I just want to vent for a minute here. Bear with me.
*Deep breath*
OK, there have been an absolute avalanche of stories to hit the interwebs recently regarding so-called “zombiesâ€- or as they are better known as- dumbasses addicted to cheap drugs known as “Bath Saltsâ€. Anyone who has spent any time on Facebook, Twitter, or any other Social Media lately has seen the shared articles. Somewhere in America (generally in the Southeast, where the more mentally hilarious of our citizens tend to live) a young ne’er-do-well snorts something wacky, and all sorts of hijinks ensue. Something of these side effects may include consuming one’s own feces… (Huffington Post)
Getting naked on your roof before trying to eat another man’s stomach…
(NY Daily News.)
Or, as the most high-profile case showed us, getting naked and acquiring a taste for homeless people…
(CNN)
These are just a few of the stories to come out. I could spend an entire article detailing the delicious details, but in the essence of saving time, all the stories can basically be summed up thusly- “Snort-blink-twitch-strip-munch†or some variation. So, what in the name of all-Holy Romero is going on here? Are we in the midst of the Zombie Apocalypse? The short answer, sadly, is no. And on a side note, can we PLEASE stop referring to these mental midgets as “Zombies� These are NOT zombies.
I love the Zombie sub-genre. Every day I wake up and the Zombie Apocalypse hasn’t happened is one more day wasted, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen all the movies, and read most of the books. So trust me when I say these drug-addled morons are NOT Zombies. I get enough weird looks from people when they find out my fascination with the undead. Now, I’m getting people asking me my opinion about stupid, most-likely-inbred stoners getting high on chemicals that I wouldn’t trust to strip paint off a wall. Enough is enough, ok?
Zombies, in the traditional sense, are a personification of the sheer futility of the inevitable. Read any zombie book, and you’ll see what I mean. The stories are never about the zombies, but rather on the survivors and how they cope with the end of everything. Where do you go and how do you survive with such an overwhelming force out to destroy you? Real zombie stories tend be sneakily philosophical in their subtext. There is nothing philosophical about someone getting high and getting the human munchies. People have been getting trashed on all sorts of weird shit for generations. It’s in our nature. I get it. I laugh at these drug stories all the time. I also recognize the illiterate mouth-breathers who pass for the Media in this country need something to distract us from the real horrors going on in the world. But, for the love of Bub, please don’t get these idiots mixed up with true fans of a legit genre. We already have our fair share of oddballs and lunatics. We don’t need any more.
