Dressing up as Vampires: Virtual vamps - negotiating female identity in cyberspace

Abstract

Dressing up as Vampires is an ethnographic audience study investigating issues of identity and the masquerade within the active female vampire fan community. Drawing on previous theoretical material by Milly Williamson (2005), Paul Hodkinson (2002) and wider methodological approaches such as Lori Kendall (1999) this paper will focus on the negotiation of female fans’ identities across various online networks such as MySpace, LiveJournal, VEIN (Vampire Exchange Information Network) and Yahoo newsgroups. Its objective is to explore how identity is constructed in the virtual community via imagery (avatars & graphics), photography and text and to what extent this online persona encroaches and impacts upon fans’ ‘real lives’. Through analysis of these online networks I will suggest that female vampire fans use the Internet as an extension of their identity, and although they may construct an alternate persona within cyberspace, this usually serves as a reinforcement of their idealised ‘real life’ identity.