some small things like being able to park, traveling around easily, and the safe and friendly atmosphere of the town. Overall he thinks it’s a nice place to work, and how Philadelphia has changed a lot for the better compared to how it used to be years back.

Going back to my questions about print media I ask him what he enjoys about print news.  He calls it “immediate but not too immediate.” Before I can ask him if he can elaborate on that answer though he starts explaining what he means.

“You have time to think things through and write longer stories,” he says. “It’s not just a headline and a blurb. With a weekly newspaper you have the time to put things together and to put more why in the story and not just the what.”

He also explains the value of holding an actual newspaper and being able to retain what he reads better, and visually interesting.

“With print you find what you don’t expect to find,” he says. “Online, if you don’t like the headline you don’t read the story. In a newspaper the stuff is just there and you stumble on stuff that you might not have read, but you find it interests you.”

I asked him if he’s ever written anything specifically for online, as a supervisor he handles mostly the business side of the paper so he doesn’t write much anymore, but when he was writing for papers he never wrote anything online.

“Our paper produces news for both print and online, so I’m sort of responsible,” he says. “Our editors are responsible for what our paper puts out though.

I ask him if he was any social media accounts and if he is active on them. He has only has a Facebook and he is working on setting up a Twitter, but he is not as active on social media as he’d like to be, but he is attempting to become more active on it.

Still staying on the topic of social media, I ask if he thinks the Chestnut Hill Local has encouraged involvement on social media.

“Maybe some,” he says. “We have a Facebook account and several hundred followers. We encourage it online, we encourage it in print, but I think we’re lagging behind what we should be.”

That actually surprises me too, but he explains it is because most of their audience still reads print so they are less into online content and social media. To me this makes sense given the size of the Chestnut Hill Local.

“Do you see the Chestnut Hill Local remaining in print in the next decade,” I ask.

He tells me that’s a good question and admits that he thinks it’s going to be close.

“Five years I would say yes, ten years, I’m not so sure,” he says truthfully. “We discuss this every day, just as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time Magazine, and everybody else is discussing this as to what’s happening.”

He continues to make comparisons to other forms of media. “When television came people said radio was dead, and yet there’s still radio stations,” he says. “And people said that magazines would kill newspapers but they didn’t. So yes, I think they’ll still be around, but in what form whether it be daily, weekly, or monthly, I don’t know because we’re all trying to figure it out.”

He pauses for a minute but goes on telling me that with online news you’re generating little to no revenue and at the end of the day “it’s still a business, and you need to sell news to your readers, and sell those readers to your advertisers.”

I soon realize that I’m asking so many questions about print papers that I’m not really asking him about himself, so I ask him if he has any hobbies, besides writing of course.

Yes, he plays sports, runs, and reads, and he has to kids, but other than that that’s about it.

Back on the topic of newspapers, I ask if there is something, in his opinion, that print news has to offer that digital news doesn’t offer.

“It’s an intangible of the experience reading a print newspaper,” he says. He says that with a digital news story you need to “jump online or its dead.” Whereas with a print newspaper you can be “more careful, more colorful, and more interesting” with your stories.  From a consumer’s perspective he tells me that he likes reading the paper and “stumbling across stories, looking at how things are written, looking at the type, the layout, and the way the pages are put together.”

He goes on saying that while most of the big-name papers like The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal are producing things online, all of the good news is still found mostly in print.

“Can you tell me where you think you see print newspapers in general being in the next decade?”

He believes “national print newspapers will probably be gone,” with very few exceptions such as The New York Times.

“I think print publications that you need, like The Wall Street Journal, if you’re in the business world, or Advertising Age you need if you’re in the advertising world,” he explains.

Other city publications though, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, he does not know “if they’re going to make it.”

The local ones, he thinks, seem to be doing better and they will hang on longer.

“I think there will be some survivors, but I think it will be really different,” he says.

Looking at my questions again I realize that I only have one question left to, an interesting one in my opinion.

“If you were to write an autobiography about yourself, what would you title it?” I ask.

He laughs and ponders for several seconds. I guess that’s one question that he wasn’t expecting at all. Finally he gives me an answer.

“We May be the Last Local Newspaper,” he says. “There’s very few independent local newspapers left, and ours has been successful, but there are still very few papers like that left. And I would hate for that to be the case, but in a city or suburban environment there’s none like us, and while that’s not me that’s what I’m doing now.”

While that may not be an answer I was looking for I still find it to be an interesting choice, because it still reflects what this man has done, over four decades he his career has been focused on the production of print newspapers. As putting my materials back together he wishes me luck in my future with journalism, and I thank him again for taking the time to talk to me.

As I leave the office I reflect on who I’ve just interviewed. He was a kind, and simple looking man, a father, and he’s also got a lot of stories to tell that mainly came to be because of his career in journalism, and print journalism specifically. Larry Hochberger, associate publisher of the Chestnut Hill Local, may very well be one of the few journalists left that dedicated writing and his work to print news media.

7 Simple Ways to De-Stress in College

Its 3 p.m. the day before finals. I’m sitting in my dorm room trying to write a 15 page final paper. I’m on page seven and I’m out of ideas. I also still need to study for another final that I have tomorrow and I desperately need to do my laundry later or I’ll have no clean clothes to wear tomorrow. I really want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs. Unfortunatetly I can’t do that, I have a roommate, who is rapidly typing on her laptop. Like many college students, I’m under a lot of stress right now.

According to a 2008 survey done by the Associated Press and mtvU in 2008, eight in 10 college students say they have sometimes or frequently experienced stress in their daily lives over the past three months. This was a 20% increase from another survey done on the same topic five years ago.  Five years later the Spring 2013 edition of the National College Health Assessment, where the average age of those surveyed was 21 years, reported that almost half (46.3%) of all undergraduate students surveyed felt trauma or overwhelmed in regard to their academic responsibilities. Almost half of students surveyed reported they have more than average or extreme stress.

Sure, a little stress is good now and then because it encourages us to pull ourselves together and do our work, but there’s more to worry about than homework, relationships, our social lives, part-time jobs, internships, it’s a lot to handle.

Don’t panic though, here are a few simple ways you can de-stress even if you live in a college dorm.

Turn Off Your Phone

It sounds simple but it may not be simple for many college students because in the age of smart phones we are contently using are phones to talk, text, check social media and email, and even use Google; something I admit doing way too often. It will really help though because you’ll momentarily be disconnected yourself from your current stressors.

Take a Hot Bath or Shower

Hot water has proven to be very relaxing and soothing in many at times. If you’re lucky enough to have a dorm that has a bathroom with a tub or you share an apartment with roommates, take a few minutes to yourself to take a hot bath. You can even spruce things up by making bubbles with bubble bath, adding oils, or even added some color and fun with a bath bomb. Remember, we have to take care of ourselves, and that includes our hygiene.

Don’t have a bathtub, don’t worry. Taking a hot shower can help you out too.

Have a Hot Drink

Certain types of herbal tea, such as chamomile, passion-flower, ginseng, or even spearmint have been known to help reduce your stress and anxiety levels. If you’re looking for a certain brand to try, Yogi makes tea for special detox and calming purposes.

If you’re not much of a tea drinker though, that’s okay. Even a warm drink like hot chocolate or hot water with lemon can be very calming. Try avoiding coffee if you’re stressed though, caffeine has been proven to make anxiety worse because it acts as a stimulant.

Take Time to Enjoy at least One Meal Everyday

This made sound hard to a college student because let’s face it, one cafeteria food doesn’t always taste that great, or two we’re on the move so much that we might only have time to snack on something. Food is a gift though, so try to take some time to enjoy at least on meal a day. Avoid some greasy and fatty foods though, they might promote your anxiety.

One suggestion I have is soup, eating the right kind of soup with healthy ingredients such as vegetables or chicken can fill you up, and make you feel calmer.

Make Time for Fun

No matter how much it seems like the work is piling on, you still need to make time for yourself. Whether it’s playing video games, watching your favorite show on Netflix, sketching, or writing in a journal, take some time to do something that you really enjoy and that you’re passionate about.

Aromatherapy

They say finding the right scent can really help you relax. One thing you can do for this is burn scented candles or incense. Usually though if you live in a college dorm, candles and incense are against certain regulations.  Don’t worry though, there are other options though. Essential oils such as lavender and sandal wood having been known to help with stress and anxiety and are usually easy to fond at health food stores such as Whole Foods. Try putting them on your pulse points, on the inside of our wrists and on your neck for the best relief.

Breathing and Meditation

Breathing is essential to life in general, obviously, but the right breathing exercise can help calm you down. In times when I’ve felt great stress and anxiety the 3, 4, 7 breathing technique has been really helpful. Simply breathe in for a count of three, hold it for a count of four, and release it for a count of seven. You can do this as many times as you feel comfortable with, if you’re in public though or surrounding by a lot of people try to breathe quietly.

Meditation has been used over centuries as a method of relaxation. Take the time to gather yourself in a peaceful position, whether it be sitting up straight with your legs crossed or lying flat on your back. Let your mind wander, let all your current thoughts go, and relax. If it gets too quiet for you, you can add music, nothing too loud and depressing though, something that makes you feel happy, motivated, or calm is recommended.

Conclusion

Remember, we all feel stress, so you’re not alone. Some of us just feel it on different levels. The important thing to know is that there are ways to help you relax and de-stress like the ones mentioned in the walls of your own college dorms. If you want to try to find more though I also recommend looking them up on YouTube, many health, lifestyle, and beauty gurus, such as Michelle Phan and Bubzbeauty have already offered their advice to the internet on how to de-stress yourself. Just remember, don’t panic, you can de-stress, it’s all a matter of how you go about it.   

BuzzFeed: The Obession

I could not live on this planet without reading BuzzFeed’s Web site because it is eye-catching, funny humorous, factual, and at times even a bit informal.

BuzzFeed is a news media site that was founded in 2006. It offers articles, quizzes, and videos on a variety of topics including animals, beauty, health, sports, politics, travel, etc. One thing that I enjoy about the site and that draws so many people to it is the interactivity that it offers its viewers.

BuzzFeed’s quizzes and lists are something that I have seen links to on several social media sites and people often enjoy sharing and commenting on which is actually how I first came to discover the Web site in the first place when a friend of mine on Facebook shared a BuzzFeed post that involved our college. After that I looked into more of what the Web site had to offer and found myself “hooked-on” the site.

From the quizzes of my favorite 90s shows, the latest updates in the Middle East, or the cute puppy videos, there’s so much to look at. While at first so much can seem overwhelming with all that there is to view the sites structured is organized well enough so the viewer. The home page has the most recently published and top-trending posts and articles and everything else is located under certain categories on a tool bar located near the top of the home page.

 

It’s not hard to tell that BuzzFeed employees don’t mess around when it comes to research. Even some of the videos such as “11 Struggles Curvy Girls Know Too Well” I can tell there must have been some sort of research perhaps a survey of some short went into creating the video because the point of it was to allow curvy women to relate to the girls in the video.

 

The site also makes connectivity a possibility through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest. When exploring the Web site from a computer or even through their smartphone and/or tablet application you are allowed to post comments on their various posts if you are connected to the site through Facebook.

 

If you sign up through Facebook you can even become a community writer for the site and publish your own posts  and quizzes for the community section of Web site. I myself have already created a community post for the site and am planning to hopefully make more in the future.

In terms of interactivity, originality, and attention-grabbing, I feel that BuzzFeed is a site that would pass a test in all three of these areas. It is these aspects of the site that make me enjoy it so much and is why I could not exist on the planet without it.