joao731
untitled
Zombies. It’s fun just to say it. Zommmbeeez. They’re not sexy like vampires, or narcissistic like vampires, or stylish like vampires. Zombies are sort of the anti-vampire — the blood-headed stepchild of the undead community. Zombies are the undead working class.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that the Zombie Walk was a direct response to Vampire celebrity. In August of 2000, at GenCon — a gaming convention in Milwaukee — a flash mob of zombie fans staggered and lurched through the halls to disrupt the hordes of vampire LARPers that had become alarmingly popular at such conventions. They’ve been clogging up human arterial traffic ever since.
The first ‘official’ Zombie Walk (in that it was the first event clearly labeled Zombie Walk) was held in Toronto in 2003. Six people showed up. Not many, it’s true — but it was still six more zombies than vampires. Toronto has since done better; around 7000 brain-hungry walkers shuffled down the streets in 2011. Dublin became the Irish Zombie Capital with 8000 walkers. Mexico City has seen 9800 zombies. Santiago–12,000, Buenos Aires–25,000. The frozen twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul did their undead proud with nearly 30,000 brain-hungry zombies morosely shambling and moaning. In 2012, the city of Omsk in Siberia banned a Zombie Walk being held in support of Pussy Riot. Did any vampires show support for Pussy Riot? No.
This young, red-headed zombie texting grimly away on her gore-covered phone is in Stockholm. Had she been a vampire, she’d have been standing in front of a mirror using her phone to shoot a selfie. In vain.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
