Not even vampires are safe when the creeps decide to come out of the woodwork.
One Vampgeist client became our client after the following events. She received an e-mail. Some huge network or another was seeking “real vampires” to be featured in a series “showing the truth about modern vampirism”. Interested real vampires were told to show up at a local television studio at a given time for an audition.
Well, our client squealed in enthusiasm. Imagine! National television! I suppose we can all understand how this might be heady stuff, heady enough to not wonder how the e-mail address had been attained or the solid logistics of the production. She put on her vampire best as requested and went off to audition.
The “studio” was a loft apartment, but this didn’t dissuade hundreds of “real vampires” from going after their moment. A line of potential talent lined up down the hall, down the stairwell, and outside into the cold January morning. Our client waited patiently for her turn with the “producers”, and then finally was ushered into the loft with a swish of the assistant’s hand.
Our client remembers how she had to tell herself that she was new to the whole TV thing, that maybe this was how it was done. She didn’t have the time to reflect more because one of the three male “producers” started laughing at her. “You’re precious,” he said, coming towards her, scrutinizing her body. “Doll, we want real vampires.”
“But I am a real vampire,” she insisted.
Now the other two men joined the third. “Look at you. You’re too damn fat to be a real vampire.”
Her jaw dropped. She is a thin woman and always has been. “What the hell does that have to do with being a vampire?”
But they weren’t about to answer her. They showed her the exit, making certain she didn’t speak to anyone else waiting in line.
All of this transpired as the result of a plague of e-mail invitations to participate in television shows and other media outlets that has been infecting the mailboxes of members of the real vampire community. If there has been a legitimate project–something setting out to explain rather than exploit–it has been buried under invitations to make talk shows more interesting and teasers about possible reality series.
If there were one or two of these making the rounds, this advisory might not be necessary. But it has become something of an epidemic. What’s worse is that these invitations appeal to a certain sense of vanity that we probably all feel to some degree. Being on national television is appealing, but that’s not the likely end to a real vampire’s encounter. Exploitation, abuse, mockery of the real vampire to increase an audience–these are the ultimate products of these projects, when there is actually a project at all.
The answer to this problem is in all of our hands. We must protect ourselves and venture forward wisely. Vampgeist has compiled these rules for safe conduct among media teasers.
1) Go with your gut. If you get a bad feeling, delete the message.
2) Recruiters for legitimate media outlets may use a canvassing method to announce a project, but they will still remain professional in their e-mail. Check to see if there is clearly a name and other contact data, as well as the outlet they claim to be representing. Do a web search for further verification.
3) Check the spelling, grammar, and syntax of the message. This is not elitist so much as another check for professionalism.
4) Ask questions. A professional will be expecting it, and will also find the time to answer.
5) Do not give out too much information, especially personal information, on your first attempt at contact. They need to establish a kind of trust and reciprocity with you first.
6) Remember that THEY are seeking YOU out because your knowledge may be a valuable commodity.
7) No one is going to think any less of you if you just delete the message and move on with your activities. Televised appearances have nothing to do with being a real vampire.
At Vampgeist we have staff who are checking out potential media contacts and projects. We offer this service to anyone in the real vampire community free of charge. Our safety and our integrity as a community are too important to be compromised by people seeking to make us look a little less than sane.
Showing posts with label Vampgeist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vampgeist. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Vampgeist Statement of Purpose
There are already more real vampire sites and projects on line than any online explorer could visit in their lifetime. All right, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but there are still a lot of sites out there.
So what is Vampgeist? What is the operating idea? What is it we plan to offer those who come a seeking?
In short, it goes something like this.
First and foremost, we are seeking to better understand ourselves through the vampire archetype. This archetype has been found in virtually every human culture around the world.
Vampgeist aims to describe a system of vampiric practice that can be understood by society in general.
Vampgeist operates independently of the real vampire community and of society at large. In this way, we serve both through information and education.
Vampgeist will assert that our paradigm is but one of many in the vampire community.
Vampgeist seeks to represent the real vampire community with respect and dignity.
Vampgeist is here to provide information to people outside of the community about the phenomenon of real vampirism. If you think people aren’t perennially interested in vampires, ask someone.
Vampgeist hopes to provide timely and relevant warnings and cautions against media traps and disambiguations.
Vampgeist will mediate access to the real vampire community for those seeking to learn or satisfy their curiosity.
Vampgeist can provide provisionary legal advice to individuals who feel that their essential rights are being threatened.
So what is Vampgeist? What is the operating idea? What is it we plan to offer those who come a seeking?
In short, it goes something like this.
First and foremost, we are seeking to better understand ourselves through the vampire archetype. This archetype has been found in virtually every human culture around the world.
Vampgeist aims to describe a system of vampiric practice that can be understood by society in general.
Vampgeist operates independently of the real vampire community and of society at large. In this way, we serve both through information and education.
Vampgeist will assert that our paradigm is but one of many in the vampire community.
Vampgeist seeks to represent the real vampire community with respect and dignity.
Vampgeist is here to provide information to people outside of the community about the phenomenon of real vampirism. If you think people aren’t perennially interested in vampires, ask someone.
Vampgeist hopes to provide timely and relevant warnings and cautions against media traps and disambiguations.
Vampgeist will mediate access to the real vampire community for those seeking to learn or satisfy their curiosity.
Vampgeist can provide provisionary legal advice to individuals who feel that their essential rights are being threatened.
Vampgeist exists to protect individuals from media predators and exploitation.
Vampgeist will produce quality non-fiction articles and press releases independently and at the request of Client-Members.
Vampgeist is a SERVICE, not an Order or a Court.
How can we do this? We are media professionals, with experience in print and broadcast journalism. Our basic tenet is that being a vampire is fascinating enough without needing to dress the part or throw in some stereotypical imagery.
Vampgeist will produce quality non-fiction articles and press releases independently and at the request of Client-Members.
Vampgeist is a SERVICE, not an Order or a Court.
How can we do this? We are media professionals, with experience in print and broadcast journalism. Our basic tenet is that being a vampire is fascinating enough without needing to dress the part or throw in some stereotypical imagery.
Vampgeisticon
When we’re talking about a concept that is as fluid and as fantastic as the vampire, we really need to define our terms upfront. We’ve already outlined our definition of vampire. For the sake of clarity, here are some more words we use and what we mean by them in this instance.
ADVISORY
An advisory is an announcement with the intent to warn or otherwise make readers aware. When an advisory is posted to this site, it means that there has been sufficient evidence to consider a given situation as a threat.
AUDIENCE
These are the people you want to get yourself across to, whether in writing or another form of media. There really is nothing so valuable as an interested audience.
COMMUNITY
A group of individuals united by a common interest is a community.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
This academic field is really what Vampgeist is all about. A fuller definition is here reposted from Wikipedia.
Cultural anthropology is one of four or five fields of anthropology (the holistic study of humanity). It is the branch of anthropology that examines culture as a meaningful scientific concept. Cultural anthropologists study cultural variation among humans, collect observations, usually through participant observation called fieldwork and examine the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. One of the earliest articulations of the anthropological meaning of the term “culture” came from Sir Edward Tylor who writes on the first page of his 1897 book: “Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” The term “civilization” later gave way to definitions by V. Gordon Childe, with culture forming an umbrella term and civilization becoming a particular kind of culture.
The anthropological concept of “culture” reflects in part a reaction against earlier Western discourses based on an opposition between “culture” and “nature“, according to which some human beings lived in a “state of nature”. Anthropologists have argued that culture is “human nature,” and that all people have a capacity to classify experiences, encode classifications symbolically (i.e. inlanguage), and teach such abstractions to others. Since humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, people living in different places or different circumstances develop different cultures. Anthropologists have also pointed out that through culture people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances).
The rise of cultural anthropology occurred within the context of the late 19th century, when questions regarding which cultures were “primitive” and which were “civilized” occupied the minds of not only Marx and Freud, but many others. Colonialism and its processes increasingly brought European thinkers in contact, directly or indirectly with “primitive others.” The relative status of various humans, some of whom had modern advanced cultures that included engines and telegraphs, while others lacked anything but face-to-face communication techniques and still lived a Paleolithic lifestyle, was of interest to the first generation of cultural anthropologists.
Parallel with the rise of cultural anthropology in the United States, social anthropology, in which sociality is the central concept and which focuses on the study of social statuses and roles, groups, institutions, and the relations among them, developed as an academic discipline in Britain. An umbrella term socio-cultural anthropology makes reference to both cultural and social anthropology traditions.
EDUCATION
The process of attaining knowledge of both a practical and esoteric nature hopefully leads to better awareness and understanding.
MEDIA
For our purposes, a medium is that by which we gather our knowledge of the world around us. The media refers to the relay of information from a source to an individual.
RESOURCE
Hopefully, this would be a trustworthy and honest repository of information that can be accessed by individuals.
SEEKER
We are all seekers. Here, we will use “seeker” to differentiate from “vampire”, the latter being self-described as such.
At the moment we are undertaking an enthusiastic public relations campaign both with vampire groups and sites and with various media outlets (US, soon to go global). We are also interested in showing that real vampirism doesn’t have to be a masquerade and can be based in some very solid philosophy and experience.
ADVISORY
An advisory is an announcement with the intent to warn or otherwise make readers aware. When an advisory is posted to this site, it means that there has been sufficient evidence to consider a given situation as a threat.
AUDIENCE
These are the people you want to get yourself across to, whether in writing or another form of media. There really is nothing so valuable as an interested audience.
COMMUNITY
A group of individuals united by a common interest is a community.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
This academic field is really what Vampgeist is all about. A fuller definition is here reposted from Wikipedia.
Cultural anthropology is one of four or five fields of anthropology (the holistic study of humanity). It is the branch of anthropology that examines culture as a meaningful scientific concept. Cultural anthropologists study cultural variation among humans, collect observations, usually through participant observation called fieldwork and examine the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. One of the earliest articulations of the anthropological meaning of the term “culture” came from Sir Edward Tylor who writes on the first page of his 1897 book: “Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” The term “civilization” later gave way to definitions by V. Gordon Childe, with culture forming an umbrella term and civilization becoming a particular kind of culture.
The anthropological concept of “culture” reflects in part a reaction against earlier Western discourses based on an opposition between “culture” and “nature“, according to which some human beings lived in a “state of nature”. Anthropologists have argued that culture is “human nature,” and that all people have a capacity to classify experiences, encode classifications symbolically (i.e. inlanguage), and teach such abstractions to others. Since humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, people living in different places or different circumstances develop different cultures. Anthropologists have also pointed out that through culture people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances).
The rise of cultural anthropology occurred within the context of the late 19th century, when questions regarding which cultures were “primitive” and which were “civilized” occupied the minds of not only Marx and Freud, but many others. Colonialism and its processes increasingly brought European thinkers in contact, directly or indirectly with “primitive others.” The relative status of various humans, some of whom had modern advanced cultures that included engines and telegraphs, while others lacked anything but face-to-face communication techniques and still lived a Paleolithic lifestyle, was of interest to the first generation of cultural anthropologists.
Parallel with the rise of cultural anthropology in the United States, social anthropology, in which sociality is the central concept and which focuses on the study of social statuses and roles, groups, institutions, and the relations among them, developed as an academic discipline in Britain. An umbrella term socio-cultural anthropology makes reference to both cultural and social anthropology traditions.
EDUCATION
The process of attaining knowledge of both a practical and esoteric nature hopefully leads to better awareness and understanding.
MEDIA
For our purposes, a medium is that by which we gather our knowledge of the world around us. The media refers to the relay of information from a source to an individual.
RESOURCE
Hopefully, this would be a trustworthy and honest repository of information that can be accessed by individuals.
SEEKER
We are all seekers. Here, we will use “seeker” to differentiate from “vampire”, the latter being self-described as such.
At the moment we are undertaking an enthusiastic public relations campaign both with vampire groups and sites and with various media outlets (US, soon to go global). We are also interested in showing that real vampirism doesn’t have to be a masquerade and can be based in some very solid philosophy and experience.
Introduction to Project Vampgeist
VAMPIRE. It’s a loaded word. The mere whisper of the word conjures up an amazing spectrum of images and human emotions–from fright to passion to curiosity. Understandably, many people are reluctant to accept that there are real vampires wandering about society, and denial turns into a kind of defense. Yet vampires–use defining the word instead of the word defining use–are very much real.
Well, not in the legendary sense. They're not immortal, they don’t shirk away from sunlight, and they don’t only feed on human blood. At the other end of the spectrum we have self-proclaimed vampires claiming to writhe in exquisite agony from a lack of feeding. When people from outside of the community encounter one of these attention vampires, they may dismiss everyone as products of a warped imagination. What’s the fun in a vampire so very dark in emotion drinking soda and eating white bread?
Yet somewhere in between Count Orlock and Lestat de Lioncourt and the Hot Topic pay-to-be-different crowd you will find most of the real vampire community. Not being fabulous creatures certainly hasn’t rendered the community boring.
VAMPGEIST is the brainchild of individuals who are active leaders in and advocates of the real vampire community, but Vampgeist itself exists to serve the community, to serve those outside the community, and to serve people’s endless curiosity about vampires. Vampgeist is its own community, an independent entity that welcomes everyone. There is no one truth that explains away the personal philosophies of everyone who calls themselves vampire, but Vampgeist aims to explore and share a few truths. Vampgeist is not about cosmetic fangs or aesthetic sensationalism, but rather about thought, deed, and experience.
You do not need to count yourself as a real vampire to interact with Vampgeist–in fact, one of Vampgeist’s main purposes is to be accessible to the general public as well as the media.
The age of the vampire is here.
The time to embrace a new reality is now.
Well, not in the legendary sense. They're not immortal, they don’t shirk away from sunlight, and they don’t only feed on human blood. At the other end of the spectrum we have self-proclaimed vampires claiming to writhe in exquisite agony from a lack of feeding. When people from outside of the community encounter one of these attention vampires, they may dismiss everyone as products of a warped imagination. What’s the fun in a vampire so very dark in emotion drinking soda and eating white bread?
Yet somewhere in between Count Orlock and Lestat de Lioncourt and the Hot Topic pay-to-be-different crowd you will find most of the real vampire community. Not being fabulous creatures certainly hasn’t rendered the community boring.
VAMPGEIST is the brainchild of individuals who are active leaders in and advocates of the real vampire community, but Vampgeist itself exists to serve the community, to serve those outside the community, and to serve people’s endless curiosity about vampires. Vampgeist is its own community, an independent entity that welcomes everyone. There is no one truth that explains away the personal philosophies of everyone who calls themselves vampire, but Vampgeist aims to explore and share a few truths. Vampgeist is not about cosmetic fangs or aesthetic sensationalism, but rather about thought, deed, and experience.
You do not need to count yourself as a real vampire to interact with Vampgeist–in fact, one of Vampgeist’s main purposes is to be accessible to the general public as well as the media.
The age of the vampire is here.
The time to embrace a new reality is now.
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