Two other major fictional conventions have become ubiquitous since 1980. The first is the concept of vampire "clans" that have an elaborate underground society, with leaders, hierarchies, enforcers, outcasts, feuds, politics, an independent economy with their own night clubs and hangouts, and so on. This idea owes a lot to Anne Rice and White Wolf's role-playing games, but many authors and filmmakers have adopted it. The second is the vampire as superhero. Vampire characters, especially in television and film, now have super strength, super speed, super senses, and are impervious to harm. They bound through the air, stop cars with their hands and kung-fu fight like Neo in the Matrix movies. The 21st century vampire is defined more by his or her superpowers than by immortality or blood drinking. Along with this trend, vampires are interpreted less often as the walking dead and more as an alternate species or victims of a virus.
What is it about vampires that strikes such a deep core in young people? No other supernatural creature has had such an effect on society. Or am I wrong?
You're not wrong. You could fill an entire book with a discussion of the vampire's universal and timeless appeal. It's not a simple question, because the fictional vampire is so complicated and multi-faceted. Whether you like noble heroes, tortured antiheroes, romantic leading men, average joes, stone-evil villains or ravening mindless monsters, there are vampire tales for you.
The stories that earn the broadest popularity, however, definitely have common elements. A big part of the vampire's appeal is the initiation fantasy. The most popular vampire stories either have sympathetic vampire characters or are told from the vampire's point of view, and they feature humans who are chosen as special and then are transformed. By being "turned," humans are inducted into a secret society where they belong by right. They leave behind the boring mundane world for an exotic subculture where everyone knows them and they don't have to struggle to fit in. In some popular stories the human character never takes the step of being turned, but the possibility is always there. You can see the attraction of this fantasy for anyone who feels "different" or awkward or lonely.
Vampires also are superior beings who nevertheless need humans to survive. They don't age, they're immune to diseases, they heal from almost any injury and they have superpowers, but they're dependent on humans for blood, if nothing else. This makes them different from other supernatural creatures, such as werewolves or zombies. Vampires are the dark twins that look back at us from the mirror--they're "other" but they're not completely alien. They're ourselves transformed in ways that are enviable and desirable, at least in the most popular stories. Even "vampire hunter" stories like the Blade series or Buffy the Vampire Slayer can't get away from this appeal. Both series were drawn into depicting more sympathetic vampires and playing with the idea of humans transforming into vampires without becoming irredeemably evil.
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