The Heckler is proud to present a very special interview with local professional Hawthorn Vlad von Staub, Vampire Hunter. We know our readership is very invested in staying safe from all manner of vampires, dhampirs, shtrigas, vrykolakas, counts, bats, patasolas, jiangshi, and other fanged menaces. Our interviewer ended up discussing modern vampirology, TikTok’s role in supernatural disinformation, misconceptions about the vampire lifestyle, and the surprising vampire-hunting connections of many important historical figures.
The Heckler: Thanks for agreeing to meet with us, Mr. von Staub.
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: My pleasure. Feel free to call me Hawthorn.
The Heckler: Care to give us some background on yourself?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: I’m a board-certified dzhadazhiya, or vampire hunter, and I come from a long line of vampire hunters on my father’s side. I got my Master’s in paranormal criminology from Georgetown in 2002, and ever since I’ve been active in countervampirism in the DMV area.
The Heckler: Mhm. As I’m sure you know, interest in vampires and vampirism has been on the rise for years now. What do you think is most responsible for that?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: …Would it be cliché to blame Twilight? On every conventional metric, Twilight really started the mainstreaming of vampires. That was when the Department of Education had to start pouring money into PSAs and those ineffective school programs to convince kids that the average vampire isn’t some topaz-eyed Adonis played by Robert Pattinson.
The Heckler: Hahaha, I remember those! What else do you think the public gets wrong about vampires?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Oh, beyond a doubt, the thing with the stakes. It doesn’t actually kill vampires! Everyone thinks it kills vampires! It immobilizes them in their graves, and should never be used as anything more than a temporary stunning and control measure.
The Heckler: Wow, never knew that!
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: It’s the number one reason why nonprofessional vampire-slaying attempts end fatally. Another thing people don’t understand is that vampires aren’t all Lord Byron imitators living in secluded mansions. Modern surveillance technologies have made it much harder to get away with murder in the conventional sense, so, since the Gen Xers came of age, we’ve seen the rise of the “office vampire,” who looks indistinguishable from other people but feeds off their colleagues’ energy and will to live. They’re considered useless number crunchers by relatives who’ve been at this for centuries, which seems unfair – not everyone’s lucky enough to live through the post-Bubonic-Plague economy like the Baby Doomers! Really, the generation gap between pre- and post-Industrial-Revolution vampires shouldn’t be understated.
The Heckler: Now, I know we discussed Twilight earlier. What about other recent vampire media? I take it Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter took significant liberties with the realities of the field?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: It’s pure fiction, actually. There’s no evidence that Abraham Lincoln was one of us, much as I might like him to be. Zachary Taylor, on the other hand? Absolutely a vampire hunter. And, for that matter, Karl Marx.
The Heckler: Karl Marx? Really?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Oh, absolutely! “Capital is dead labor that, like a vampire, lives only by sucking living labor dry” Plenty of people thought this was some kind of metaphor, but he was being entirely literal. In fact, everyone remembers him for the economics, but Marx’s original training was in vampirology – that was his life plan before all the business with Hegel and political economy and the like. Speaking of which – the vampire old guard are getting worried for this exact reason. There’s a new social role that’s filling the old niche of “secretive, parasitic, fabulously wealthy monsters,” and they all wear gray turtlenecks and own Amazon. If you’ve got the money, there are enough entirely secular reasons to murder and exploit people – you don’t even need to get the supernatural involved. Vampires that’ve been practicing their craft since the Renaissance are starting to worry about their own obsolescence.
The Heckler: And like, is that a good thing?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Man. I can’t say. As much as I’ve made my entire life about counteracting the vampire menace, I’ve gotta admit that I’m not thrilled by the new guys, either. At least Dracula isn’t accelerating the pace of climate change!
The Heckler: Fascinating. Now, do you think you could tell us about your own family history? You’ve said your family’s been vampire hunters for generations.
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Yes! Ever since the 8th century. My father’s family all started out as Austro-Hungarian nobility from Bukovina, Romania. They were originally freelance, defending hapless peasants and trying to convince their feudal superiors that the menace was real. My great-great-uncle was one of the foremost vampirologists in the Victorian Balkans, actually. Vampires kinda became like, my family’s thing. I was six when my dad took me out into the yard with a Polly Pocket doll and demonstrated how to properly stake a drac. It’s a kind of collective familial paranoia, really. When I was in middle school my old man started seeing a shrink over his fear of vampires; my mom isn’t really in the business and she thought it was pretty alarming that he kept a stake and a clove of garlic under their pillow. Alarming, and she hated the smell. It never really did anything for him, though. He just got home and kinda fumed about how the pill-pushers don’t understand that the vampire threat is real. Eventually he concluded that the therapist herself was a vampire.
The Heckler: I take it she wasn’t. But how’d your family end up in D.C. if they got their start in Bukovina?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Ah, y’know, the 19th century happened; everyone started industrializing, decided they could just move to Bucharest or Vienna or Chicago or what have you and leave the hinterland superstitions in the past. Nationalism, too – people started getting vengeful against all the Central European aristocrats, saying we were just as parasitic as the vampires we were protecting them from. My family eventually made it to Ellis Island in 1909; on the little occupation slip my great-grandfather just wrote “vampire slayer” and presented it to the immigration guys with pride. Just in time, too; our old buddy Franz Ferdinand was in the business as well, always much better at being a vampirologist than an archduke. But five years later, y’know, Dracula’s just the least of everyone’s problems. Now, we’re New World vampire hunters. Fully modern, professional, means-tested, and expert-approved.
The Heckler: What do you think are the biggest things about modern vampire-hunting that everyone gets wrong?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Oh, plenty. People think it’s all cavorting around the countryside staking people in the heart. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of our work is consulting. It’s as bureaucratic as any other profession. Most of my time is spent fighting disinformation on Twitter and TikTok, doing open-source intelligence work on vampire nests, contact tracing during urban outbreaks, and working with construction companies to make sure their work is up to anti-vampire building codes. To that last one – can I just say that I love everything you’ve done with the buildings here? I couldn’t care less about Jesuit values, but the crucifix-in-every-room requirement is genius! I couldn’t think of a better way to ensure the whole school stays amply defended against vampires! Finally, a responsible administration!
The Heckler: Huh, never thought about it like that.
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: I always think about it like that. I enter a room, and I ask myself where the anti-vampire safeguards are, and if there are any weapons on hand, and how to find an escape route should a horde of bats descend. It’s my first thought at all times. I have a personal rule – make sure there’s less than a minute between you and the nearest way to fight or flee if vampires attack.
The Heckler: Is this kind of thing a common occurrence? I know there’s a lot of panic about the rates of vampire attacks.
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Statistically, not at all. You’re more likely to get crushed by a falling vending machine than murdered by a vampire. But that’s not because vampires themselves are safe – they’re a real nuisance if you let the problem build up – it’s because of over a hundred years of vampire control legislation, public health initiatives, and stringent safety precautions.
The Heckler: Huh.
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: People have gotten complacent nowadays! People assume that since they’ve never had to face off against a vampire, they’re not a real public safety concern. Some of our foremost vampirologists are trying to find ways to counteract the disinformation spreading online. Teens and young adults on sites like Twitter and TikTok have started promoting the “vampirism challenge,” which dares healthy non-vampires to get bitten. There’s a deluge of conspiracy theories right now: alt-medicine disinformation about immortality on Facebook, Evangelical beliefs that you can pray the vampirism away, dangerous DIY strategies for treating bites … and worst of all, subcultures glamorizing the vampire aesthetic, and making it out as though it’s all gothic clothing and East European homoerotic angst. Teenagers swept into the post-Twilight vampire craze continue to romanticize the actually quite unglamorous vampire lifestyle. Trends like vampire TikTok, or “DracTok,” are only encouraging the spread of this kind of misinformation among impressionable young people – and we shouldn’t underestimate how much misinformation is deliberately engineered and spread by real vampires! These kids don’t understand that when they record themselves in front of candelabras to some Mitski song playing in the background, they’re putting impressionable kids and teenagers at risk should they ever come across a real vampire.
The Heckler: For the record, do you think that there’s such a thing as ethical practice of vampirism? I know it’s come up in the news recently, what with the recent Supreme Court case on whether the FDA’s regulatory powers apply to blood and blood substitutes.
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: That’s difficult. In the last decade or so, there’s been a movement among vampires themselves to “go vegan,” that is, stop preying on randoms and obtain blood secondhand from hospitals and from goths willing to donate to the cause. But that still brings up a lot of issues with theft of medical supplies and unsafe blood-drawing practices. It’s unclear whether blood substitutes will ever be feasible on a wide scale. Overall, I think it’s just too early to say.
The Heckler: Do you think your obsession with vampires ever interferes with everyday life?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: I don’t know. With a family like mine, keeping vampires out of everyday life was never really on the table, haha. Like a week ago, actually, I got accosted on the street by one of them. Thought she was one of those insufferable melancholic Victorians at first, because of the umbrella, but come to think of it, the getup was really more Roaring Twenties…
The Heckler: Accosted on the street?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Yeah, she was like, “you’re Gershon von whateverthefuck, aintcha?” And I was like no, you’re thinking of my dad. And she’s like “Oh, sorry, hard to keep that kinda thing straight after 100 years. Anyway, tell your dad he’s a chump for me.”
The Heckler: Aren’t you a vampire slayer? You didn’t slay her?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: I’m not gonna jump a random lady in broad daylight! At the very least, I have to get secondary confirmation and a neutralization approval from the agency. There’s a method for this kind of thing, you know. Besides, she wasn’t doing anyone any harm.
The Heckler: Anything else you’d really like the public to know about vampirism and vampire hunting?
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: There are a lot of resources you can access if you’d like to know more! The CDC offers a free online course about vampire bites and how to seek medical attention for them. They’ve also partnered up with the Department of Defense to offer classes on vampire self-defense, both online and in person. You can also easily find online resources like checklists for vampireproofing your house. On the other hand, avoid those paranormal channels purporting to tell the “truth” about vampirism, almost none of their work is peer-reviewed.
The Heckler: Sounds great. Thanks again, Hawthorn!
Hawthorn Vlad von Staub: Anytime! Stay safe out there, guys.