Second, I know this is way off topic, but I would like to set the record straight with all you "normies" out there who think all goths/emos/scene kids/vamp junkies/punks etc. are abnormal and have issues. Last night, I was watching the news ( like I do every night) when this story caught my eye. Wendy Salzman (a local investigative journalist in Atlanta) reported on a story about 16-year-old Shelby Ellis, a 10th-grader at McEachern High School in Cobb County who allegedly ran away from home and was found a few weeks later in the state of Washington. Her father and step-mother were afraid she had joined "some vampire cult" because she visited a website called Vampirefreaks.com a whole five days before she ran away. VF is a social networking site (similar to Myspace, Facebook, and the like) geared towards the gothic/punk/emo scene. On the home page it even states "Gothic Industrial Culture". The site was founded and created by jet in 1999 when he was about 20 and attending the University of Rochester. It basically started as a message board with a few personal pictures of jet and his friends and a couple of music reviews and in just 10 short years it has grown to a website for the gothic industrial culture with over 1 million members world wide. I am a user of the website and have been since 2006 when my husband introduced me to it. When I started using VF, I was on Myspace (I have since deleted my Myspace profile) and felt that VF had more of what I was looking for in a social site. VF not only had a friendlier (less pervy) atmosphere, I felt secure in the fact that if I found that someone I was talking to was a "fake" then they would not last long on the site. I found that finding friends was easier, and finding people that shared the same interests I do was also easier. Jet and the admin of VF take running the site and keeping its members safe very seriously. I remember just a few weeks ago, I was asked by someone for nude photos. I immediately reported the person to the VF admin and within hours (not days) the profile was deleted by the admin (on VF if you try to visit a deleted profile it tells you if it was deleted by admin and a general reason why). If it would have been Myspace, the matter never would have been handled, and if it would have been Facebook, it would have taken months for the matter to be handled. I have to say that of all the websites I have been on where you interact with other people VF is one of the best policed sites I have ever frequented.
Shelby's parents insist that she was obsessed with "vampires and a dark underworld". Do not ask me what they mean by "dark underworld", because I would only be able to speculate. Shoot I would consider watching "Hannah Montana" and enjoying it to be a "dark underworld". Her step-mother, Wendy, is quoted as saying "We don’t allow certain things of the Gothic lifestyle." My question for her is "why?" She obviously has never actually interacted with a majority member of the gothic community, because most people in the gothic community are well educated, intelligent, tolerant human beings that just happen to like dressing and being different as well has listening to music that most people would consider harsh (or as my mother would say "loud noisy garbage"). I have to say that I am a proud member of this community. While I may not dress to the extreme, other things within the gothic lifestyle are part of my life. It is not just about the dress, but about the music, way of life, and artistic nature. That is why it is referred to as a way of life, and not a fad. Fads come and go. The gothic subculture has been around for a few decades now and I don't think it is going anywhere any time soon. Before someone says they are "freaked out" by or "don't allow" things of the gothic nature, maybe they should do some research into the matter before hand. Shelby's father even had the audacity to say, "That particular website, VampireFreaks.com, is a deviant behavior website. I think it's abnormal. People who frequent that website frequent it because they have some other issue." I believe that Shelby's parents are under the mistaken impression that they can blame an entire community for their daughter's actions because they feel that the community is abnormal (which by the way is a subjective term anyway). What they really need to do is look at their own family and way of life and see what they could have done better. Usually when a teenage child runs away from home the issue is not those she met on the internet, it is an issue at home. Many parents seem to have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager. As a parent, remember the hormones racing, the need to fit in, how mean other kids can be. Remember all of that and look at your child and see how you can help her. Do not blame something that is not really to blame. Honestly, before you judge someone or their lifestyle actually do your research on it. Personally, I do not know how Shelby's father could even state that VF is a "deviant behavior website" without even taking time to understand the people or even get to know some of them first. I mean has he even visited Myspace or Facebook lately? They are not exactly the cream of the crop either. And how can he speculate as to the issues in any person's life that uses the site, without personally knowing anyone on the site or their past? I believe he is just trying to hide the fact that he is a bigot. He is not very good at it either.
Before you judge me or any person for that matter, try understanding them or researching before you speak out against them. Put yourself in their shoes. You wouldn't want someone judging you based on trivial things would you?
Not a member of VF? Give it a try! Click this banner and say CherryDarling (<---- check out my page on vf via that link as well) sent you!
Sources: CBSAtlanta.com, Vampirefreaks.com
**You can find more information on the history of vampirefreaks.com [HERE]
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