Eh, the vampire trend isn't all that new. You could say it started with Buffy, or maybe Lost Boys. Vampire Diaries is actually fairly old in "trend terms" as well. Heck, even Amelia At-Water Rhodes (who is a terrible writer) was doing her vampy thing ten years ago. Those Sookie Stackhouse stories have been in Barnes & Noble for nearly a decade, and Cirque du Freak's been at it almost as long. And much as we may like to, let's not forget about Anne Rice, and about Brad Pit gracing the screen like a lost, undead puppy, and those books started in the 70's. C'mon, it's been around for awhile.
Thing is, now that they've been updated as a concept (more Spike&Angel, less Nosferatu), they're pretty much here to stay. The obsession may ebb and flow, but at the end of the day, vampires work for a "safe" teen/pre-teen sexual fantasy. Penetration without it actually being sex, heavy sexual themes disguised in the supernatural setting, concept of becoming something "cool" or "other," and plenty of angst that, let's face it, most high-schooler eat up with a spoon (I will admit, guiltily, that in my old high school group, the easy angst was a mark of a "good" series). It's not going anywhere anytime soon. Twilight will, one day, stop being everyone's drug of choice, but some other vampy thing'll come around not too long after.
...Granted, working at the library now, if I had a dollar for every "omigosh so cool!" teen vamp book that comes through any given day...I could probably buy myself lunch that day. It's a little annoying, but then, there's plenty of every other genre coming in as well (and some of the mundane romances are hella scarier. There's a subsection of Harlequinne books literally called "Babies and Billionaires." I dunno, I think they're kinda creepy).
As for hospital shows...wanna get rid of cop shows too, while we're at it? It just makes an interesting background to set otherwise normal people against. You've got to have some place that brings people who normally wouldn't be together together.
And frakk, well...okay, I've hardly seen any of BGS, but my friends and I tend to experiement with alternative swear-words just for fun. That one always stuck around. Hell, it's not like the English language isn't fluid enough anyway.
i know vampires have been around for a long time now, it just seem that since the events of true blood and twilight, it's getting worse.
cop shows, forgot about them, there's a lot of them, really popular one, and they all come down to the same thing. i like some of them, mostly because of the actors playing in those series. Castle, with nathan fillion is awesome, because of nathan fillion.
I was going to type out a longer reply, but it pretty much boils down to this: take a chill pill hermit.
Trends don't bother me, because it's so easy to avoid them if you don't want any parts of them. I'm curious, have you read the Zombie survival guide, or are you just anti that book on principle of it's subject matter? I found it to be pretty flipping awesome. I would say it, along with World War Z, are benchmarks of zombie fiction. As much as I enjoy Walking Dead, I think those books are much better -- at least for my tastes.
i'm the chillest person in the world, i just like to have diversity in my entertainment. like i said, i'm just venting, having fun, don't read too much into it. i was not angry while writing this, just something i wanted to get off my chest.
Okay I was with you through the Zombie and vampire parts of your rant (surprised Joss Whedon hasn't called out the Twilight peeps for plagarism)and the mega event machine that has been DC and Marvel's trademark lately but...
//Could not disagree with you more about BSG. Its awesome and if you don't think so you are just out and out wrong. Sorry.
//Could not disagree with you more about console vs. PC.
I am sick and tired of the elitism PC gamers feel over us console brethren. I have been a console gamer since the damn Atari 2600 and I'd rather buy a new console every four or five years than trying to update my video/graphics card every six months just to play whatever is new. For the cost of one graphics card swap I have an XBox 360. Are you guys just sore about shelling out WAY more cash than I do to play the latest games? Can't we all coexist in one big gaming world? I don't want to have to read a giant instruction book to tell me to swap my characters equipment I need to press F4, Select and B all at once while holding the space bar. If you like your games to be supercomplicated affairs that require a PhD to play then by all means help yourself but don't down me for my preference, okay? We are all gamers, lets just enjoy what we like without the snobbery, okay? Don't make me come down there or you will be sorry.
Okay.
Now Frak off!
i don't hate console gaming, far from it. but, as a PC gamer and FPS lover, i saw the change made in the genre over the years. i don't like my games more complicated, but i like to have the choice of getting a complicated game or not. i just like the versatility that PC gaming offers. i also like racing games, and consoles are much better in that matter, i think.
BSG, couples of my friends hate the show to, but i know it is a very popular one, you're not a bad person for liking it, just stop using the word in everyday life.
I'm not saying we can't have both, but what's unfortunate is that there's a bleed over effect from one to the other and this is down to bad moves on the designers themselves. Bad ports (in either direction, console to PC or the rarer PC to console) are an almighty thorn in the enjoyment of many gamers.
As for me not liking quicktime events, well as I said, it just pulls me out of the game experience too much.
quicktime events should be stopped and just let us play the game. arkham asylum is an awesome game, but the QT events are annoying as hell. make a game, or a move, not both.
Help
i'm not trying to start a flame war, i just don't have any true geek friends, so i have nobody to talk to. feel free to add your own furstration.
